Joyce Mercado

Joyce Mercado believes you don’t have to be a full-time environmental activist to make a meaningful difference on climate change.

For more than 20 years, Joyce has been putting that belief into practice in her community of Alameda, California. While working full-time as a Technical Sales Manager for IBM and raising two children with her husband, David, she became increasingly involved in local climate protection efforts.

Joyce is a trained Climate Reality Project Leader, a founding board member of Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA), and a longtime community climate advocate. She created the Alameda Climate Protection Checklist and Resource List, a collection of 70 actions individuals can take to help protect the climate, and has given dozens of presentations on climate protection. The City of Alameda has recognized her for her climate leadership.

Today, Joyce writes a monthly climate protection column for the local press, where she focuses on practical actions people can take to reduce emissions and protect the climate. She is also a longtime Rotarian and has served as President and Community Service Chair of the Rotary Club of Alameda.

Her professional background is unusual for a climate activist. Joyce earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and spent two years studying plasma physics at Princeton University before deciding that academic physics wasn’t for her. She then began a 35-year career with IBM.

After retiring, Joyce turned her attention to helping more people become climate leaders. She wrote "Save the Planet in Your Spare Time" so that others could learn from her experience—and discover that they, too, can make a difference, even with a busy life.

Joyce lives in Alameda, California, with her husband, David.