President and Founder of Plisko Sustainable Solutions, LLC, Joan Plisko, PhD, is an award-winning environmental health and sustainability director, strategic planner, researcher, and educator. Joan’s life work is based on the premise that people and the environment in which they live, work, play, and pray can become healthier and more resilient with knowledge, assistance, and recognition.

Joan began her immersion and love for the outdoor world as a child playing in the woods behind her Piscataway, New Jersey home. Later in life, during graduate school in Charlottesville, Virginia, Joan began her life-long love of hiking, camping, and traveling. Steeped in the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Joan realized that her life’s work would revolve around the natural world – which is how she ended up studying environmental systems engineering at Clemson University. It was there she first researched and studied the impacts of household hazardous materials on people and the natural world.

Joan spent time working in the non-profit and environmental consulting sector before her ten-year tenure as a director at Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment. There Joan provided technical assistance, networking, and award programs for healthcare facilities across the state.

Launched full time in 2015, Plisko Sustainable Solutions, LLC is the culmination of Joan’s educational, experiential, and volunteer efforts. Her anchor client is Pearlstone, a 180-acre retreat, farm, and education center in Maryland that is part of the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore. As the Community Sustainability Director at Pearlstone, Joan weaves the tenets of environmental health, wellbeing, and sustainability into the everyday operations of the organization.

A life learner, avid gardener, community leader, mentor, yoga enthusiast, and multi-tasking mom of two, Joan enjoys traveling and has been to all 50 states! She has a Ph.D. in Environmental Systems Engineering from Clemson University, an M.E. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a B.S. in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University.