In My Third Act: Mary Beth Naim on Finding Common Ground

Mary Beth Naim of Third Act Ohio has always pushed herself—into the Marine Corps, into the international corporate world, and now into activism. She speaks with Jennifer Nielsen about the Great Climate March across Ohio that will connect the dots between the land she loves and the future Third Actors hope to protect.

Mary Beth Naim had an inspired solution to the utter despair she and fellow Third Actors in Ohio were feeling as the horrors of 2025 unfolded both nationally and in their egregiously gerrymandered state: a citizens’ march across the state to experience the natural beauty and also to observe and report on the damage being done by the unchecked expansion of data centers and fracking, even in state parks. They would get outside to enjoy the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits from being bathed in trees and wildflowers and birds, and act to protect these treasures.

Thus began planning for the Great Ohio Climate March that Third Act and partners will lead from May 16 to 28 of this year, starting in Athens in the southeast and ending in Columbus with a visit to the state legislature.

The idea came to her as she was visiting her sister, who is a nun. She heard some of the nuns reminiscing about The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, a 1986 protest from Erie to Cleveland, as part of a march across the entire United States. An avid hiker, Mary Beth says she lives for the chance to be out on the trails. These reminiscences helped her “connect the dots: if we are out walking, we need to make it meaningful!” 

As she gathered a diverse coalition of fellow organizers, their joint vision began to take shape. The southern part of the state is in Appalachia, “a sacrifice zone” where employment opportunities are limited, leaving the population vulnerable to the offers of work in the fracking industry and the construction of AI data centers—and to the dire consequences of contaminated and depleted water supplies, climate chaos, and scars in the landscape. From Athens, the marchers will follow dirt trails, unpaved country roads, off-road bike paths, and sidewalks up to Salt Fork, the state’s largest park, which is also being fracked, then head east to Columbus. They will walk by many sites contributing to environmental degradation, but they will also pass solar arrays and the hope these hold for a healthy, sustainable future.

We’ll be having community meals that we are calling ‘Common Ground’ meals, and other community meetings, because we really want to understand what the communities themselves are experiencing.

Also central to the goals of the march, Mary Beth explains, is community-building among the intergenerational hikers and the residents of the areas they will be visiting. “We’ll be having community meals that we are calling ‘Common Ground’ meals, and other community meetings, because we really want to understand what the communities themselves are experiencing.” This includes learning about the economic and social as well as environmental pressures they face, and how activists and the people on the frontlines can work towards common ends.

They will then bring the lessons from their conversations and observations to their legislators and ask for legislative action to protect the precious state parks and the affected populations. Mary Beth hopes that their firsthand narratives will help lawmakers across the political divide understand the threats to these invaluable natural resources and the human consequences of unbridled fossil fuel exploitation.

Mary Beth has always loved the outdoors. As a girl scout, she was drawn to conservation “when it wasn’t a partisan issue.” She entered college intending to become a forest ranger, but meeting her future husband persuaded her to change plans and to remain in Ohio to study math and applied computer science. This was before computer science was widely available as a stand-alone major. 

In parallel with obtaining her BS and MS degrees she also served six years in the military. “I left for Marine Corps boot camp the day after I graduated from high school… I wanted a challenge. I was from a big family and wanted to take a different path from what any of my [eight!] siblings had taken.” She chose the Marine Corps because she’d heard it was the most competitive of the services, and she always tried to push herself. It also had the lure of adventure. She notes, “I was a product of mainstream education that paints a glossy, defender of righteousness, superhero picture of the US role in the world…  I wouldn’t have the same perception today.” She also observed with some irony that the time she felt most American was when she joined her first protest: against the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“I like to say that my daughter got it better than I did: she went into the Peace Corps…these volunteers don’t get the recognition that the military gets, but they build bridges and allies in the world.”

Her career at a petrochemical corporation allowed her plenty of opportunity for adventure, sending her around the world helping develop IT systems for company locations in China, Malaysia, Brazil, France, Belgium, among others. She loved traveling and discovering other cultures. Still, reflecting on her second act, she recognizes considerable constraints. “Particularly in my later role as a Sustainability Manager pushing for positive change, you had to pick your battles knowing you are in a conservative, corporate environment where the main driver is profits. Where you had to respect those guardrails. Retirement freed me from that.”

Times are dark now indeed, and Mary Beth concedes it’s not always easy to see a path forward. Still, she stays in the struggle for her three children and her three grandchildren, but also “for so many people whose opportunities and hopes and services are being ripped away.” And she adds, “It’s my hope that the small pebbles we are all throwing at the problems will eventually add up to a ripple effect.”

Jennifer Nielsen

Jennifer Nielsen is a member of the Third Act NJ Coordinating and Communications Committees. Her career in the prevention and treatment of malnutrition among the world’s most vulnerable mothers and children was unceremoniously ended with the DOGE-led  dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, but she’s grateful now to be devoting her passions full time to climate and democracy activism.