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The League of Women Voters of Winchester awarded its 14th Civic Leadership Award to Susan McPhee, the town’s energy conservation coordinator of over 17 years and CEO of Spark Energy Conservation during a ceremony at the Lynch Elementary School on Sept. 22.
McPhee has been credited with saving Winchester over $9 million in grants to support energy conservation efforts; helped coordinate WinPower, a renewable electricity program for Winchester residents; founded the Winchester Senior Energy Grants program; and advocated for the town to establish and meet its energy conservation and climate resilience goals.
McPhee said Winchester has led the state in sustainability efforts as one of the first towns to become a green community.
“You only make progress in small chunks and then they add up,” she said.
The Civic Leadership Award is given annually to someone who has had an impact on civic life over several years, said Caroline Shamu, who hosted the event. Other criteria include collaboration, inclusivity and tangible effects.
“This award recognizes idealism, intelligence, compassion and the ability to shape public discourse in a civil manner,” Shamu said at the ceremony.
Colleagues and family members described McPhee as a connector, a roadrunner and “someone who just gets things done.”
“Like many people, Susan has a strong desire to help fix our planet,” said Carolyn Starrett, founder of Sustainable Winchester, who likened McPhee to a rare species. “But unlike many, she is a person of action with no patience for hand wringing or doom saying.”
McPhee’s journey did not start in sustainability. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Art and Architecture from Brown University in 1982. After, she worked as a buyer for Macy’s for 15 years before working at ANTAR, a national organization that advocates for Australia’s First Nations Peoples.
Her foray into sustainability began at Winchester’s Lincoln Elementary School in 2008, Shamu said at the ceremony. There, McPhee learned about Winchester’s solar challenge, volunteered to co-chair the effort and exceeded the community’s goals through the campaign — the “rest is history,” Shamu said.
Since 2009, McPhee has worked as Winchester energy conservation coordinator and CEO for Spark Energy Conservation, which provides energy conservation work for seven Massachusetts towns, according to her LinkedIn.
Her collaborators credited her for several initiatives. At Wright-Locke Farm, she established a chick program, where families take care of baby chickens until they are old enough to live on the farm, helped the farm add solar to two of its barns and other sustainable infrastructure and implemented a speaker series on sustainability. She is credited with bringing solar installation to local homes, lowering energy bills and helping Winchester become a green community.
David Judelson, a member of Wright-Locke Farm’s board of directors, said McPhee served as a role model with a chicken coop in her own backyard, solar for her own home and owning an electric vehicle.
Select Board member Michelle Prior said the town has benefited from McPhee’s “creativity, ideas, collaboration and perseverance” and read a proclamation on the Select Board’s behalf congratulating her.
“Her unwavering commitment to securing the resources and funding necessary to create positive, meaningful and lasting improvements for the community has earned her the distinction of being selected,” Prior said, reading from the proclamation.
McPhee’s two children, Kate and Will, also spoke at the ceremony. Kate McPhee said the qualities that won her mother this award go beyond her professional and volunteer roles and apply to her personal life as well.
“She creates a virtuous cycle in those around her,” Kate McPhee said. “You do not get to just sit around and be mad at the world if you aren’t at least trying to change it.”
The event began with a tour of the new Lynch Elementary School, which is now about a year old, before the ceremony commenced. The building is a net-zero energy space, which Shamu said remains consistent with the event’s sustainability themes.
The League of Women Voters began in 1888 originally as the Winchester Equal Suffrage League before switching to the League of Women Voters after the 19th Amendment passed in 1920. It currently serves to encourage civic engagement and advocate for public policy issues through events like candidates forums, debates, voter registration and community recognition, like the Civic Leadership Award.
McPhee said the town’s future sustainability measures should include making the Muraco Elementary School a net zero school and pushing residents towards sustainable home infrastructure, like installing heat pumps. She said Winchester is a town that’s “punched above our weight class” in terms of sustainability.
“In general, people are fearful about energy matters,” McPhee said. “So you just have to roll up your sleeves and dig in.”
Crystal Yormick is a 2026 graduate of Boston University, where she studied journalism. She is currently freelancing for local news outlets.
