Maine Women's Policy Center

Eliza Townsend, Executive Director

Eliza Townsend is the Executive Director of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Women’s Policy Center.  Eliza brings extensive professional experience to the organizations, along with a strong track record of working collaboratively with a wide range of people. 

Eliza’s foray into public service came in 1992, when she decided to run for the Maine House of Representatives.  Throughout her legislative tenure, she was a strong and effective advocate on a wide range of issues affecting women.  For two years, Eliza was a member of the Human Resources Committee (now Health & Human Services). 

Recognizing that funding reflects policy priorities, Eliza served six years on the Appropriations & Financial Affairs committee, where she worked consistently to ensure that state spending benefitted all citizens, including those least able to make their voices heard in Augusta.  In her final two years at the Legislature, Eliza served as the House Chair of Appropriations.  In this capacity, she was instrumental in negotiating bipartisan agreement on many key issues, including three separate budgets totaling $13.5 billion and the establishment of the Fund for a Healthy Maine to allocate Maine’s share of the tobacco settlement.  

After reaching term-limits in 2000, Eliza moved from public service into the non-profit sector when she became the first Executive Director of the Maine League of Conservation Voters & Maine Conservation Voters Education Fund.   These nonpartisan organizations now play a pivotal position within Maine’s environmental and political communities.  During Eliza’s tenure the Conservation Voters convened the Environmental Priorities Coalition, comprising two-dozen diverse groups that agree to and advocate for a common legislative agenda.  The EPC became a model for other coalitions in the state.

In 2007, Eliza left Conservation Voters when she was appointed to the Maine Department of Conservation, where she served first as Deputy Commissioner and later Commissioner.  While at the DOC, Eliza led the Take it Outside initiative, an effort to reconnect children and families with the outdoors.  She organized, with partner groups, the 2008 Governor’s Conference on Youth and the Natural World, which drew 400 attendees and 40 +/- exhibitors.  Other strategies included the creation of several programs and infrastructure investments for state parks.  Eliza also spearheaded the creation of the Maine Birding Trail Map and Guide and participated in the Keeping Maine’s Forests initiative, a public-private partnership to ensure that the forests that define Maine, and the economic, recreational and environmental benefits they support, will remain for future generations

Eliza’s professional contributions have been recognized by the Friends of the Fund for a Healthy Maine, the Maine Department of Human Services (DHS) and DHS Bureau of Adult Services, the Start ME Right Coalition, the Maine Community Action Association, the Family Planning Association of Maine, the Maine Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, the Senior Legislative Advocacy Coalition, the Baxter Compensation Authority, the Maine State Library and Maine Library Association, Maine Audubon Society, and the Maine Grange.

In addition to her professional achievements, Eliza has served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Casco Bay, and volunteered with the Cumberland County Budget Advisory Committee, and as a grant writer for the Portland Skatepark Committee.

Eliza is a graduate of McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon University.  She has two sons and lives in Portland.

Eliza can be reached at the Maine Women's Policy Center, PO Box 85, Hallowell, ME 04347, (207) 622-0851, ext. 20, and etownsend@mainewomen.org.