by Len Lear

Longtime Chestnut Hill resident Mary Ann Boyer calls herself “an environmental nerd,” but others who know her prefer to call her a champion of the environment. 

In 2008 she received the Garden Club of America’s “Elizabeth Abernathy Hull Award” for outstanding contributions to early environmental education and the 2017 Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Distinguished Service Award for her leadership efforts to recruit a large volunteer group to conduct spring and fall plantings.

On May 7, 2025, in a ceremony at the Springfield Country Club in Delaware County, attended by about 100 admirers, Boyer was given the annual “Service to the Flock Award” by the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools Business Officer Association (PAISBOA), a collective of 180 independent schools in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

Ellen Kruger, a science teacher at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH), where Boyer taught, told PAISBOA, “I have seen firsthand the huge amount of behind-the-scenes work that Mary Ann puts into each meeting. … It’s not always easy to commit to an evening event, but I really look forward to the meetings, due in large part to Mary Ann’s unwavering commitment to helping PAISBOA schools become as sustainable as possible.” (Kruger’s tribute was read aloud at the award ceremony.)

Boyer grew up in Boyertown, Berks County, which was founded by and named after one of her ancestors who owned a country store. Now, it serves as a touristy Pennsylvania Dutch area. 

She graduated in 1984 as an English major from Skidmore College and moved to Boston to work for a consulting company. “It was very dry,” she said. “I did not like it.” 

“Then in 1988,” Boyer told the Local, “I went to a college football game in Amherst with two friends who had both gone to graduate school for environmental science. I always loved nature growing up in the country, but I did not know until then that this passion could be turned into a career. I was so excited when they explained that I then went to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (now the Yale School of the Environment) from 1988 to 1990 and got a masters in environmental science.”

While at Yale, Boyer also met attorney Chris Hall and the pair later married. He got a job with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia as a prosecutor, which brought them to this area. Boyer was hired as an environmental scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for eight years.

“I worked with people who were really passionate about the environment,” she said. “We evaluated environmental impact statements. I loved what I was doing, but I left to go into teaching.”

Boyer taught Germantown Friends School’s (GFS) middle school science for two years, at Schuylkill Valley Nature Center in outdoor education for a year, and at SCH Academy as an environmental science teacher for 13 years. “I saw the power of nature and of getting kids outdoors,” Boyer said. 

“But in 2014 I decided to do something else, took a business class, learned marketing and met Anne Sudduth, who had a business background. I had a teaching background, so we started a consulting business in 2015.”

Their company, Boyer Sudduth Environmental Consultants, works with schools and businesses to help them adopt more environmentally sustainable practices in their operations, institutional behavior, and curriculum. Most clients are private and parochial schools. “Our first client was SCH,” Boyer said. “We helped them reduce waste in the cafeteria.” 

In the past decade the firm’s clients have included Rosemont College, Abington Friends School, West Chester Friends School, The Shipley School, PAR Recycle Works (which trains formerly incarcerated people to deconstruct electronic waste), Reading High School, Philadelphia School District (in climate change education), Westtown School, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church and more. 

“We listen to the schools and what they want to change,”  Boyer said. “We have also had 60 interns from area colleges and graduate schools. Usually they work eight to 10 hours a week. Most are majoring or minoring in environmental science.” 

Hall is a judge in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and the couple has three adult children. Boyer, a member of the PAISBOA Sustainability group, is also a classically trained pianist who recently has been exploring jazz. “And I am not a vegetarian,” she said, “but I do eat a plant-forward diet; it’s better for the environment.”

For more information, visit boyersudduth.com. Len Lear can be reached at LenLear@chestnuthilllocal.com.