March 7, 2005

Carol Everett, 54, a member of The United States Conference of Mayors Staff from January 16, 1997 through October 10, 1999, passed away in Washington D.C. February 28.

"The Conference of Mayors is saddened by her passing since Ms. Everett brought an abundance of talents, energy and commitment to our goals, as well as professional skills," said Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran. "Her role in helping launch our Joint Center for Sustainable Development was essential, and in becoming an integral team player in our many environmental and economic efforts," Cochran added. "With her extensive contacts in the environmental community and her expertise of economics, she was able to add substantially to the conference expertise in working closely with Mayors on these issues, and in making a substantial impact on Federal policy on a variety of fronts," Cochran said.

Ms. Everett was the first director of the Joint Center for Sustainable Development, a cooperative effort with the National Association of Counties, that later evolved into the Mayors' Metropolitan Economic and Political Center. Her work as a Director within the Joint Center was premised on her strong belief that economic development, environmental protection and social equity were compatible, mutually beneficial goals. Her efforts to establish Sustainable Development best practices lent concrete examples to that belief.

As a U.S. Conference of Mayors employee Ms. Everett also helped launch the Conference's ground breaking work on metro economies, working with then Standard and Poors DRI to fashion the early reports that have now grown into a series of metro economic publications receiving national attention. Her earlier work in economics at the University of Wisconsin laid the groundwork for her contributions

A 1973 graduate of Simmons College in Boston, Ms. Everett received a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1976.

Before moving to Washington in 1979, she worked as a legislative aide in, the Wisconsin Legislature, and also as a planning analyst with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. In Washington from 1979 to 1986, she was a research associate of the Urban Institute, authoring over 15 technical papers and reports. Before joining the Conference of Mayors, she was a program director of The American Public Works Association from 1987 to 1996. At APWA, a 25,000-member association of professionals in the public works industry, she directed the rebuild American Coalition, a broad coalition of 60 national and private associations committed to reversing the decline in America's investment in infrastructure. Her professional duties included establishing and managing programs in government affairs, public relations and grassroots organizing. Her favorite chair of that organization was the late Mayor of Atlanta Maynard Jackson.

Ms. Everett was a thinker and avid reader. She often recounted her father, who was a prominent physicist, giving her books with the gentle words, "you may be interested in this." Her intellectual passion for civil war history and the history of presidents and the founding fathers were quickly apparent even to her casual acquaintances.

After leaving the Conference she developed a love for writing, independent urban research, and reading those classics that she had not yet tackled, including James Joyce's Ulysses.

She will be sorely missed by her family, many friends and her colleagues at the Conference of Mayors.