Margaret Gordon Named White House “Champion of Change”

By Post Staff

President Barack Obama has recognized Margaret Gordon, co-founder and co-director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), as a “Champion of Change” who is among those who are “winning the future across America.”

Margaret Gordon

The Environmental Indicators Project  is a non-profit that works with neighborhood organizations, physicians, researchers, and public officials to ensure West Oakland residents have a clean environment, safe neighborhoods, and access to economic opportunity.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2006 recognized WOEIP for its “work to improve local air quality.”

In 2007, Gordon was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame for her leadership on behalf of West Oakland’s residents.  She was also nominated by Mayor Ron Dellums and approved by the Oakland City Council to serve on the Port of Oakland Board of Commission in 2008.

Gordon is a lifetime resident of the Bay Area, mother of three adult sons and the grandmother of 14 grandchildren.

In a statement posted on a White House blog, Gordon said she began the WOEIP with Brian Beveridge, to serve as “a strong voice of reason in the West Oakland community over the last decade.”

“Due to the significant truck traffic needed to move goods through the Port of Oakland, which is located in a high population area of West Oakland, outdoor air quality is very poor and has a significant impact on the overall health of community residents,” she wrote. “Using research and data collection as tools, WOEIP advocates for an improved quality of life, as it relates to public health, air quality, land-use and equity development.”