Biography

Melinda Pagliarello is Managing Director, Environmental Affairs at ACI-NA. In her role, she has primary responsibility for ACI-NA’s activities in aviation environmental matters and sustainability. She coordinates members’ responses and represents airport interests on international and federal agency actions, programs, requirements, research and regulations affecting environmental matters for airports in North America. In her role as Environmental Affairs Committee Secretary, she works to facilitate member engagement and learning through her work overseeing nine active working groups, as well as ad hoc task groups.

Using her varied background, Melinda works to incorporate knowledge from other disciplines, specifically airport capital development and funding, as well as Federal agency priorities, to enable environmental and sustainability initiatives at airports. Melinda is also responsible for a number of cross-cutting topics at ACI-NA, including leading the overall coordination of ACI-NA’s work on issues related to PFAS and airports. She is also leading efforts related to ESG and airports; airport climate change resiliency; and the airport role in Sustainable Aviation Fuels.

Specific areas of focus within Melinda’s portfolio also include airport noise; land use policies; air quality, including oversight of the Airport Carbon Accreditation program in North America; water quality; wildlife and natural resources management; and the range of environmental regulations, policies, and procedures that affect airports in the U.S. and Canada.

Melinda has nearly 20 years of experience in the airport industry. Prior to joining ACI-NA in 2017, she previously worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, LeighFisher, PBS&J, and Landrum & Brown. Her varied background includes work in strategic/ business planning, land use planning, financial feasibility studies, benefit-cost analyses, as well as environmental and master planning. She has worked with a range of clients at the federal (FAA and TSA) and state/local levels, from large hubs to general aviation airports.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and Russian studies from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and a master’s degree in Transportation Policy from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.