Dr. Linda Rimer – Emeritus Advisory Board member

Dr. Linda Rimer, retired, recently served as Liaison for State & Community Resilience for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This was a newly created position within the Office of the Regional Administrator, Region 4. In this role, Dr. Rimer worked with states and local governments, universities and businesses in Region 4 and with other federal agencies in the Southeast on climate resilience and preparedness. She is particularly interested in how we move from “planning” for climate resilience to a greater level of “implementation” of those plans.

For several years before creating this new position, Dr. Rimer served as a state Liaison to North and South Carolina from EPA Region 4. In this capacity, she represented the Agency on both traditional environmental issues and on issues related to sustainability. She began working on climate change adaptation in 2007 and subsequently worked extensively on adaptation, focusing on state and local efforts, and with the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS), with a focus on the Department of Defense and military installations in the Southeast.

Before working in these two liaison roles, Dr. Rimer worked in the EPA Headquarters office in Washington, DC, as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Intergovernmental Relations and as Advisor on Urban Sustainability to the Deputy Administrator. From 1993 until 1998, she served as the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Protection for North Carolina within the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources. In this capacity, she had responsibility for the federally delegated and state environmental regulatory programs for air and water, as well as for the Divisions of Radiation Protection, Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance, Water Resources and Land Resources.

Currently Dr. Rimer serves on several advisory boards, including: Carolinas Integrated Science and Assessments, University of South Carolina; Sustainable Triangle Field Site Advisory Board (Chair); Institute for the Environment, UNC Chapel Hill; NC Sea Grant; DHS Center of Excellence for Coastal Resilience; and Center for the Environment, Catawba College.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a Masters of Science degree from Rush University, and a Ph.D. in environmental policy from the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She works out of the EPA campus in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.