People
The network is a small group of Western Massachusetts residents. Here is who we are. Members list their affiliations for identification. They speak for themselves, not for any employer.
Keith Hastie
Keith Hastie is a retired environmental scientist and public servant. During his 24-year career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service he worked as an environmental contaminants biologist, an endangered species biologist, and regional energy coordinator. In these roles he managed studies of environmental contaminant effects, responded to oil spills, assessed at-risk species under the federal Endangered Species Act, and helped develop regional and national policies to minimize the impacts of evolving energy technologies on wildlife. Before joining the Service he worked as an environmental consultant investigating Superfund sites and conducting forest and aquatic habitat assessments. He holds an MS in environmental science from Indiana University and a BS in natural resource management and planning from the University of West Florida. He serves on the Shutesbury Planning Board.
Juniper Katz
Juniper Katz is an assistant professor of public policy at UMass Amherst and a research affiliate at Berkeley Lab. Her research connects environmental governance, nonprofit management, and policy implementation, with a focus on land use and renewable energy siting. She spent a decade in land conservation, where she led work that protected more than 49,000 acres of habitat and farmland. She now studies how policy design and implementation shape both environmental outcomes and civic engagement. She teaches governing the energy transition, program evaluation, policy analysis, and the politics of the policy process. She holds a PhD in public affairs from the University of Colorado Denver, an MS in resource management and administration from Antioch University New England, and a BA in international studies from Marlboro College.
John Pepi
John Pepi has lived in the Valley since 1972. Working for the Mass. DEP between 1989 and 1997, he managed a planning grants program, researched waste disposal bans and coordinated with western municipalities on Springfield MRF operations. He retired from UMass Amherst in 2020, where he managed waste and recycling and helped the campus excel in electronics recycling and food-waste composting. His energy and climate work followed. He has commented on the state's renewable energy siting, permitting, and SMART regulations, and built a forest-solar carbon calculator. In 2025 he wrote "The Case Against Placing All of the Commonwealth's Eggs in the Rooftop Basket." He served on the Easthampton Energy Advisory Committee from 2022 to 2025 and earned an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy at Tufts in 1986.
Patrick Quinlan
Patrick Quinlan co-founded SolaBlock, a maker of solar masonry products, and serves as its CEO. He earlier ran Black Island Wind Turbines, whose turbines run in Antarctica, and was associate director of the UMass Renewable Energy Research Laboratory. His public-sector work includes a White House technology fellowship at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a congressional technology fellowship, and a term as national policy analyst for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. As an engineer he worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, at Southern California Edison, and for the inventor Paul MacCready, and he advised electric cooperatives and municipal utilities for the Department of Energy's Western Area Power Administration. He holds a BSc in mechanical engineering from the wind energy program at UMass and an MSc from the Solar Energy Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, and he is a licensed professional engineer in California.
Bruce Scherer
Bruce Scherer has a long history of engagement with community including organizing the state's largest landowner-initiated land conservation project on Chestnut Hill in Orange, MA, chairing the Town's Planning Board for over 20 years, helping bring the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival to life for nearly 30 years and enjoying multi-generational family life and small livestock farming. Between 2015 and 2025, by converting the home and farm operations to PV with modest battery backup, and watching the climate crisis grow without much hope for large scale change, the decision to think global, act local took form while chairing the Town's building committee for a new elementary school. With steadfast determination, Bruce made sure that the school would include PV electricity generation. By annoying the f*%& out of every legislative aide and National Grid functionary, the school PV project became part of a DPU mandated pilot project using a battery energy storage system (BESS) and computational curtailment to keep the project behind-the-meter and online without years of Group Study delay and dollars. The project got built entirely grant funded, saving the town hundreds of thousands in present cost and future savings. That under his belt, he has launched into siting a PV array on the closed Town landfill, and joined the Town's Finance Committee to fill his time in between drinking beer and sipping coffee with the rest of the Western MA Clean Energy brain trust. If they buy him another round, he will share his rolodex of Important People's Phone Numbers.