John K. Bullard Biography
John Bullard is President of the Sea Education Association (SEA) in Woods Hole. SEA teaches college students and others about the oceans with a 12 week SEA Semester. Students spend 6 weeks on campus learning Oceanography, Nautical Science, and Maritime Studies and then aboard one of two 135’ tall ships for 6 weeks sailing and doing research in the Atlantic or Pacific.
Prior to joining SEA, John Bullard served on Chancellor Jean MacCormack’s senior staff at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
From 1986 – 1992 John was mayor of the City of New Bedford. During his three terms he introduced community policing, recycling, AIDS prevention and other programs. He also brought the city into compliance with the Clean Water Act by planning and financing a secondary wastewater treatment plant. Fierce neighborhood opposition to the siting of the plant cost him re-election. He lost by 390 votes – the price of clean water.
In his service to New Bedford, John also led the revitalization of the waterfront historic district from 1974 to 1986. The area surrounding the Whaling Museum is now a National Historic Park and continues to serve the working waterfront. He also worked for the fishing industry as they faced the crisis of depleted stocks.
That work led him to Washington, where he joined the Clinton administration in 1993. As head of the first federal Office of Sustainable Development, John developed programs to assist fishing families in New England, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He also worked on the President’s Council on Sustainable Development developing policies to unite the goals of economic opportunity, environmental health and social equity. John’s work on sustainable communities led him back home in 1998 after completing a fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.
John earned his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude at Harvard in 1969. He received both a Master of Architecture and a Master of City Planning from M.I.T. in 1974. He has lectured widely and received numerous awards including an Honorary Master of Public Service from UMass Dartmouth.
John is active in many local organizations. He chairs the Mayor’s Sustainability Task Force and the SouthCoast Commuter Rail Task Force. He serves on the Boards of the Coalition for Buzzards Bay, the Massachusetts Ocean Partnership Fund and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
John has spent a lifetime on the water in sailing vessels. He has made three transatlantic passages and many off shore races, including national and world championships in the one-ton class. In 2007 with SEA Trustee Ned Cabot and two others, he sailed a J-46 to within 600 miles of the North Pole. He has sailed 5000 miles with SEA students. With his wife, Laurie, he has restored a 1965 Concordia yawl, which they cruise in the northeast. Laurie and John also have restored an 1845 Gothic Revival house in New Bedford, which has been their home since 1977. They have three children – Matthew, who lives with his wife Jody in Boise; Lexie, who lives with her husband, Kevin, in Pittsfield; and Toby, who lives with his wife, Jen, and children Madeleine and Wyatt, in Cohasset.
