Director
Greg Watson has spent nearly 40 years learning to understand systems thinking and applying that understanding to achieve a just and sustainable world. In his current capacity as the Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, Greg focuses on community food systems and the dynamics between local and geo-economic systems.
Previously, Greg served twice as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture under Governors Dukakis and Weld from 1990 to 1993 and under Governor Deval Patrick from 2012 to 2014. During the Patrick administration, he launched a statewide urban agriculture grants program and chaired the Commonwealth’s Public Market Commission, which oversaw the planning and construction of the Boston Public Market. From 1984 to 1990, he served as Assistant Secretary in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs, where he established and chaired the Massachusetts Office of Science and Technology. Greg also served as the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust and was Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a multicultural grassroots organizing and planning organization for which he initiated one of the nation’s first urban agriculture programs. Earlier in his career, he gained hands-on experience in organic farming, aquaculture, wind-energy technology, and passive solar design at the New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, first as Education Director and later as Executive Director.
Greg serves on the boards of the Marion Institute, Ocean Arks International, and Remineralize The Earth. He currently resides in Falmouth, Massachusetts.