LEADERSHIP BASED ON EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE
Before election to the Town Council in 2018, Lew was vice chair of the Town’s Planning and Zoning Commission and was president of the Citizens’ Association in the South End, where he and his wife, Kathleen, live. He is a longtime board member of the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews and numerous Town-serving projects and non-profit organizations.
But Lew earned his reputation for innovation and persistence earlier.
In September 2010, when Lew took over the South Florida Science Center (now the Cox Science Center and Aquarium), it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Working with Science Center Trustees, Lew’s team moved quickly to develop collaborative relationships with public and private partners. In the next decade, attendance rose to 275,000 and revenues swelled to $6.8 million.
Along the way, the South Florida Science Center became the regional cornerstone for informal science education and science literacy, providing more than half a million school children with STEM learning skills. This success as an educational and entertainment hub attracted significant donor support, as well, setting in motion the current Cox Science Center and Aquarium capital campaign that has raised more than $135 million to date.
None of this was a surprise to those who knew Lew’s education and career history.
After earning degrees from Princeton and Harvard, he honed his leadership skills in Massachusetts state government. He ran for public office in Massachusetts and went on to work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as Director of Management Systems and Evaluation under President Ronald Reagan and later as Associate Administrator for Communications under President George H.W. Bush. In the private sector, he served as Vice President of Communications and Environmental Affairs for Waste Management, Vice President of Communications for the American Medical Association, and President of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. In 2005, he headed an expedition to southeastern Montana, where his team unearthed an important T. Rex fossil skeleton.
