Expert from Manor Township honored for 37-year career with American Lung Association

Long before Kevin Stewart received the American Lung Association’s top honor for service, he was a freshman at Lancaster Catholic High School, celebrating the nation’s first Earth Day in 1970.

That year, the Environmental Protection Agency was newly created — a bipartisan effort, Stewart noted.

He remembers his teacher saying to the students that maybe some of them would end up going into environment-related fields.

That teacher was right. Over his 37-year career, the now 68-year-old’s work has centered on issues of air quality and health, both indoors and outdoors.

Over the years, the association’s national director of environmental health for advocacy and public policy, Stewart has worn many hats — and a few costumes.

He’s dressed up as the Grim Reaper a few times for anti-smoking events, a costume that included a real scythe — though the blade’s edge was covered in duct tape, he said.

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And at a Halloween event in a mall, where representatives of public service organizations often wore costumes, Stewart dressed as Radon Man and handed out radon test kits. The costume, which included a cape and mask, was thrown together from things in the office, he said.

A resident of Manor Township, Stewart is a member of the Indoor Environments Association board of directors, and serves on the AARST Consortium on National Radon Standards’ Executive Stakeholder Committee, according to the American Lung Association. The Indoor Environments Association is the new name for AARST, the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists.

And on June 28, he received the association’s 2024 Hoyt E. Dearholt Distinguished Professional Service Award. Bestowed on individuals who made “significant and lasting contributions” during their careers at the organization, the award is named for Wisconsin tuberculosis pioneer Dearholt, American Lung Association spokesperson Valerie Gleason said.

“It wasn’t something that I expected ... there are many people in our organization who achieve so much in the course of their work, that it really was an unexpected honor to be singled out,” Stewart said.

In his remarks at the awards ceremony, Stewart thanked his wife and their two adult children for their roles in supporting and motivating him, he said.

After graduating from Princeton University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, Stewart volunteered in the Peace Corps in Ghana for 3 1/2 years. He taught math and science at Ghana National College, he said, and then worked on a forest management project with the Ghana Forestry Department and the United Nations. Stewart was involved in helping people get better charcoal yields in order to waste less wood, he said.

But about a decade later, he saw an advertisement posted in one of LNP | LancasterOnline’s predecessors. The American Lung Association of Lancaster County was looking for a director of environmental and occupational health.

“That sounded like a good way to both use some of my technical background, but also to be of service to people, to protect their lung health and save their lives from lung disease,” Stewart said.

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Translating the science

In 1987, the Lancaster County native began his career at what was then the American Lung Association of Lancaster County.

At the time, there was a lot of interest in the issue of radon gas in homes, Stewart said, which meant the association’s local office needed more staff to handle the public’s demand for information and testing.

Stewart was an early proponent of radon testing and mitigation, the association said, and has spent decades managing grant-funded programs to mitigate radon. He also helped develop the U.S. National Radon Action Plan, a collaboration between the EPA, the association and other groups.

Stewart has distributed more than 200,000 radon test kits, probably saving thousands of lives, said Deb Brown, the association’s chief mission officer.

When Stewart started at Lancaster County’s American Lung Association affiliate — which over a series of mergers has been folded into the national organization — dealing with the public on radon made up 90 percent of his work, he said.

But he later branched out into other issues, like secondhand smoke, he said — he helped businesses in the ‘80s and ‘90s transition to being smoke free. Back then, before he worked on computers routinely, he had a file of index cards that he used to keep track of his work with the different businesses, Stewart said. He also gave testimony in Harrisburg to advocate for stronger secondhand smoke laws.

Stewart’s work has included advocating for stronger air quality standards on ozone and particle pollution, and he’s testified before the EPA more times than he can remember, Stewart said.

Stewart has long been involved in the association’s State of the Air report, which began in 2000. The report analyzes America’s air quality, and based on levels of ozone and particle pollution, offers grades and rankings for locations across the country.

Stewart is instrumental in the report, Brown said. Stewart is involved in analyzing the data and looking for errors, Brown said, but also plays a key role in communicating the messages of the report. Stewart probably does the most media on the State of the Air, Brown said. And she praised his ability to explain complicated issues — when a complex question comes in, Stewart is the first person she calls, Brown said.

“He understands topics very clearly and very well, and he has the ability to translate to, you know, a variety of audiences so that it’s easily understandable and people get a really strong sense of really what’s at stake,” said William Barrett, senior director of advocacy and clean air at the association and a colleague of Stewart.

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‘He’s just incredible’

A person with a self-professed appreciation for the natural world, Stewart collected bugs in his youth, and these days enjoys looking at the sky through his telescope.

“I like to show different sights to people who aren’t familiar with looking through a telescope,” Stewart said. “People are certainly very excited when they see the craters on the moon or the rings of Saturn.”

When not working, Stewart also helps his wife with yard work, and with canning fruits and vegetables, he said. The two of them also enjoy hiking.

Stewart is also a fan of science fiction, including “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Trek.”

Those who know Stewart well said he’s a kind person with a sense of humor.

Robert K. Lewis, chief of the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Radon Division, who has worked with Stewart over the years, called him a diligent worker with an attention to detail.

But he also described Stewart as nice, personable — someone he gets along with well.

Dr. Alan Peterson, emeritus director of environmental and community medicine at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, said he contacts Stewart when he has questions related to the residents’ newsletter that he edits. If Stewart doesn’t know the answer, he does the research.

“We’ve been doing this for decades now,” Peterson said, “he’s just incredible.”

And Peterson recalled a recent time when Stewart invited him to a conference in Harrisburg. When 77-year-old Peterson declined, not sure if he could sit through a day of lectures at his age, Stewart offered to help.

“He said, ‘well, if you want to go, come up to my house’ — it’s on the way — ‘and I’ll take you, I’ll drive you up and drive you back,’” Peterson said.

According to Brown, Stewart is humble and has a great sense of humor. He’s the kind of person who might read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” in costume.

And at the association’s awards ceremony, where it’s tradition to introduce awardees to the “Star Wars” theme, Stewart pumped his arms in the air as he walked through the room, Brown said.

“He’s not afraid to show his fun side,” she said.