Appointed by President Clinton in 1995, and under the direction of the Council on Environmental Quality, McPoland was responsible for all the recycling, waste prevention, and buy-recycled programs in the federal government. Because of her expertise in federal procurement practices, in 1998, she was also appointed by the President to Chair the White House Task Force on Greening the Government through Waste Prevention, Recycling and Federal Acquisition.

In addition to her other responsibilities, Ms. McPoland led the implementation of the Presidential Memorandum on Economically and Environmentally Beneficial Landscape Practices.

After leaving the White House, McPoland became the Senior Vice President and Chief Environmental Strategist for GreenOrder, an on-line marketplace for environmentally preferable products. While at GreenOrder she was directly involved in the design of corporate sustainability programs for Fortune 500 companies.

McPoland was one of the founders of America Recycles Day and served on its Board of Directors for five years. For twenty years she has been involved in and a member of the National Recycling Coalition and served on it's Board of Directors for two years.

Prior to joining the Clinton Administration, McPoland served on Capitol Hill as a Senior Legislative Assistant on environmental issues for Congressman Esteban Torres (D-CA). While working for Congressman Torres, she was instrumental in the development of four market-incentives legislative initiatives for recycled content products. This successful bi-partisan approach attempted to solve the collection and market problems for 'orphan' commodities such as oil, tires, lead acid batteries, and newsprint. Before that she was an Environmental Legislative Assistant to Congressman Dick Ottinger (DNY).

McPoland has an Associates Degree in Horticulture, a B.S. in Conservation of Natural Resources from the University of California at Berkeley, and holds an M.A. in Environment and Resource Policy in the School of Public Policy from George Washington University.

Ms. McPoland is frequently called upon to address various national, state and federal agency conferences as it relates to environmental science policy issues.