Winsor Award for Lifetime Achievement presented to David Hess

Press release by PEC posted 10 November 2025

News article published in PA Environment Digest Blog on 21 November 2025

On November 19, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council presented the Winsor Award for Lifetime Achievement to David Hess, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Hess was introduced by former DEP Secretary James M. Seif and by an award video that included comments by former Governors Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker; Tim Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Fish and Boat Commission; John Dawes, former Executive Director Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds; Cindy Adams Dunn, Secretary of DCNR; and Jessica Shirley, the current DEP Secretary.

In accepting the Award, Hess had these comments–

I think there’s probably one thing wrong with the video and the accolades. No one does any of this stuff alone.  I have my wife, Mary, here, I have our son, Matthew, our grandson, Otto.  That’s where it starts.  I’ve had the privilege of having great bosses. Jim [Seif] was one you saw, Governor Ridge, Governor Schweiker.  We lost Senator Brightbill this past week. Senator Fisher, all the secretaries [of DER] I worked for, starting with [Maurice] Goddard when I was just wet behind the ears and all the Secretaries since.  

I had the privilege of learning every day from those folks as mentors and bosses, and I was privileged to have them as great bosses. Sometimes they allowed me to run amuck, and I did.  But you don’t do those things without having a great team of people.  And especially during the Ridge-Schweiker years, we got a wonderful group of creative people that together thought of all those ideas and put them into motion.  And we were allowed by Governor Ridge and Governor Schweiker to do that because they accomplished real results in the environment.

The other thing I learned as Secretary, when I was visiting all 67 counties two and a half times– I was on my third round [when I left]– visiting counties, visiting businesses, farmers, watershed folks, local governments, schools, any place that you can imagine, there are hundreds and thousands of people in Pennsylvania working every day to make the environment better.  They continue to do that, just as PEC [PA Environmental Council] does. 

In the newsletter then with the Department during those eight years and in my newsletter now, the first thing you see are examples from all over the state reported by the media, reported by me, lots of people sending me stuff about all the good work that’s going on out there. Thousands of people working to make things better every single day.  That’s the strength of the environmental movement in Pennsylvania. 

The first Earth Day [in 1970] turned me on to the environment, just like it helped form the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. But the strength has been the individuals, the people that gave their time, their treasure, their creativity to try to make things better and they accomplished that.  And that’s the thing I like to highlight in my newsletter every week, dozens of articles from all across the state of people doing great things.  That is the strength.

And as one person told me, reading about those people, whether it was in our Department newsletter, the GreenWorks Gazette that we put in every single Sunday newspaper for a couple times running during the Ridge-Schweiker years– people seeing themselves, people like themselves, doing great things for the environment.  It’s just the kind of examples that we need, just like the awardees tonight.  If someone sees them, someone like themselves doing those kinds of things, the first thing they say is– “If they’re doing it, I can do it.” 

That’s a key principle that Jim and I, Governor Ridge and Governor Schweiker operate under during our time. But as I was going to say, someone came up to me and said, “I like reading about all those good things that are happening, people doing good stuff all across the state.”  “You know what? It makes me feel that I’m not alone.  That I’m not the only one doing this, that there are others out there working to accomplish the same sorts of things.” 

And there’s a comfort in that.  There’s a power in that.  And that’s something we need to remember today as we go through some difficult times.  Keep remembering that there are thousands of people in Pennsylvania and lots of other places working every day to improve the environment, and they’re not alone.

I’m very glad PEC recognizes through their complete awards programs across the state those kinds of efforts.  And thank you very much for the recognition, but as I said, no one does these sorts of things alone.  And I had the pleasure of working with a lot of great people.

And remember… you.. are.. not.. alone.