SDEV Welcomes New Team Member, Maria Cercone

On May 4th, Maria Cercone joined the Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision Team! Maria is a lifelong resident of Metro Detroit. Maria was born in Detroit and has lived in Macomb her whole life. She has held positions as Director of Operations & Client Services, Support Specialist & Project Manager within the financial industry. Most recently, Maria returned to her family’s small business, Mario’s Meats, in Eastpointe where she revitalized operations. Maria has a knack for identifying inefficiencies and creating effective processes that can be easily adopted by a team. She graduated in 2013 from the University of Detroit Mercy with a Bachelor of Science & dual minor in Leadership & Psychology. She is currently taking courses at the Management and Strategy Institute for Lean Project Management and a Six Sigma Green Belt. Maria has joined the Healthy Air Program team as the Clean Diesel Initiative Project Manager. Maria will be working with cities and companies that operate heavy-duty trucks and equipment to help them speed the replacement of older, higher polluting diesel trucks and equipment with new. Newer trucks pollute less by producing fewer tailpipe emissions. This is important in Southwest Detroit because of the high levels of truck traffic on the Ambassador Bridge, on area roads, like Michigan Avenue, interstate highways (I-75, I-94, and I-96), and residential streets. The City of Detroit Anti-Idling Ordinance is another tool that was designed to help reduce diesel pollution. Cutting diesel emissions is important because diesel soot is linked to health concerns, including high blood pressure, asthma, and cancer.

“I wanted to be part of something that was bigger than myself and that could benefit a community,” said Maria as she further explained that her ongoing goal is to positively impact community health. We have a lot of good work to do in the next year and we are adapting as we have joined all nonprofits in going virtual due to COVID-19. We are aspiring to grow the impact of SDEV’s Clean Diesel Initiative by assisting more owner-operators and ports operators through 2021. “We want owner-operators and ports operators to know that they could get up to 45% of the cost of new equipment back through federal and state grants. So, you’re improving air quality and doing good business.”