Lucia Athens moving to Austin, Texas to be city’s chief sustainability officer

Green readers! Today I got a shock in my inbox: Lucia Athens, a constant presence in Seattle's green building scene, is moving to Austin, Texas to become chief sustainability officer for the city.

For those of you that don't know Athens, she is presently the senior sustainable futures strategist with 

CollinsWoerman (a title she made up - pretty nifty, eh?) She previously spent 10 years with the city of Seattle, leading its green building program. Athens wrote "Building an Emerald City: A Guide to Creating Green Building Policies and Programs," about her experience with the city. She also has served in sustainability leadership positions with the board of directors for the U.S. Green Building Council and the International Green Building Certification Institute.

Lucia is a fountain of knowledge, an engaging speaker and someone whose skills are sure to be missed in this emerald city. The Austin Chronicle has an article on the move here. In an e-mail, Athens said she loves Seattle but already has connections to Austin as she grew up in San Antonio and has family there.

The DJC has carried a number of articles involving Athens over the years. In February, she wrote the article "7 trends that will shape the future of green building." In 2008, we wrote about a BetterBricks award she won for being a green building advocate. In 2002, she wrote this article about how Seattle was leading the way for the nation in green building. In 1999, she was on a panel discussing the evolving standard for green buildings.

This was a pretty sought-after job so it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. I, for one, will be keeping my eye on Austin. Good luck, Lucia!