Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy

Lisa (Joyce) Hollingsworth-Segedy was born in Louisville, Kentucky on July 19, 1959. Her parents were Thomas Joyce and Betty Bishop Joyce. She graduated from Newton County Comprehensive High School in Covington, Georgia in 1977. She earned a Bachelor of Science in geology from the University of West Georgia in 1981 and pursued graduate study in geology and hydrology from Georgia State University during the period 1985 to 1990, with research focusing on the link between hydrogeologic conditions and the occurrence of groundwater contamination at solid waste landfills.

Lisa’s research revealed widespread groundwater contamination from unlined landfills, leading to the early adoption of impermeable liners and leachate collection systems at solid waste disposal facilities by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. Her early career included managing and coordinating the Geology Laboratory at The College of Charleston, followed by a year at the Georgia Geologic Survey reorganizing, cataloging, and cross-referencing the technical files and geology library, during which she seized the opportunity to read the entire body of geologic literature held at the state.  She served as a staff member for the Georgia Floodplain Management Program, as well as various positions at geotechnical engineering consulting firms focused on building foundations, geotechnical investigations, and remediation planning for groundwater contamination sites. These early career positions provided her with practical knowledge and experience to serve as an effective and prolific dam removal project manager later in her career.

Lisa also followed a personal path in storytelling, attending Master Classes at East Tennessee State University, John Campbell Folk School, and at storytelling festivals. She has worked as a freelance performing artist, a storyteller-in-residence, a docent at a historic house museum and historic sites, and as a costumed interpreter for the National Park Service telling colonial-era stories on the Blue Ridge Parkway. She eventually applied her expertise in storytelling to a new professional purpose in grant writing and fundraising.

Lisa’s mid-career included a shift from private sector to public sector to allow her to balance career and family. She married, attended graduate school, and raised a family while spending 14 years with a regional planning agency that served 33 units of local government on the south and west fringe of Metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. Beginning as a staff planner and advancing to senior planner then director of the planning department, she applied her background in geology and hydrogeology to local government planning and zoning. She became a Registered Professional Geologist in Georgia and earned membership in the American Institute of Certified Planners. She represented the Chattahoochee-Flint planning region on the State of Georgia’s advisory council for the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa/Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Tri-State Water Study “ACT/ACF Water Wars”,  managed the first regional comprehensive plan in Georgia, participated in the statewide advisory committee that developed Georgia’s Environmental Planning Standards for groundwater recharge area protection, water supply watershed protection, protected river corridor standards, and mountain slope protection. She supervised the development of Georgia’s pilot Farmland Preservation Plan, facilitated the development of the first regional Hazardous Materials First Response Program, and was recognized by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs as a certified mediator for regional land use conflict resolution,

After Lisa was widowed with two elementary-aged children, she acted on the need to balance sole parenting with wage-earning. She pivoted to a sole proprietor consulting firm providing environmental and community planning, asset-based community development, grant writing, and continuing education training for planning commissioners. She relocated her family to southwestern Virginia, and supplemented consulting contracts with substitute teaching, freelance storytelling, and serving as a costumed interpreter for the National Park Service. Once the children were in college, she relocated to Kansas City where she remarried and was adjunct professor of geology and physical science at Metro Community College. 

When Lisa and husband Jim relocated to Pittsburgh, PA for Jim’s career, Lisa found her dream job with American Rivers in 2008. Since joining this national NGO, Lisa has removed 110 obsolete dams and reconnected more than 5000 miles of free-flowing river to benefit wildlife, restore fluvial function, reduce flood risk, increase public safety, and allow communities to reconnect to their river for community revitalization. She is planning to wrap up her professional career in 2029 after achieving the goals of:

  • Setting Pennsylvania on a trajectory of 100% dam-free PA Water Trails
  • Seeing the passage of the federal Ohio River Restoration Program Act
  • Establishing proof-of-concept for removing low head dams at gas-fire retrofit power stations
  • Removing the Wells Lock #3 Dam from the Little Kanawha River in West Virginia to reconnect 1500 miles of aquatic habitat, and
  • Completing the design and permitting of the removal of the Dock Street Dam on the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, the nation’s deadliest low head dam.

Lisa attributes her strong interest in conservation to several events that caught her attention and shaped her professional aspirations including:

  • Seeing the Cuyahoga River on fire in news reels in the late 1960’s
  • Participating in the first Earth Day event in her community, cleanup of a trash dump at the edge of the elementary school playground
  • Passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act
  • Flying in a Cessna 152 with her grandfather over their community and seeing how the dam that created the lake in their subdivision starved the river of flow downstream of the dam, and
  • Passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“Superfund”) that required cleanup of extraction operations and chemical disposal

    Lisa credits several people for the positive influence on her personal and professional development throughout her life including:

    • Her parents who indulged and nurtured her fascination with rocks by taking the family on numerous rock-collecting adventures around the Southeast U.S.
    • Rachel Carson
    • 4-H leadership training and project activities
    • Tommy Scarborough, her high school social studies teacher who discovered geology too late in his college career to switch majors
    • Bob Atkins, an early mentor/supervisor as a geology intern at the Georgia Geologic Survey
    • Charles Cressler, a U.S. Geological Survey principal investigator for studies of fracture hydrogeology in the Georgia Piedmont

    Over decades Lisa accumulated a wide range of job skills enabling her to work in several different capacities in the conservation field including:

    • Art in Education Performer for Virginia Theatre Arts
    • Storytelling Artist-in-Residence for the Stokes County, North Carolina, Arts Council
    • Costumed Interpreter for the National Park Service at Mabry Mill and Rocky Knob Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway
    • Executive Producer of the Award-Winning Documentary, Chattahoochee River: Muddied Waters, Clear Solutions
    • Adjunct Professor of geology and physical science for the Community College of Charleston and Metro Community College in Kansas City, Missouri
    • Program Specialist, Docent, and Instructor for the Virginia Tech Division of Outreach and International Affairs
    • Technical Editor for the US EPA Region 4 Superfund Program
    • Geologist/Field Supervisor for Geotechnical Engineering Firms
    • Geologist for the Georgia Geological Survey
    • Associate for the Georgia Floodplain Management Program
    • President and Sole Proprietor of Community & Environment, Inc. (Her Environmental Planning and Community Engagement Consulting Firm) and later senior planner for The Planning Guild with Jim Segedy
    • Planning Director of the Chattahoochee-Flint Regional Development Center in Georgia
    • State-Approved Mediator for Land Use Conflict Resolution in Georgia
    • Assisted in the Development of Georgia’s Environmental Planning Standards
    • Aided in Establishing Georgia’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Program

    Although many years of Lisa’s professional work was outside of Pennsylvania, she now lives and works here. Fittingly, the Commonwealth is greatly benefitting from her extensive conservation work experience, skills, and knowledge she is applying in her current role as Director of River Restoration for American Rivers.

    With American Rivers in Pennsylvania since October 2008, she had a major role in the following river conservation initiatives:

    • Receipt of the first $1 million dollar foundation gift for dam removal and river restoration
    • Receipt of the $5 million dollar gift from the S. Kent Rockwell Foundation for dam removal and river restoration
    • Removal of 110 dams reconnecting approximately 5000 miles of aquatic habitat and eliminating safety hazards on waterways
    • Restoring the standing of the Ohio River Basis Fish Habitat Partnership within the National Fish Habitat Partnership
    • Strong advocacy for state legislation to improve public safety on Pennsylvania waterways by eliminating low head dams
    • Leading the development of the American River’s first GIS strategic prioritization tool
    • Incorporating large woody debris and removing stream barriers on water trails in Pennsylvania
    • Targeting watersheds with acid mine discharge treatment success for aquatic habitat restoration
    • Removing dams at coal-fired electric power stations along rivers as part of gas-fired retrofits
    • Piloting the transfer of development rights for flood risk reduction

    Lisa served in many leadership positions as a volunteer in a wide variety of conservation and community organizations including:

    • Co-chair of the Healthy Waters Steering Committee, a coalition of nonprofit organizations dedicated to the passage of the Ohio River Restoration Program
    • Ohio River Basin Fish Habitat Partnership Steering Committee, Implementation Committee, and Science and Data Committee
    • Ohio River Basin NGO Coalition Steering Committee
    • American Planning Association: service on Pennsylvania Chapter Awards Committee, member of committees developing National Policy Guides for Solid Waste Management, Water Management, Food Security, and Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery 
    • Georgia Planning Association Board of Directors: Chair of Awards Committee, Chair of Annual Conference Planning, Regional Director, Vice President for Programs, President
    • Georgia Association of Zoning Directors Board of Directors
    • Georgia Recycling Coalition Board of Directors
    • Carroll County, Georgia Farmland and Rural Preservation Coalition Board of Directors
    • Round the Mountain Southwest Virginia Artisan Network Steering Committee
    • MHY Family Services, Inc. Board of Directors
    • Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department

    Lisa enjoys many hobbies, including rock collecting, lapidary, wire-wrap jewelry making, crocheting, reading, theatre, native-species gardening, kayaking, hiking, and home improvement projects.

    Lisa is married to Jim Segedy and has two adult children, Rob Hollingsworth (spouse Nichole) and Lindsay Hollingsworth, and an adult stepson, Dave Segedy. She considers her husband “her rock”, who supports her in all her professional and personal endeavors.

    Lisa highly values the professional relationships she has with many colleagues. In particular, she singles out Bob Atkins, her special mentor-now colleague who has been a close friend for over 50 years. They talk frequently.

    Lisa has traveled to 45 of 50 states, Canada, the Caribbean, Australia, Mexico, and the Netherlands.

    Her most interesting fascination is storytelling. She has complete storytelling master classes at the John Campbell Folk School and at East Tennessee State University. She is proud that quite possibly she created the world’s only dam removal puppet show. She uses the show to engage communities in understanding the hazards of dams and how removing them provides ecological lift for aquatic life and makes communities safer. Also, she commissioned a writer and illustrator to create a coloring book about dam removal in the Susquehanna River.

    I first met Lisa after her excellent panel presentation about the American Rivers Dam Removal Program at the 2025 PA Association of Environmental Professionals Annual Meeting at Penn State in mid-September 2025. I was so impressed by her presentation and her pioneering conservation background that I proposed that we work together to gather the information and write her conservation story and she agreed.

     

    Prepared by Wayne W. Kober and Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy from telephone conversations and written information and mark-ups of drafts of her story.