Connect with us

Thrive

Catalyze 2025: Maeven Rogers (Sustainability Director)

Mark Parker

Published

on

We’re asking thought leaders, business people and creatives to talk about the upcoming new year and give us catalyzing ideas for making St. Pete a better place to live. What should our city look like? What are their hopes, their plans, their problem-solving ideas? This is Catalyze 2025.

Maeven Rogers quietly became the new director of St. Peterburg’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience in Hurricane Milton’s immediate aftermath. She remains undaunted by the work that lies ahead.

Rogers officially replaced Allison Mihalic, who resigned in July, on Oct. 14. She said St. Petersburg’s commitment to environmental sustainability and resilience attracted her to a job that requires mitigating the effects of climate change on a peninsula on a peninsula.

Echoing Mayor Ken Welch, Rogers said the city has an “opportunity ahead of us to do very great and difficult things as we adapt to new challenges.” She also believes her passion for discerning community-informed solutions helped secure a spot in City Hall.

“I take my work very seriously, and I am willing to put in the work to help ensure we are protecting people, infrastructure and natural systems,” Rogers said. “And I think the world … wasn’t engineered for the world we presently live in.”

She stressed the importance of officials and residents coming together to discover new possibilities following an unprecedented hurricane season. Rogers said the Resilient St. Pete Action Plan, currently in development with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, can serve as a “springboard” for solutions.

She is taking a blank-slate approach to resiliency-related ideas and emphasizes the value of stakeholder feedback. Rogers also expressed her excitement for a slate of community and internal meetings throughout the new year.

“For me, no big idea comes from an individual,” she added. “It comes from a collective. This big idea is not my idea – it’s everyone’s idea, which makes it a big idea.”

Mitigating the effects of increasingly severe storms is an obvious priority in St. Petersburg. However, the office of sustainability and resilience also works to promote renewable energy, green building efforts, urban agriculture, water conservation and environmental compliance.

Rogers said the city is working on an initiative with the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, which recently received a grant in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. While the local program is underdevelopment, cost-burdened residents could receive a free rooftop solar array that reduces electric bills by 20%.

“It is a one-time grant opportunity, and I’m not sure how much funding St. Pete will get, but I am advocating for as much as we can,” Rogers said. “Economic opportunity is very important to me.”

Rogers most recently served as chief sustainability and resiliency officer for the City of Palm Coast and boasts an extensive background in the field. She also has a Master’s degree in communication from the University of Central Florida and will receive her second – in community economic development – from Penn State University in May.

Rogers, unsurprisingly, believes those skills intertwine with her latest role. She grew up in an area of West Virginia that “didn’t have any resources,” and realized “what happens to communities when there’s not opportunities available.”

“When we’re doing sustainability and resilience work – this is an economic opportunity,” Rogers elaborated. “This is an opportunity for people to save money on damages that might be incurred on their homes during natural disasters. It’s an opportunity for business to be created based on the new problems we have.

“I want to make sure when I’m doing sustainability and resilience work, I’m never costing anyone a job. I’m adding jobs.”

She urges stakeholders to attend upcoming Resilient St. Pete meetings and bring their ideas, innovations and concerns. Rogers pledged their “voice will be heard.”

She called the city beautiful and said its walkability suited her lifestyle. Rogers plans to remain in St. Petersburg for “quite a while” and exudes enthusiasm for the task ahead.

“I don’t want a plan that sits on the shelf and collects dust, and neither does the City of St. Pete,” she added. “And part of having a plan, and working together towards it, is staying here and helping to ensure that plan was implemented.”

 

 

 

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By posting a comment, I have read, understand and agree to the Posting Guidelines.


The St. Pete Catalyst

The Catalyst honors its name by aggregating & curating the sparks that propel the St Pete engine.  It is a modern news platform, powered by community sourced content and augmented with directed coverage.  Bring your news, your perspective and your spark to the St Pete Catalyst and take your seat at the table.

Email us: spark@stpetecatalyst.com

Subscribe for Free

Subscription Form

Share with friend

Enter the details of the person you want to share this article with.