Nora Bredes
Nora Bredes is director of the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership at the University of Rochester. The Center celebrates women’s achievements and analyzes barriers to their progress. The Center also conducts biennial surveys of the number of women serving in New York’s local governments and sponsors the Women Leading Local Governments Initiative, an effort that links women elected to New York’s city and county governments to each other and to public policy experts and resources.
Nora came to the Anthony Center in 1999 after more than twenty years working in government and for not-for-profit organizations. She served as a Suffolk County (NY) legislator from 1992-1998. Her legislative accomplishments include winning passage of comprehensive anti-tobacco measures, improving protections for victims of domestic violence and sponsoring the Greenways Bond Act, a measure that secured $62 million to preserve Suffolk's open space, parks and farmlands.
In 1996, Nora was a candidate for U.S. Congress in NY1, one of four DCCC-targeted races in New York State that year. She won endorsements from labor unions, gun control groups, the Sierra Club, pro-choice women’s organizations and two of the NY-metropolitan area’s major newspapers, Newsday and the New York Times. In its endorsement, the Times wrote: “ … Nora Bredes is a reform-minded member of the Suffolk County Legislature who has proved a tenacious and effective advocate for the causes she pursues.” (NYT Editorial, 10/29/96.)
Before becoming a legislator, Bredes directed the statewide environmental group, the New York League of Conservation Voters. From 1980-1989 she led the Shoreham Opponents Coalition in a successful effort to prevent operation of the Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. The grassroots campaign against the nuclear plant eventually won support from a majority of Long Island’s citizens and elected officials. In 1987, NYS Governor Cuomo appointed Nora as a founding trustee of the Long Island Power Authority.
Nora has appeared on CNN, PBS, CBS Sunday Morning, ABC News and local television and radio programs. She has been featured in Good Housekeeping Magazine, New York Woman, Newsday, and the New York Times. Her commentaries on politics and public policy appear in Newsday and Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle.
Her career has earned her recognition and honors, including: Champion for Public Health (1995/1998, American Cancer Society); Woman of the Year in Government (1995, Times-Beacon Newspapers); Environmentalist of the Year (1994, LI Sierra Club); NYS Environmentalist of the Year (Environmental Advocates, 1986) and, one of ten National Grassroots Hero named by Mother Jones Magazine in 1990.
On Long Island and in Rochester, she has served on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations, including NYS Environmental Advocates, the Mid-Suffolk NOW, the Rochester Medical Center’s Women’s Health Partnership and the Harley School. From 2005 to 2007, she was president of the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, a 150-year old congregation of 800 members. As president she helped to guide the congregation through a transition to new ministers and a reformed governance structure.
Nora earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and completed graduate work at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. She and her husband, Jack Huttner, have three sons.