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The Network
Heather Conover
The founder and CEO of Conover + Company Communications, Inc., Heather Conover was trained as an environmental planner with a focus on citizen participation. She works closely with clients to develop and execute targeted public education, community involvement, community relations, public relations, and marketing programs. Over the past three decades, Ms. Conover has been deeply involved in public participation and community outreach for facility siting, real estate development, brownfields, and other projects. She has worked with federal, state, and local government agencies and private sector and non-profit clients on environmental projects addressing water, energy, transportation and economic development issues. Having lived and worked abroad, Ms. Conover has overseen projects in more than 50 countries.
Overseeing a detailed and comprehensive public affairs assessment for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' New York District (USACE-NYD), she was responsible for the preparation of strategies to proactively and creatively improve communications with various stakeholder groups impacted by its harbor improvement programs and the development of key messages, a crisis communications plan and training, and collateral and educational materials.
Ms. Conover has worked with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) in its efforts to increase public understanding and confidence in the license renewal process. This involved interviewing stakeholders, including NRC environmental, technical, and legal staff; public interest group representatives; industry representatives; and license renewal applicants. Subsequently, she and her team wrote and designed a license renewal public information brochure and corresponding web page. The brochure explained the NRC mission and described the license renewal process, including the role of the improved license renewal guidance documents.
Involved in numerous brownfields projects, she has conducted comprehensive public outreach effort to ensure that socially and economically disadvantaged residents had equal access to project information and opportunities to voice their questions and concerns and contribute to the environmental assessment and revitalization process. Working with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), she managed the public participation program for its Monitoring and Control Communications Network Project, an upgrading of its communications network that required the installation of radio towers in both low income and affluent communities. This involved working with the field team and MWRA staff to keep federal, state, and local agencies; utility companies; affected property owners; and other interested parties informed about the project.
Ms. Conover has worked with National Grid, educating stakeholders and encouraging stakeholder involvement in the Interstate Reliability Project and the Rhode Island Reliability Project, part of the New England East-West Solution (NEEWS). Her work with the Boston Park Plaza Hotel included the development of a national marketing campaign for their environmental and energy conservation program, which set the standard for the hotel industry and won the President's Environment and Conservation Challenge Award. She also has worked with Ahold USA to educate stakeholders about leadership efforts in energy efficiency, conservation programs and green initiatives, including LEED-EB, ENERGY STAR Leaders, and SmartWay Transport.
Early in her career, Ms. Conover was a transportation planner and public affairs liaison for the Massachusetts Port Authority. As a public affairs specialist, policy analyst and aviation planner, she dealt with a wide variety of technical, environmental, business, trade, tourism, and community and government issues.
Heather holds a B.A. from Sacred Heart University and an M.A. in Urban, Social, and Environmental Policy from Tufts University. She has written numerous articles on consensus building and sits on the board of the Environmental Business Council of New England, the steering committee of the Central Massachusetts Green Technology Cluster, and the advisory board of "e" - inc. She is also a member of the PRSA environmental professional interest section and the Society for Marketing Services Professionals.
Conover + Company Communications, Inc. is headquartered in Massachusetts.
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