Meet Our New Team Member: Allison Madison
The WI Salt Wise program is now officially a part of CARPC, and we are excited to welcome Program Manager Allison Madison to the team. Allison brings an environmental science background, a passion for education, and ample experience engaging stakeholders and the public to the agency. Together we look forward to furthering our collaborative water quality planning work and providing another form of assistance to communities in the Dane County region and beyond.
Staff Trivia: Allison’s impressive resume includes educational songwriting, including an original composition about soil.
Allison Madison has served as the Sustainability and Development Coordinator for WI Salt Wise since 2020, when the small Madison-area partnership first hired staff to begin growing the program. Although Covid delayed the program’s planned roll out, it had the positive effect of removing geographic barriers, allowing Salt Wise to expand its focus statewide. First housed temporarily within the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, the Salt Wise program and Allison’s position moved to CARPC this year to better connect with other Wisconsin RPCs and MS4 groups.
As a CARPC staff member, Allison will continue to run, grow, and develop the Salt Wise program independently. She looks forward to learning from and getting to know the CARPC team as well as deepening her understanding of planning and other work done by the agency. She’s particularly excited about collaborating on chlorides and other environmental resource and water quality issues and participating in initiatives that aim to create broad, lasting change through stakeholder engagement.
Staff Trivia: Following her passion for outdoor activities, Allison has bike packed across the continental divide and won an adventure race – trekking through the woods, biking, and paddling with only a map and compass to guide her.
Allison is a Wisconsin native who grew up in the northwestern community of Bloomer (the jump rope capital of the world!). She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and environmental science at St. Olaf’s College, followed by a joint master’s in environmental resources and soil science from UW-Madison. She later earned her teaching license through an independent program.
Allison began her teaching career leading environmental education programs in national parks and wilderness areas from the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia to the Olympic Mountains in Washington. From there she moved to classroom teaching in Tomah and Milwaukee before teaching high school chemistry, biology, and environmental science in Middleton.
Outside of work, Allison enjoys cooking, eating, and sharing meals with friends, along with reading and line dancing. She also likes to hike, run, and bike, including going on multi-week bike packing and bike touring trips and competing in adventure races. For pets, Allison is neither Team Dogs nor Team Cats, but has successfully cared for a kombucha scoby long term.