EPA Response to September 11 | Region 2

Catherine McVay Hughes

Catherine McVay Hughes has led a varied career in civil engineering, finance and public-issues activism. After graduating from Princeton University with a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering, she worked on challenging projects in New Jersey, Montana and the Middle East. She returned to the United States to take a Masters in Business Administration at the Wharton School of Business, and subsequently worked for the investment banks EF Hutton and Morgan Keegan. Influenced by an early acquaintance with Ralph Nader, she left Wall Street and joined the New York Public Interest Research Group. At NYPIRG she led the group's efforts for affordable energy and for the prevention of lead poisoning. She co-authored "Get the Lead Out," a widely-read guidebook on lead-poisoning prevention and mitigation.

After ten years at NYPIRG, she identified an opportunity to use the Internet to catalyze the kind of grass-roots knowledge-sharing networks that are crucial to the long-term management of chronic diseases, and founded a company, AsktheMoms.com, LLC, to build knowledge-sharing and community-building Web sites for the families of those suffering from illnesses such as asthma. She began her first web site, www.asthmamoms.com for "families helping families manage asthma." Shortly after the launch, however, the terror attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center forced her and her family out of their home in lower Manhattan (one block from Ground Zero). In the aftermath of the attacks and the recovery, she focused on air-quality issues for downtown residents and workers, redirecting her Web site to extensive coverage of these issues.

Catherine, her husband and their two sons returned to Lower Manhattan in 2002 determined to be part of the rebirth of the city's heart. Catherine continues to operate AsthmaMoms.Com, and serves as a part-time Community Outreach Liaison for New York University School of Medicine, Department of Environmental Medicine, to the residents of Lower Manhattan. She also serves on Community Board One, where she co-chairs the Financial District Committee and sits on the WTC Redevelopment Committee.