Rebecca Martin brings over 20 years of expertise in creating impactful campaigns and initiatives through coalition-building, collaborative strategies, and targeted communications. Originally from Maine, Rebecca moved to the Hudson Valley in 2003, where her commitment to civic engagement and community empowerment took root.

In Kingston, she co-founded KingstonCitizens.org to help residents better understand local government processes. Her leadership has spearheaded hundreds of initiatives, including a regional coalition to block Niagara Bottling Company’s bid to purchase a significant share of Kingston’s municipal water supply. Through public education, strategic planning, and community organizing, Rebecca and her team forced the company to withdraw its proposal in just five months. She followed this success by leading a Water Powers Referendum campaign, which passed by a landslide and amended Kingston’s City Charter to ensure public oversight of water sales outside city limits.

As Executive Director of the Kingston Land Trust, Rebecca established nationally recognized urban land trust programs, including initiatives for urban agriculture, rail trail development, and the preservation of African-American historical sites in Kingston. The Land Trust Alliance lauded her work as a “National Model” for engaging the community in protecting and utilizing open spaces.

At Hudson Riverkeeper, New York State’s leading clean water advocate, Rebecca served as Campaign Manager and Director of Community Partnerships. She built a geographic grassroots organizing platform with her team, co-created the youth-led Water Justice Lab in Troy, NH, and helped establish the Hudson 7. This groundbreaking intermunicipal council, formed by seven municipalities in Ulster and Dutchess Counties, safeguards the Hudson River as a drinking water source for more than 100,000 residents.

Rebecca is project manager of the groundbreaking report, “The Threat of Landfill Leachate to Drinking Water in Hudson and Mohawk Rivers” known as the Leachate Loophole, a project of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers Leachate Collaborative.  The report reveals the regulatory gaps that allows the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers – including areas used as drinking water supplies – to be routinely polluted by landfill leachate.