Charles A. Stek

Charles A. Stek has worked for over 35 years to restore and foster greater understanding and stewardship of the Chesapeake watershed. He currently serves as chairman of the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Chesapeake Bay Program and chairs a partnership dedicated to creating the first new National Marine Sanctuary on the Chesapeake in the Mallows Bay area of the Potomac River. Stek is an honorary member and the first Chairman of the Board of the Chesapeake Conservancy, a member of the federal Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail Advisory Council, and president and CEO of his own consulting firm — Environmental Stewardship Strategies. Stek also served for seven years as policy director for the National No Child Left Inside Coalition and for four years on the Board of the Maryland Historical Trust. He is an avid kayaker, bicyclist and hiker who has explored much of the Chesapeake.

As projects director for U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes, Stek led the congressional delegation’s Chesapeake restoration efforts for 22 years. He developed and enacted many of the Bay Program’s federal initiatives including EPAs, NOAAs, the National Park Service’s and the Army Corps of Engineers’ Chesapeake restoration programs; the Small Watersheds, Bay Watershed Education and Training (BWET), and Gateways and Watertrails Programs; the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail and the largest habitat restoration project ever undertaken in the Chesapeake — Poplar Island, among others.