Janet Pritchard
Director of Water Infrastructure Policy
Janet is a lawyer with broad experience in regulatory law and policy, policy advocacy, and strategic program development. She leads EPIC’s water policy work. Janet has over 25 years of experience in environmental regulatory policy; resource management, infrastructure, and freshwater issues; community resource rights; and cultivating teams of multi-disciplinary professionals to deliver pragmatic policy solutions. She has advised communities, environmental advocates, and government decision makers in the United Kingdom, European Union, Ghana, China, and the United States. At EPIC, Janet leads a team of lawyers, policy analysts, and data scientists holding graduate and doctoral degrees in law, public health, environmental policy, engineering, and data science. The team delivers evidence-based policy analysis to identify how to upgrade and strengthen water infrastructure, with a focus on how access to and distribution of federal and state water infrastructure funds can be improved, particularly for small and under-resourced communities.
Get to Know Me Further
Thirty years ago, at law school, I anticipated working on civil rights, democracy, or public benefits issues. During an extended break when my three children were young, I became increasingly concerned about climate change and biodiversity loss. This led me to instead take up environmental law when I resumed my career. By focusing on questions of equity, public trust, and good governance within environmental policy, I integrate democracy, civil rights, and public benefits issues into my environmental work. My appreciation for how nature affects our well-being has only grown through the years. My Wisconsin childhood was enriched by the exuberance of sailing and snowman-building as well as the quietude of campfires and canoeing. More recently, my fascination with how trees affect mental and physical health undergirds my advocacy to expand Milwaukee’s urban canopy, and I’ve gotten much better at pausing work and other demands to prioritize daily walks to Lake Michigan or bike rides along the Milwaukee River -- the two shores that bound the community where I live.