Well, I spent 30 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a federal civil servant, and retired in 2003. It was at just about that time that former Mayor Daley of Chicago called a group of U.S. and Canadian mayors together and basically said that he felt that cities had a huge stake in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence but generally were not consulted much on decision-making and policy-making on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence. He felt that cities should have a bigger say. Rather than doing that one city at a time, they should band together. That was the thinking behind the whole organization: to give cities a seat at Great Lakes and St. Lawrence decision-making tables, to create a best practices network among cities, and to travel to Ottawa and Washington to advocate for the cities.
We started with 15 or 20 cities. Actually, there had been a previous organization called the International Association of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Mayors. We merged together and focused on water quality, water quantity, and waterfront vitality, but we have expanded to much more of a sustainability agenda.
We have a budget of about $700,000 a year. We started out at $125,000 and have grown slowly. About half of that comes from membership dues, and then the other half from government and foundation grants, so it's about fifty-fifty.
We have two full-time employees in Chicago and one part-time. The Quebec government provides us with an intern. Then we have three part-time contract employees here in Canada: one in Ottawa, one in Montreal, and one in Quebec City. We had one in Toronto until recently, but Environment Minister Bradley hired her away from us, so we're down to three.