Massachusetts Municipal Management Association Meeting 2026

Over the past several years, Timothy Shriver, a nonprofit leader and chair of the Special Olympics, has been dedicated to restoring dignity to the national conversation. As CEO and founder of UNITE, Shriver, along with Tom Rosshirt and Tami Pyfer, created the Dignity Index, a tool that scores political speech along a continuum ranging from dignity to contempt. The index helps political leaders and citizens rethink the language they use to describe people with different views. UNITE works with political leaders, school districts, colleges and universities, businesses and others to help ease divisions, prevent violence, and solve problems. Earlier this year, the nonprofit partnered with the University of Utah to promote the study, teaching and practice of dignity. UNITE and the university previously worked together in 2022, to score the political speech in Utah’s midterm congressional races. Shriver draws his insights from an extensive career in public service, which includes serving as CEO of the Special Olympics, working as a public school teacher, and producing numerous films. He co-founded and chairs the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, sits on the boards of numerous organizations, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of a bestselling book about his experiences, “Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most.” Shriver regularly appears on television shows and podcasts, and gives speeches and writes about the importance of restoring dignity in civic life. In November 2024, he wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek urging Americans to reject contempt in the wake of the presidential election. A nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and U.S. senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, Shriver is the son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, and Sargent Shriver, a one-time vice presidential candidate who served as a U.S. ambassador to France and helped found the Peace Corps.

Tami Pyfer has experienced the challenges and rewards of public service at many levels — from PTA president to Utah state education board member, and from city councillor to gubernatorial advisor, with steps in between. Now a nonprofit leader and USA Today’s 2025 Woman of the Year for the state of Utah, Pyfer will share her insights as the keynote speaker at the Women Elected Municipal Officials Leadership Luncheon during the MMA’s Connect 351 conference on Jan. 23 in Boston. Pyfer is the chief external affairs officer for UNITE and the co-creator of the nonprofit’s Dignity Index, a tool that measures political speech along an eight-point continuum from contempt to dignity.

Clarence Anthony has been the NLC’s executive director since 2013. He previously served for 24 years as the mayor of South Bay, Florida, having been first elected at the age of 24. He became president of the Florida League of Cities in 1995, and of the NLC in 1999. He was also part of the founding group of Palm Beach County Black Elected Officials and Discover Palm Beach County, the tourism development council. He served as first vice president of the International Union of Local Authorities. Following his time as mayor, Anthony represented local governments as founding treasurer and interim manager of United Cities and Local Governments. He later founded Anthony Government Solutions, a firm focused on strategic visioning, policy development and management restructuring for government and private sector organizations. Anthony has a master’s degree in public administration, with a specialization in city growth management policy, from Florida Atlantic University. In 2020, he received the National Forum for Black Public Administrators Marks of Excellence Award.

Hoffer joined the Biden Administration as a Day 1 political appointee, serving as the Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. She led the EPA’s Office of General Counsel through the transition until November 2021 and continued to serve as Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to that, she worked in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Environmental Protection Division beginning in 2012 and was named Chief of AG Healey’s newly formed Energy and Environment Bureau in 2015. Hoffer oversaw the work of the Bureau’s attorneys on matters including prosecuting civil and criminal enforcement of environmental laws, proceedings before the DPU, energy policy, and defensive cases. She led the Office’s litigation against ExxonMobil for deceiving Massachusetts investors and consumers about the risk climate change poses to Exxon’s business and global financial markets, and the impacts of its fossil fuel products on climate change. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Hoffer held senior roles at the Conservation Law Foundation and practiced for many years as a litigator and environmental lawyer at WilmerHale. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Magistrate Judge Joyce London Alexander, Boston Federal District Court. She received a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, Certificate in Environmental Management from Tufts University, M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts, and B.A. from Hampshire College. In her spare time, she raises a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats at her farm in Barre, Massachusetts.

Gina McCarthy, whose environmental and public health expertise propelled her from Canton Town Hall to the White House, will discuss climate change as the Saturday keynote speaker at the MMA Annual Meeting & Trade Show on Jan. 20 in Boston. A former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who most recently served as the White House’s first-ever national climate advisor, McCarthy has become one of the nation’s most prominent voices on climate change, the environment and public health. She will share her insights on climate strategies in a fireside chat with MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine. As climate change intensifies and the daily weather forecast increasingly instills dread, McCarthy wants the public to view climate work not as a depressing burden, but as an opportunity to make people’s lives better — to create new jobs, improve health outcomes and provide more resources to traditionally underserved communities. “What we have to do is get people engaged,” McCarthy told CNN in August. “What we have to do is get them excited, and make them hopeful again. We have what we need to succeed. We need people to get excited about it, motivated, and understand what opportunities exist for them, and for the future of our kids. We can’t sit around thinking about this. We have to act.” McCarthy got her first exposure to government and environmental work in her hometown of Canton. In interviews, she has spoken about the impact of her formative experiences while serving municipalities in the 1980s. “I started at the local level in the town of Canton as the first full-time health agent, and it was the best experience of my life,” McCarthy said during a September 2022 appearance at the Aspen Institute. “It made me realize that government is all about responding to people, and how they see the challenge before them, and how you can reframe that challenge and make a difference in it.” McCarthy served as Stoughton’s first environmental officer before going on to work at the state level. She held senior positions under five Massachusetts governors, including as deputy secretary of the Office of Commonwealth Development and undersecretary for environmental affairs policy. In 2004, she was appointed commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. McCarthy went to work for President Barack Obama in 2009, first as the assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation in the EPA, and then as EPA administrator from 2013 until January 2017. She then served as president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and was a professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she served as director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. She was also a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. In January 2021, McCarthy returned to the White House to lead the Climate Policy Office under President Joe Biden for a year and a half. She was involved in critical pieces of legislation, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, both of which include significant climate and clean energy provisions. The difference between working for the Obama and Biden administrations, she has said in interviews, are the scientific and technological advancements that emerged in the interim, ones that will make climate goals more readily achievable. “The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are catalytic because we have the kind of technologies, and the kind of products, and the kind of processes that make people feel better about where they are in their future,” McCarthy said at the Aspen Institute. “We are not standing up on a podium talking about the ‘woe is me’ on climate. We’re just simply saying that climate’s here, you’re looking at the numbers, you’re looking at the engagement of states now.” McCarthy has vowed not to “ride off into the sunset” while more climate work remains. She is now a climate fellow at her alma mater, Tufts University, managing co-chair of the climate initiative America Is All In , and co-chair of a group coordinating climate policies between the United States and India. She’s also advising private equity firms on climate and sustainability-focused investments.

Drawing from his travels around Massachusetts, Emmy-winning journalist and television host Anthony Everett will help members celebrate the Bay State on Jan. 20, 2023, as the Friday evening speaker at the MMA Annual Meeting & Trade Show. Everett has hosted WCVB Channel 5’s “Chronicle,” the nation’s longest-running, locally produced newsmagazine, for 17 years. On the show, Everett explores the “Main Streets and Back Roads” of the region, serving as part storyteller and part ambassador for its best offerings. From patrolling the Nantucket coast in a boat with the town’s harbormaster to exploring a haunted covered bridge in Greenfield, Everett provides viewers with vicarious experiences of the hidden and not-so-hidden gems of Massachusetts. “As we travel the 351 cities and towns of the Commonwealth, I am constantly amazed how many incredible stories each one holds,” he said. “It really is a testament to the ingenuity, creativity, resourcefulness and inventiveness of the people of Massachusetts, and it is one of the main reasons ‘Chronicle’ [celebrated] its 40th year on the air in 2022. Having the chance to visit their communities and tell their stories is a privilege.” A native of New York City, Everett first appreciated the charms of Massachusetts as a student at Tufts University. But his broadcasting career first took him on a detour through two other states. In 1984, he started out as a sports reporter and anchor at KSPN-TV in Aspen, Colorado, ultimately becoming the station’s news director before leaving in 1987. He then spent a few years as a general assignment reporter and weekday anchor on the evening and nighttime newscasts at WVIT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut. Everett joined WCVB’s NewsCenter 5 in 1990 as a general assignment reporter. Over the years, he has co-anchored midday, evening and 11 p.m. newscasts, served as WCVB’s senior correspondent for national events and breaking news, and regularly contributed to special news reports. He has won multiple Emmy Awards, including for his work on “Chronicle,” for reporting on subjects including education, Alzheimer’s disease and the recycling industry, and for hosting special programs, including one for the 125th anniversary of the Boston Pops. Everett’s reporting has also earned him National Headliner Awards, an Associated Press Award for Investigative Reporting and Documentary Reporting in 2012, and helped WCVB win an Edward Murrow Award for News Series and News Documentary in 2013. Everett also devotes time to charitable causes, including as a volunteer and board member for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, for which he received a 1992 Public Education Award and a 2006 Partners in Progress Award. He has been involved with Habitat for Humanity, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, the Boston Ballet, the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the Home for Little Wanderers, and Derby Academy. Everett has taught journalism and been a guest lecturer at Tufts, and has lectured at Boston College, Harvard Business School, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and other educational and community groups throughout New England.

Marc Ott has been leading the ICMA for the past six years. Previously, he served for almost nine years as city manager of Austin, Texas; six years as assistant city manager in Fort Worth, Texas; four years as city administrator in Rochester Hills, Michigan; seven years as assistant city manager, deputy city manager and then city manager in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and eight years in leadership and support roles in Grand Rapids and in Jackson, Michigan. Ott has a bachelor’s degree in management, with a concentration in economics, and a master’s degree in public administration, both from Oakland University in Michigan. He has also completed the Senior Executives Program in State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Ott has won numerous awards for his service, including the ICMA’s Award for Career Excellence. The National Forum for Black Public Administrators has honored him with a Marks of Excellence Award and its 2020 Hall of Fame Award.