The new executive director of Save the Bay is Jonathan Stone.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — When a search committee was asked to find a new executive director for Save the Bay last February, committee members knew they had the luxury to take the time to pick the right person.

Save the Bay has had only three directors in its nearly 40 years, in which time it had grown into the largest environmental advocacy and education group in the region. And outgoing director Curt Spalding left it in good shape with an iconic new headquarters building on Narragansett Bay, 35 staff members and a budget approaching $4 million.

Search committee chairman Steve Hamburg is so passionate in his belief that the nation needs to embrace environmental sustainability that he has taken leave as a professor at Brown University to work as chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. He and his committee of Save the Bay members and past presidents spent much of the year looking for someone with similar passion. The panel reviewed 100 applications.

Yesterday, Save the Bay board president Alden Anderson announced the organization’s choice. He is someone, Hamburg said, who doesn’t look like what people would expect.

Jonathan Stone, 50, is a business person. He has not led any advocacy groups. He recently left his job as managing director and cofounder of the Boston-based Lee Munder Capital Group.

He is also a 19-year resident of Rhode Island and a 19-year member of Save the Bay. He’s participated in the Save the Bay swim three times. He says he is passionate about the environment and he had reached a point in his life when he wanted to do something more meaningful than simply earning money for himself and others.

“From a personal point of view, I’m an environmentalist and a conservationist,” Stone said in an interview yesterday morning. “My father founded New England Aquarium and I’m proud of him.”

Stone acknowledged he is making a big career switch.

He made his living analyzing businesses and their problems. He did a lot of work on alternative-energy firms. He also worked with nonprofit entities such as The Gordon School and helped with fundraising and strategic planning. And all the while, he has kept up with environmental policy issues. He can speak knowledgeably about nutrient problems in Narragansett Bay and the loss of eelgrass in the waters of Massachusetts’ Buzzards Bay, where he grew up.

“The career I had was very stressful,” Stone said. “The job was very demanding. The stress combined with the 50-mile commute was going to run me into the ground.”

Stone said he also thought earlier this year that the markets were heading for a “difficult time.”

What’s more, he was not getting personal satisfaction from his work.

The psychic rewards in that business are measured in percentages and dollars, he said, not in making the world a better place. So with encouragement from his wife, Sarah, he got out of the business.

This fall, Stone started teaching business courses at Providence College. He said he is committed to teaching there through May; until then, he said, he will be working part time for Save the Bay.

Stone’s attitudes are in line with those of Hamburg, who says a lot of future environmental problems are “less about the end of pipes and more how do we integrate environmental thinking into the way we do business. How do we create a synergy?”

Stone said yesterday: “Environmental challenges are more complex now than simply the Providence sewer system or the Brayton Point power plant. The bigger challenges are global warming and the impacts on species in the Bay, how we generate and consume energy, dealing with nutrient overloads coming from diffuse sources around the Bay.”

“Who would have thought 15 years ago that local IGAs would have extra sections for locally grown and organic food?” Stone said. “Now people know they can change their behavior to have an impact on the environment.”

Stone said one of his goals will be to keep the group as a top priority to its members, so they continue providing their support despite the state’s economic woes.

His predecessor, Spalding, came to Rhode Island to work as a sailing instructor. He then got an outreach job with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before joining Save the Bay in 1988, when it was headed by Trudy Coxe. She, in turn, was recruited by founding director John Scanlon. Spalding became executive director in 1990.

Stone, who has two children, grew up on Buzzards Bay and later moved to Providence so he could be close to the water.

He will be paid $140,000 annually.

Save the Bay lost members after the 9/11 terrorist attack. But since then, membership has been steadily climbing and now stands around 6,500.

Anderson, the board president, said the search committee asked all the candidates what drives them.

“You want to see passion,” Anderson said. “Jon is about passion.”

plord@projo.com