There is no single route into public-sector sustainability. For Kasey Motley, principal architect for sustainable building design and decarbonization at the Port Authority of New York & Jersey, the path began in architecture and her growing concern about the consequences of design. For Maria Inés Suaya Pons, senior specialist on climate impact, TechnoServe, her path began in accounting and a desire to move toward climate and food systems. For Steven Caputo, now chief operating officer at the Trust for Governors Island, it grew from architecture to years spent turning New York City climate policy into programs that could operate at scale.
At “Governmental Sustainability, Decarbonization, and Environmental Protection,” a recent Sustainability Management Workshop in Sustainability Career Paths and Curriculum, the three alumni of the Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program described careers that have required them to move repeatedly between technical expertise, policy, management and communication.
A different kind of impact
Motley, of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, said graduate study grew out of a question about the effect of her existing profession. "In working architecture, I realized that I was having an impact on the built environment, but not necessarily positive," she said. She wanted to understand sustainability more holistically and to be able to speak across disciplines, rather than remain only in an architectural lane.
That broader perspective became useful as her work expanded into building standards, electrification and long-range infrastructure planning. Motley also encouraged students to use the breadth of the program without emerging as generalists who cannot name an area of depth. By graduation, she said, a master's student should be able to say, "I'm an expert in the subject."
Building technical credibility for a career pivot
Suaya Pons came to sustainability from financial accounting. She had business experience, but she wanted work that connected more directly to climate and food systems. The degree helped her build the technical foundation behind that pivot, particularly in greenhouse gas measurement.
She was emphatic about the value of that experience. "I am 99% sure that the fact that I took the greenhouse gas emissions course during my time as a student, the fact that I was then a teaching assistant (TA) for two years, was the reason why I got those two jobs," she said, referring to early post-graduate opportunities. The lesson was not simply to engage in coursework, but to develop enough mastery to make a new professional identity credible.
At the same time, Suaya Pons warned students against treating technical fluency as the entire job. "The hard skills, you can learn, you can study them," she said. "But the soft skills are really, really important." In hiring, she added, interpersonal judgment, communication and the ability to work with others are often what distinguish candidates who otherwise look similar on paper.
From left: Steven Caputo, chief operating officer at the Trust for Governors Island; Maria Inés Suaya Pons, senior specialist on climate impact, TechnoServe; and Kasey Motley, principal architect for sustainable building design and decarbonization at the Port Authority of New York & Jersey, all three alumni of the Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program. At far right is panel moderator Dr. Steven Cohen, senior vice dean, Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and professor in the practice of public affairs, School of International and Public Affairs.
From policy approval to durable change
Caputo, now chief operating officer at the Trust for Governors Island, drew extensively on his earlier New York City government career during the workshop. He described helping develop and communicate major city initiatives, including work to phase out heavy heating oil and later to decarbonize municipal buildings and infrastructure.
That work demanded more than technical analysis. "I wouldn't have been able to do that without this program," Caputo said, because the program taught him to "analyze a program, brand it, communicate about it." Sustainability professionals, in his telling, need to understand not only whether an intervention is sound, but how to explain it, organize it and make it legible to decision-makers and the public.
When Caputo hires, he said he looks for people who are "tenacious about their work." That tenacity can show up in a demanding course load, volunteering, research or a project that demonstrates a candidate has pursued a skill seriously. The point is evidence of commitment, not a perfectly linear resume.
Careers rarely move on schedule
Suaya Pons also spoke candidly about the period after graduation. "Sometimes the path to get to where you want to get is going to take longer than you thought it would take, and that is OK," she said. Her advice was to keep building skills and to remain open to fellowships, consulting assignments, certificates and roles that may not look like the final destination.
She paired that with a warning about comparison. "Do not compare yourselves against others," she said. "Don't look to the sides. Look forward." Students enter the program with different histories, resources, ambitions and definitions of success. Comparing timelines can distract from the more useful work of building a career that fits the individual.
The work is not finished when the project launches
Caputo closed on a theme that applies well beyond government: institutionalization. A sustainability initiative can win approval, attract funding and launch successfully, then disappear when the original champion leaves. The deeper management problem is to build procedures, documentation and systems that keep the change alive.
For three alumni who entered sustainability from different professions, that challenge may be the most important common thread. Effective climate work is not only about having a better idea. It is about building the organization, skills and systems that allow the idea to last.
"It's not just the shiny part of getting to yes and getting something built," Caputo said. "How do you actually sustain it?"
The panel was moderated by Dr. Steven Cohen, senior vice dean, Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and professor in the practice of public affairs, School of International and Public Affairs.
Watch the full event here.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program, offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School, provides students with cutting-edge policy and management tools to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as a full-time and part-time course of study.
The program fosters creativity and adaptability by equipping students with the skills to tackle real-world sustainability challenges through an interdisciplinary approach from the world’s premier sustainability academics, researchers, and practitioners. The up-to-the-minute curriculum and flexibility prepare graduates for careers in the dynamic and rapidly changing field of sustainability.
Learn more about the program here.
