Executive Director, Adaptive Environments, Inc.
Valerie Fletcher is the Executive Director of Adaptive Environments in Boston, a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 to address design issues that confront children, adults, and older people with disabilities.
Adaptive Environments meets its mission through a wide variety of educational and consulting projects at the local, regional, national, and international levels; and is the home of the federally-funded New England ADA and Accessible Information Technology Center. As Executive Director, Ms. Fletcher oversees projects ranging from universal design on an urban scale to universal design in transportation, affordable housing, offices, schools, cultural facilities, and in print and digital graphics.
Ms. Fletcher was Co-Chair of "Designing for the 21st Century, An International Conference on Universal Design," held in June 2000, of which Adaptive Environments was the lead sponsor. Ms. Fletcher's early career focused on community integration for people with psychiatric disabilities. She is a former Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Ms. Fletcher has a master's degree in Ethics and Public Policy from Harvard University. She joined CAST's Board of Directors in 2001.
