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Thursday, January 31, 2002

By Joyce Gannon, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The offices of Sustainable Pittsburgh occupy a few compact, corner rooms on the 13th floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown.

	Court Gould, director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, stands along one of the assets the nonprofit believes enhances the region's quality of life -- the new Allegheny Riverfront Park that hugs the Downtown side of the Allegheny River. (Gabor Degre/Post-Gazette)

But what it lacks in square footage, the organization hopes to make up for in perception. Director Court Gould considers the 2-year-old nonprofit to be a "big tent" where economic development groups, government agencies, environmentalists and others can come together to collaborate on plans for where the Pittsburgh region is going in its quality of life.

Sustainable Pittsburgh had its roots at the Pittsburgh High Technology Council as a project to broaden regional decision-making by involving diverse groups and individuals in planning for development. After Sustainable Pittsburgh hosted the President's Council on Sustainable Development in 1998, community leaders "rallied around the opportunity and came to see it as something larger," said Gould, who was running the project for the council and subsequently became director when the agency spun out as an independent in March 2000.

It employs five, including Gould. Its annual budget of $700,000 is derived mainly from the Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Giant Eagle Foundation.

Its main focus, said Gould, is "trying to identify pressing regional issues where a lot of different partners see the value in working together -- issues that get at the heart of long-term quality of life and prosperity."

So while Sustainable Pittsburgh two weeks ago sponsored a forum at which environmentalists, politicians, business officials and consultants debated the long-term impact of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, the group also is organizing events to promote outdoor recreation in the region.

It helped implement the installation of bicycle racks on Port Authority buses and has formed a new committee to address issues of bicycle commuting.

Gould sees recreational amenities such as bike trails and kayak launches as critical to overall development because they are the kind of things that help attract young talent to the region.

An outdoor enthusiast himself, Gould, 40, brings a native Pittsburgher's perspective to his job.

He grew up in Indiana Township, attended the Fox Chapel Area public schools and returned to his roots after earning a bachelor's in political science and American studies at Tufts University and a master's in public administration from the University of Southern California.

"All roads lead back to Pittsburgh," joked Gould, who now resides with his wife and two children near Dorseyville.

When he came back to his hometown in 1986, Gould worked at Carnegie Mellon University on the National Coalition to Improve Management in State and Local Government.

Part of his job was helping Allegheny County develop a new department devoted to management and productivity. He left CMU in 1988 to work for the county in the office he had helped to create as well as other administrative positions.

In 1992, Gould took a job as program manager for the Air & Waste Management Association, an international environmental society that worked with federal agencies on environment training and education.

From 1994 to 1996, he was executive director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. Then he spent a couple of years as a consultant to the National Wildlife Federation and other groups before becoming involved with Sustainable Pittsburgh.

Gould holds up Seattle; the San Francisco Bay Area; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Ore., as models for sustainable development.

But, given the region's past, he's optimistic Pittsburgh can attain some balance of interests in planning for and managing its sprawl. After all, Renaissance I and II "were largely undertaken to make our region more livable," he said.