Chen, Don
Don Chen
Don Chen is dedicated to increasing community sustainability through policy changes. His work has addressed affordable housing, infrastructure improvements, transportation, and other community economic improvements. He is the President of the Surdna Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating prosperous, culturally enriching, and sustainable communities through social justice reform, inclusive economies, thriving cultures, and healthy environments. Chen founded Smart Growth America and led efforts to create the National Vacant Properties Campaign (now the Center for Community Progress) and Transportation for America.
“You don’t have to be a professional environmentalist to help the environmental cause.” - Don Chen, 2005.
Ewing, R., Bartholomew, K., Winkleman, S., Walters, J. & Chen, D. (2008). Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change. Urban Planning Institute.
Chen has been interested in the environmental field since he was a boy growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey. His father, a former professor of political science at Rutgers University, and his mother, a retired librarian of children’s books, instilled a “sense of social responsibility” in Chen and his sibling. Chen grew up with a traditional Chinese upbringing and was deeply aware of environmental issues, social justice, and fairness. He explored his interests more fully in college, where he studied environmental policy.
Chen attended Yale University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1989. During his undergraduate studies, he spent most of his time volunteering for community organizations and fundraising efforts in New Haven, Connecticut. These efforts focused on hunger and social issues and supported soup kitchens and shelters. Influenced by the work of Robert Bullard, Charles Lee, and Bunyan Bryant in the 1980s, Chen knew he wanted to focus on urban environmental and justice issues upon leaving Yale.
Chen began his career at the Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where he worked from 1989 to 1990. Although he was an English speechwriter for an administrator at his newly founded organization, he witnessed high levels of environmental contamination and environmental injustices. Poor zoning practices for industries, farms, and residential area led citizens to complain to the Taiwanese EPA about health problems in their villages. Chen became frustrated with the lack of response to these complains on behalf of the Taiwanese government, feeling they take many of the responsibilities that the government should have shouldered. This taught him an important lesson about politics and grassroots environmental issues. After working in Taiwan for a year, Chen returned to Yale University in 1990 for graduate school. He completed his Master’s degree in Environmental Studies in 1992.
While completing his Master’s studies, Chen worked as a researcher at the World Resources Institute studying transportation issues. There, he connected with Jessica Matthews and her group “Surface Transportation Policy Project” and worked to provide an alternative to President Bush’s highway bill. Chen was responsible for producing a research paper entitled “The Going Rate: What it Really Costs to Drive,” which discusses the societal impacts of transportation, including monetary costs of air pollution, cost for the military, pain and suffering related to traffic accidents, productivity loss due to traffic congestions.
Chen also worked for two years as a senior research associate for the Rocky Mountain Institute, concentrating on transportation policy. He met Amory Lovins, “a brilliant man” who taught Chen “how to think about environmental problems” (2005). Lovins connected Chen to the Energy and Equity Roundtable, a group working on social equity and energy issues. Chen worked at the Rocky Mountain Institute until 1994 when he went to work for the Surface Transporation Policy Project (STPP), where he served as research director for five years.
In 1999, Chen left the STPP and founded Smart Growth America, a national coalition that works to eliminate needless sprawl and promote environmentally influenced decisions on development, health, housing, and transportation. He founded Smart Growth America, motivated by his land use, transportation, and urban sprawl interests. In 2008, Chen published the report “Growing Cooler: The Academic Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change” about land use, transportation, social equity, and environmental policy.
Working in the environment is Chen’s life passion. His most significant achievement is growing into the advocate he had always wanted. He realized he had matured into this role in 2000 during a speaking tour in six Australian cities. At the time, he was considered an international expert on transportation and smart growth and had published an article in Scientific American.
Chen served as Smart Growth America’s CEO until 2008 when he joined the Ford Foundation’s Equitable Development team as a program officer. He worked on the Ford Foundation Just Cities and Regions team. In 2015, he became the Director of Metropolitan Opportunity. At the Ford Foundation, Chen’s work focused on city and regional planning for community improvements such as affordable housing and infrastructure.
In 2018, Chen became the President of the Surdna Foundation, where he advances the foundation’s commitment to community improvement and social justice. Chen co-chairs the President’s Council on Impact Investing. He is a board member of Philanthropy New York, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, and Living Cities.
Chen’s mentors include his former boss at STPP, Hank Dittmar, and Roy Kientz, who led the organization after Dittmar left. As mentors, they gave Chen opportunities to explore his professional field by allowing him to succeed, fail, and learn from his mistakes while testing his abilities. Through this, he understood his limitations and felt proud of what he was doing.
Chen’s great mentors and colleagues have been the highlight of his career; they inspired him to put his ideas into motion by creating his own non-profit advocacy group. “Building Smart Growth America from an idea to a successful and thriving organization has been great” (2005). Chen’s career low point was the disillusionment about the Taiwanese government’s willingness to respond to the dire environmental health crisis. Working for the Taiwan EPA made Chen cynical about how the government serves industry more than the people.
Chen helped found the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP), a mentoring organization for people of color in the environmental field. In addition to mentoring, ELP conducts diversity and technical training, writing workshops, and community-building training. ELP also encourages its participants to think about the future of environmental leadership, what it should/could look like, and how people of color can prepare for a career in environmental leadership.
Chen believes that the professional environmental field in the United States needs minorities because minorities are the people who tend to bear the brunt of environmental harm. It is essential to have people stand up to ensure that communities are cared for. His message to minorities considering a career in the field is, “You don’t have to be a professional environmentalist to help the environmental cause” (2005). A minority student can enter various fields and still bring an environmental knowledge base and awareness to that field while influencing and improving environmental quality in America. The smart growth sector demonstrates that every aspect of society, whether transportation or housing, contributes to the environment. “It doesn’t matter what you do, but it does matter what you think and what you prioritize in your career” (2005). Chen’s diverse career background certainly demonstrates that there are many ways to serve in the environmental field.
Don Chen. 2015 MAS Summit for New York City. 2015. SCHED. https://2015massummitfornewyorkcity.sched.com/speaker/don_chen.1u9j03h8
Don Chen. (n.d.). Surdna Foundation. https://surdna.org/team/don-chen/
Interview conducted by Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative staff. 2016. University of Michigan – School of Natural Resources and Environment. Ann Arbor, MI.
Don Chen [Photo]. Surdna Foundation. n.d. Retrieved from https://surdna.org/team/don-chen/