‘Help Easton progress in the way it needs to’: Meet the city’s first sustainability coordinator

EASTON, Pa. — Over 28 years, Brandon Sullivan has lived in nearly 30 different places across the United States, but he said the northeast always felt the most like home.

“COVID put the whole world in a pause and a halt,” said Sullivan, who used the time to finish graduate school online.

“So I moved back to the East Coast with that opportunity, and found myself here in the Lehigh Valley, where I've been for almost three years now.

“I moved to Allentown, originally, and now reside in Bethlehem. And, over time, I've been exploring the three cities and falling in love with Easton.”

Sullivan last month was hired as Easton’s sustainability coordinator, a new position focused on efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including creating and facilitating initiatives while pursuing grant funding to pay for them.

Sullivan on April 26 will be at Easton’s Arbor Fest at Lower Hackett Park, 1913 Wood Ave.

Asked for priorities over the next few months, Sullivan said he hopes to dive into sustainable energy and transportation, as well as grow the city’s urban forestry department.

To do that, he said, he'd draw on the experience and knowledge of staff who have long worked in the community.

“The people in the city, everyone here cares and knows what they're talking about,” Sullivan said. “And I think that gives me even more space and opportunity to learn from everyone else.

"And take what I learned in my graduate studies and undergraduate studies and help Easton progress in the way it needs to.”

Contributed

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City of Easton

3rd in the Valley

Easton is the third of the Valley’s major cities to carve out a position focused solely on sustainability efforts and mitigating the effects of climate change.

Allentown last year hired Veronika Vostinak as its first sustainability coordinator after a contentious 2024 budgeting process, coupled with campaigns from the city’s environmental advocates promoting the importance of the position.

Vostinak's position has been renewed for another year. The 2025 budget shows a salary increase from $66,976 to $71,630.

Also this year, Bethlehem hired Sarah DeGrendel as its first sustainability manager. The city’s 2025 budget, passed in December with no tax increase, shows a $76,312 salary for the position.

Easton officials began advertising for their sustainability coordinator position in December after passing a $70.86 million budget for 2025 with no tax increases.

The budgeted salary for the position is $52,000.

Asked why he moved to the Valley three years ago, Sullivan said it was all about location.

“For me, the Lehigh Valley is in the spot where it's kind of in the center of everything,” he said.

“It's become this hub for both people wanting to explore New York, New Jersey or even Philadelphia, and kind of get away from the business of the city.

“I grew up exploring nature around Pennsylvania and other locations in the cities that I lived in, and this is kind of that amalgamation of business, urban life and nature.

"Everywhere you look around the Valley, you're surrounded by the wilderness. You're surrounded by the mountains and the forest — and that's what I want.”

‘The correct choice’

Sullivan’s interest in the environment stretches back to his childhood, when he described himself as a “Steve Irwin kid,” referring to television's "Crocodile Hunter."

Sullivan said he often watched British biologist and natural historian David Attenborough often, too.

“I just wanted to watch wildlife as closely as I could,” Sullivan said. “I was obsessed with it, and I still am.

"Most of my TV time is animal documentaries or wildlife documentaries or documentaries on how to create a more breathable, livable planet for everyone.

“It was always kind of the goal to get into a role like this, where I can help the city better themselves and its people toward a more livable, just and sustainable planet.”

A graduate of Penn State, where he studied political science, Sullivan went on to an urban studies master’s program at the University of San Francisco before transferring to the University of Denver, where he studied environmental policy and management.

“I had actually written an essay on the tule elk out in Point Reyes National Seashore out by San Francisco,” Sullivan said.

“And while it was reviewed well, University of San Francisco basically advised me if you want to continue down the environmental policy path, to go to a more direct program for that.

“And that, honestly, was the correct choice.”

Describing his time at the University of Denver as a “phenomenal experience,” Sullivan recounted taking courses on energy, transportation, park resource management and wildlife management strategies.

‘I want to serve other people’

Public service, through working in government, always was his goal, Sullivan said.

“That's why I have my undergraduate degree in political science,” he said. “I have obtained that because I want to serve other people. I want to provide safety and sustainability.

“It runs on my family. My grandpa was a World War II medic. He was a firefighter, volunteer firefighter and a police chief. So it runs in the family to serve the public.”

Sustainability also is intertwined with social justice, Sullivan said. When an environmental injustice is solved, a social injustice is generally solved, too, he said.

“If we look at something that is unjust, it's often unsustainable,” Sullivan said.

“Sustainability is simply the act of preserving things so that leader generations can experience them in the same way that they're experienced today — and being able to preserve that requires justice.

“ … And while there's a lot of social justice issues that I cannot solve as the sustainability coordinator, I can at least make a dent in some of the environmentally unjust causes here around the city and hopefully the Valley.”