Life takes her from coast, to coast

KINGSTON - When Leslie-Ann McGee was a little girl growing up in Cohasset, she would splash around in tidal pools, delighting in the squiggly creatures she'd find there, loving every second of exploration.

"My mother's side of the family were fishermen; a lot of them still are," said McGee, sitting at a picnic table at Gray's Beach recently. "My entire life was linked with the coast."

This week, McGee's connection to the coast will be formalized in a way she never expected: On Thursday she will take over as director of the Office of Coastal Zone Management, in the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

She replaces Susan Snow-Cotter, who died of breast cancer in December.

McGee - a marine biologist with a master's degree from Duke University - comes to the job with plenty of experience, most recently as head of the Essential Fish Habitat and Marine Protected Areas Program at the New England Fishery Management Council. Before that, she did a stint as a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Long Beach, Calif.

"This job is a natural transition," she said. "Having worked for 10 years focusing on fisheries, this will allow me to take a broader look at coastal perspectives."

And it's quite a lot of coast to cover: Massachusetts has approximately 1,500 miles of ocean beaches, bays, and estuaries.

The most serious issue facing coastal communities is global warming, and, she says, "now it's getting the attention it deserves." A major portion of her job will focus on "what happens when sea levels rise."

She's aware of the allure of living on the coast, having grown up on it and now living close by in Kingston. But she knows her job is about balancing the public's desire to be close to the coast and her need to help protect it. "We need to balance the needs of the environment and humans," she said.

The job includes managing erosion, protecting water quality, and managing invasive species in state coastal waters, said Ian Bowles, energy and environmental affairs secretary, in appointing McGee to the position.

"Her enthusiasm, scientific expertise, and problem-solving pragmatism will be invaluable," Bowles said.

Evidence of that pragmatism is exhibited in the answering of what might appear to be a simple question. Asked to grade the current state of the state's coast, McGee countered with a series of questions of her own.

"Sorry," she said. "That's my analytical mind."

She hopes in her tenure the grade will be an A-plus, she said, adding, "In general, the coast is much, much cleaner than it's ever been." Pointing to houses near Gray's Beach, she notes that the area was "sewered" in just the past few years, making a big difference in water quality.

One job challenge will be getting used to how this job differs from her more science-intensive research posts.

"It's about entering the visioning process," she said. "It's local and state authorities asking answerable questions about what we want the coast to look like, what kind of things will be allowed there. I'm here to serve the public; we're stewards of these resources so we have to ask society what do you want us to look at."

She said coastal policies are 10 years old and need to be reexamined. Now before the Legislature is a proposal to allow more proactive management of Massachusetts ocean resources by authorizing state agencies to develop an ocean management plan.

The bill, Bowles's office said, was originally sponsored by former governor Mitt Romney and state Senator Robert O'Leary last year and is one of the first of its kind in the nation.

Without question, McGee said, her interest in, and love of, the coast and coastal waters comes from her upbringing. She took marine biology at Cohasset High School and remembers donning waders in midwinter to explore Little Harbor. In summer, she said, people would drive to Cohasset to explore a sandbar that was laid bare at low tide.

"When I was a kid, we had a tuna fleet in Cohasset Harbor," she said. "People would come from miles around to see these giant blue fin tuna that fishermen would hang out on the docks."

The global economy changed that as foreign fishing forced aside the locals, she said, relegating a quaint town tradition to legend.

McGee and her husband, Dan Shropshire, have two children, ages 4 and 8, in whom McGee hopes to instill a love of the coast and the sea. "I'm not sure if they'll grow up to be marine biologists, but that doesn't matter," she said. "They're learning about the ocean."

To McGee, nothing is more peaceful than listening to rigging on boats in the water banging rhythmically against the masts.

"It's like a symphony," she said. "That sound is the most calming thing to me."

Paul Kandarian can be reached at Kandarian@globe.com.