As the Sustainability Manager for the City of Durham and Durham County, Tobin Freid assists city and county employees, businesses, and residents in implementing environmentally sustainable practices, including implementing the City-County Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Plan. Some of her major projects include overseeing a $4.5 million Performance Contract for energy and water upgrades county buildings, partnering with regional local governments to create a climate resilience assessment, creating and implementing a residential energy retrofit program for over 700 homes, doubling the number of public trees planted annually, managing the city and county’s public electric vehicle charging stations, developing and managing the Bull City Workplace Challenge, and conducting an annual greenhouse gas inventory for government operations and the community.

Prior to becoming Durham’s Sustainability Manager in 2008, Tobin was the Project Coordinator for Energy and Environment at the Triangle J Council of Governments where she worked on transportation, alternative fuels, and energy projects, including as the Triangle Clean Cities Coordinator.

Tobin's first job out of undergrad was as a Program Analyst at the US Department of Energy in the Office of Environmental Management.  In this position, she coordinated the Materials in Inventory Initiative, a Department-wide effort to identify and assess the disposition of nuclear and non-nuclear materials held by the Department after the end of the Cold War. This included directing more than 200 people at 100 sites across the county to gather and analyze data, write the final report, and develop recommendations.

As part of her graduate studies, Tobin worked for two summers with COCABO, an organic chocolate cooperative in Panama.  Much of her work was focused on increasing the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of cocoa production Panama and Costa Rica.

In her spare time, Tobin volunteers as an usher at Duke Men’s Basketball games and is on the Board for Don’t Waste Durham, a local organization dedicated to a waste-free Durham (and beyond). She also is active in the Jane Austen Society of North America and is on the planning committee for the Jane Austen Summer Program that takes place every June in Chapel Hill.