Mark Gorman serves as Director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council's office in Meadville, focusing on bringing together conservationists, landowners, farmers, the business community, local government officials, and academic institutions in a collaborative effort to protect one of the northeastern United States' premier streams - French Creek. The Northwest Office also works with stakeholders to advance the conservation and restoration of the Northern Allegheny River regional and Great Lakes.
Before he became Director of the Northwest office in 2004, he served for over 22 years with the Northwest Region of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in Meadville. There, Mark directed the region's Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program, was co-leader of the Department's pilot regional watershed team effort (focused on the French Creek watershed) and, later, was co-leader of the Lake Erie, French Creek and Oil Creek watershed team. He is a trained mediator and facilitator and served in that capacity for seven years on the Department of Environmental Protection's statewide Alternative Dispute Resolution team. Mark worked in the water quality program of the Allegheny County Health Department in Pittsburgh before coming to Meadville. He has served on the French Creek Outdoor Learning Center Advisory Board, as a member of the French Creek annual "Creekfest" Planning Committee, and on a subcommittee assisting with the French Creek Environmental Advisory Council's greenway project. He is an active supporter of many local, statewide and national civic and environmental organizations.
Mark has a B.S. in Biology from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Biological Oceanography from the University of South Florida, and an M.S. in Freshwater System's Ecology from Kent State University in Ohio. Except for those brief periods out of state for graduate education, Mark has been a life-long Pennsylvania resident. He and his wife, Kate Walker and son, Michael, live in Meadville.