Meet the Speakers For Fall Retreat 2012

Anna Aurilio

Anna Aurilio is the Director of the Washington DC office for Environment America, a federation of 29 state-based, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organizations. Ms Aurilio oversees a team of advocacy staff and is responsible for policy and strategy development for campaigns on clean water, clean air, energy, global warming and preservation issues. She has testified in Congress numerous times and has been named a top lobbyist by The Hill. Ms. Aurilio received a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1986 and a Master's degree in Environmental Engineering and Water Resources from MIT in 1992 where she published several papers on water pollution in Woburn Massachusetts. Prior to receiving her Master's degree, Ms. Aurilio was a Staff Scientist with the National Environmental Law Center where she investigated major water polluters and provided technical expertise for Clean Water Act citizen suits.

Harriet Barlow

Harriet Barlow is the Director of the HKH Foundation, an advisor to a number of individual donors and is the founder and Executive Director of the Blue Mountain Center, a working place for cultural workers and other activists. Harriet has been on the Board of Directors of an embarrassingly large number of non-profits and is the founder or co-founder of 15 community-based and national non-profits. Other qualities: Quaker, walker, singer, movie feaster, fascinated parent and grandparent, lover of laughter and productive struggle.

Jamie Baxter

Jamie worked for 8 years with Chesapeake Bay Foundation leading education and environmental restoration programs and 4 years as the Director of the Tributary Strategies Program for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. In this role he led state efforts to develop and implement the State water quality restoration plans through policy development, extensive inter- agency coordination and the engagement of key stakeholders that served as the foundation for the current regulatory framework governing water quality protection in the region today. In 2007 Jamie joined the Chesapeake Bay Trust as Program Director charged with increasing the impact of the Trust’s grant programs. As Program Director, Jamie leads initiatives with funding partners and community leaders to increase the effectiveness of non-profit organizations in the Chesapeake region. Jamie also develops and implements strategies that help advance policies critical to leveraging impact of the Trust’s programs. In 2011, he helped establish a precedent setting High School Graduation Requirement in Environmental Literacy for Maryland public schools.

Shamar Bibbins

As a Senior Political Associate for Green For All, Shamar develops and executes opportunities to elevate Green For All’s agenda by supporting policy priorities of Congressional leaders. She educates and informs Members of Congress and their staff on key issues around energy efficiency, water infrastructure, transportation, and clean air regulations. She also works in collaboration with Federal agencies and The Administration on workforce development strategies. Ms. Bibbins attended Vassar College, where she majored in Science, Technology and Society, with a concentration in environmental studies. She received distinction on her senior thesis, "Race, Class and Environmental Justice." Post graduation, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan where she studied social movements surrounding unprecedented mercury dumping in southern Japan. A native both of Detroit, MI, and the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area, Shamar has been committed to numerous organizations that service and empower at-risk youth and homeless men and women.

Mr. Björn Beeler

For the last ten years, Björn Beeler has served as the IPEN International Coordinator, and as IPEN General Manager since 2008. Prior to becoming the IPEN International Coordinator in 2003, Mr. Beeler worked for the international NGO Earth Council (now Earth Council Alliance), within their National Councils for Sustainable Development (NCSD) Program and its global network, based in Costa Rica. After participating in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, Mr. Beeler shifted his focus and joined IPEN to work on the global impact of toxic chemicals. Mr. Beeler earned a master’s Degree from Lund University's International Masters in Environmental Science, Sweden. His master’s thesis focused on the economic, social, and environmental opportunities and threats to local sustainable development associated with the introduction of “eco-tourism” on Venado Island, Costa Rica.

David Brancaccio

Broadcast journalist David Brancaccio hosts a program about innovation and technology produced by American Public Media's "Marketplace." He is the co-producer and host of “Fixing the Future,” a documentary film that premiered this summer exploring local economies. He led Marketplace’s Economy 4.0 coverage and contributes to the program’s Wealth & Poverty Desk. From 2005 to 2010, David was host and senior correspondent of investigative news program "Now on PBS." He is holder of the top honors in broadcasting including the Emmy, the Peabody, the duPont-Columbia, and the Walter Cronkite Award. He is author of a book on money and values entitled “Squandering Aimlessly.”

Angie Chen

Angie manages the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation’s Environmental Literacy Program, which increases the environmental knowledge and attitudes of Californians. Before joining the Foundation, Angie was the program officer at the Stewardship Council, where she oversaw grantmaking and evaluation to connect California’s youth with the outdoors. She was also an associate program officer at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, where her work focused on youth development, children’s health insurance, and paid leave policies. Angie previously worked as an interpreter at Yosemite National Park, providing environmental education to the public. She has served on the national board of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, and she was selected as a 2011 American Express NGen Fellow. Angie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Roberta Combs

Roberta Combs is the President and CEO of Christian Coalition and Christian Coalition of America. She has served as a founding member and has been the only woman on the board of directors for the Christian Coalition of America, which offers pro-family Americans a vehicle to policies that serve to strengthen and preserve, rather than threaten, our families and our values. Under Roberta’s leadership, the Christian Coalition of America has worked to provide education and political training to thousands of Christian activists around the country in order to challenge and equip individuals and churches to make a difference at all levels of government.She has served as a pro-family advisor to many US Congressmen, US Senators and Governors as well as President George W. Bush and has also testified before Congress on behalf of pro-family issues for the Christian Coalition of America.Roberta broadened the Christian Coalition's mission to help impoverished nations and to promote an energy policy that increases national security as well as providing clean air for this country and around the world.

William Cronon

William Cronon studies American environmental history. His research seeks to understand the history of human interactions with the natural world: how we depend on the ecosystems around us to sustain our material lives, how we modify the landscapes in which we live and work, and how our ideas of nature shape our relationships with the world around us. He is currently President of the American Historical Association, the largest professional organization of historians in the world, and also sits on the boards of the Wilderness Society and the Trust for Public Land.

Jess Daniel

Jess Daniel a PhD candidate at Michigan State University focusing on the role of entrepreneurship and network capital in Detroit's good food movement. She's also founder and coordinator of FoodLab, a network helping to grow the good food business ecosystem in the Detroit area. Since completing her BA in English and MA in Education at Stanford in 2006, she's made movies about integrated pest management for a local NGO in Cambodia; processed chickens on a small farm off the coast of Washington; organized congressional briefings about sustainable ag; designed a national incubation laboratory to develop local food distribution businesses, and operated a pop-up restaurant serving Southeast Asian food.

Bhairavi Desai

Bhairavi Desai, a native of India, has been organizing taxi drivers since 1996. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of the 15,000- member New York Taxi Workers Alliance since 1998. Through organizing, direct action, legal and health services, media presence, political advocacy and the cultivation of allies and supporters – NYTWA, a multi- ethnic, multi-generational union - builds power for one of the most vulnerable and visible immigrant workforces in . In 2012, NYTWA won a livable income raise, first-time regulations of taxi companies, and a Health and Disability Fund for drivers, the first for taxi drivers nationwide and one of the first for independent contractors. In 2011, NYTWA was chartered to build the National Taxi Workers Alliance, the 57th union of the AFL-CIO. The NTWA is the first charter for non- traditional workers since the farm workers in the 1960’s, and the first one ever of independent contractors.

Paul R. Dolan

Paul Dolan is the Executive Director, ABC News International Business; Member Walt Disney Corporate Citizenship Committee, Trustee, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Advisory Board Island Press, Volunteer Sterling Forest Preservation.

Projjal Dutta

Projjal K. Dutta is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s first ever Director of Sustainability. He has two primary responsibilities: 1) To reduce the environmental footprint of the MTA and 2) to verifiably measure the carbon benefits that accrue to the region, due to the MTA. In a carbon-constrained future, this could generate resources. Projjal was instrumental in the measurement and verification of MTA’s carbon footprint, and its registration with the Climate Registry. He has played a leadership role in the transit industry’s effort to quantify its carbon benefits. He has lectured and written extensively on the subject of ‘carbon avoidance’; including at Harvard, Yale and Columbia Universities. Projjal has more than twenty years of experience in projects ranging in scale from urban to residential, with a particular emphasis on sustainable design. Before joining the MTA, he worked as a sustainable architecture consultant. He graduated from MIT; his award-winning thesis explored the construction of low-cost housing from waste packaging. His built projects have been featured in publications in the U.S. and abroad.

Farhad Ebrahimi

Farhad Ebrahimi is an activist, philanthropist, musician, lover of film and literature, hipster, and bicycle snob who lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. He is the founder and trustee chair of the Chorus Foundation, whose mission is to end the extraction, export, and use of fossil fuels in the . Recognizing that the issues of climate, health, inequality, and democracy are intimately connected, the Chorus Foundation focuses on grassroots organizing in directly impacted communities, and prioritizes work that builds power from the bottom up. As a member of the 1% who stands with the 99%, Farhad was also heavily involved in Occupy Boston from the moment the first tent was pitched in Dewey Square. Farhad graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics with Computer Science. He has been wearing the same green hat constantly for the better part of a year.

Tom France

Tom France is the Regional Executive Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Northern Rockies and Prairies Regional Center. During his years with NWF, Tom has been involved with many of the most important natural resource issues facing the West, including gray wolf and grizzly bear recovery, large landscape conservation, oil and gas development and hard rock mining. In working for fish and wildlife conservation around the country, NWF seeks to protect key habitats, restore damaged landscapes and build public support for positive solutions. In the Northern Rockies, and through Tom’s leadership, NWF has worked to develop broad partnerships and innovative, collaborative strategies for conserving land, water and wildlife. Tom earned his B.A. and Juris Doctorate degrees from the University of Montana. Tom is married to Meg Haenn and enjoys taking Meg and his three children on adventures throughout the American West. Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates is an artist, musician, and “cultural planner” as well as Director of Arts Program Development at the University of Chicago and founder and President of The Rebuild Foundation, a not- for-profit. If pressed to describe his work in a single word, it would be “transformative.” In his performances, installations, and urban interventions, Gates transforms spaces, institutions, traditions, and perceptions. Gates’ training as an urban planner and sculptor, and subsequent time spent in Japan studying clay, has given him keen awareness of the poetics of production and systems of organizing. Playing with these poetic and systematic moments, Gates has assembled gospel choirs, formed temporary unions, and used systems of mass production as a way of underscoring the need that industry has for the body. When Theaster is not making art for museums, he is committed to the restoration of poor black neighborhoods, converting abandoned buildings into cultural spaces that allow not only new cultural moments to happen in unexpected places, but raising the city’s expectations of where “place- making” happens and why. Gates was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design 2010-2011, received awards from the Joyce Foundation and the Graham Foundation. He has performed and exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and the Armory Show in New York; the Milwaukee Art Museum; Brunno David Gallery and Pulitzer Museum of Art in St. Louis; the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston; Seattle Art Museum; Los Angeles Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, dOCUMENTA(13); among others.

Anthony Giancatarino

Anthony Giancatarino is a Researcher at the Center for Social Inclusion. He conducts policy and grassroots-driven research focused on the intersection of race and structural issues such as: transportation, healthcare, food systems, and the green economy. Through research and facilitation, Anthony helps support communities’ of color efforts to craft strategic opportunities for local policy solutions. In addition to his research role, Anthony manages CSI’s Energy Democracy programs, which advocates for the participation of communities of color as owners and producers in the renewable energy economy. Anthony holds a master's degree in public administration, with a specialization in policy analysis, from the NYU Wagner School for Public Service. Anthony taught high school courses in U.S. and world history, U.S. government, and social justice. In addition to his M.A., Anthony holds a bachelor’s degree in theology and political science from the University of Scranton.

Wes Gillingham

One of the founders and the Program Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper (CMK), an environmental advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the Catskill Region in New York State. Wes serves on the New York State Forest Preserve Advisory Committee, the board of Sullivan County Farm Bureau and The policy committee for Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. Before CMK Wes and his wife Amy provided vegetables for 150 families through a CSA. Wes was a Director for the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute, leading field programs in undergraduate environmental studies throughout The United States and eastern Canada and spent ten years as a Ranger for the National Park Service . Today he is raising his children on land that has been in his family for 55 years along with their Highland Cattle, Icelandic and Scottish Blackface Sheep. As always he is trying to build a reciprocal relationship with the land that sustains us and the greater community of the Catskills.

Deborah Goldberg

Deborah Goldberg is the Managing Attorney of Earthjustice’s northeast office, located in New York City. For more than four years, she has been conducting litigation and other legal advocacy to protect public health and the environment from the adverse effects of gas development in the Marcellus Shale. Following graduation from Harvard Law School in 1986, Ms. Goldberg served as a law clerk for then- Judge Stephen Breyer of the First Circuit Court of Appeals and the late Constance Baker Motley of the Southern District of New York. She then spent a decade in private practice, concentrating on environmental impact review, historic preservation, and hazardous waste litigation. Before joining Earthjustice, Ms. Goldberg was the Democracy Program Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. She also holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and taught for three years at Columbia University.

Nick Guroff

Nick Guroff is Corporate Accountability International’s communications director, overseeing media relations, digital communications, publications and overall communications strategy. Guroff began his work in environmental advocacy as a field organizer for Green Corps and as the California organizer for National Environmental Trust (now the Pew Environment Group). At NET, Guroff coordinated a faith-based coalition and broad network of grassroots organizations in advocating landmark environmental health policy. Prior to joining Corporate Accountability, Guroff received a Masters in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley where he received a PBS FRONTLINE/World fellowship for his investigative reporting on oil development in the Russian Far East.

Sarah Hansen

Sarah Hansen consults with foundations, donors and nonprofit organizations to advance multi-issue, progressive social change agendas. She specializes in developing big picture strategies and long-term visions connected to concrete, manageable work plans. Sarah serves as program advisor to the Elias Foundation, which seeks to promote a more equitable society by supporting community organizing. She also leads an initiative through the Ford Foundation to convene four successful community-led public foundations. Sarah authored a February 2012 report for NCRP entitled “Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders”. Previously Sarah served as Associate Director of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation; as a Fellow at the Arcus Fund; and as a consultant to the Starry Night Fund of the Tides Foundation. Prior to that, Sarah served for eight years as Executive Director of EGA. Sarah serves on the solidarity board of Community Voices Heard, an organization of low-income people working to build power in New York City and State. Sarah lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Susan Heathcote

Susan Heathcote is the Water Program Director for the Iowa Environmental Council, a nonprofit coalition of 65 organizations in Iowa. Susan joined the Council in 1996 and provides leadership on a number of issues, including agricultural nonpoint source pollution, livestock manure management, water quality monitoring, water quality standards, and restoration of impaired waters. In addition to her work at the Council, Susan served a four year term on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, which oversees Environmental Programs at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and is currently serving on the Watershed Improvement Review Board that provides assistance to local watershed projects working to restore impaired waters. Susan also serves as co-chair of the agricultural workgroup for the Mississippi River Collaborative, a partnership of organizations that work together to reduce pollution affecting the Mississippi and its tributaries as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

Van Jones

Van Jones has emerged as a leading champion of smart solutions for America's middle class. He is a co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the U.S. economy. Under his leadership, Rebuild the Dream has built an active network in all 435 Congressional Districts with over 600,000 members. As an advisor to the Obama White House, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green energy recovery spending. A Yale Law School graduate, he has a 20-year track record as a successful, innovative and award-winning social entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of three other thriving nonprofit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green For All. Van is on the board of Demos and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is currently a Visiting Fellow in Collaborative Economics at Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco.

Li Jing

Mr. Li is the Director and Secretary General of Vantone Foundation. He got his Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and got his Master’s degree in Political Science from Peking University. He joined China Headquarters of International Plan in 2000, and worked as the Project Director. He joined Vantone Foundation in January 2009 and served as the Secretary General.

Martin Kearns

Marty Kearns is an innovator in the field of campaigns and advocacy. He is an activist. He has pioneered integration of network-centric principals to organizing and social change work. He has worked with others to found Green Media Toolshed, the Georgia River Network and MobileActive.org, a global network of activists who use cell phones for civic action. Projects have included saving Scorecard.org, building ChesapeakeNetwork.org, launching PreventObesity.net and working among the largest foundations and most marginalized leaders in the world. He is a frequent speaker and has authored chapters in Mobilize2.0 and Rebooting America and published in Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Personal Democracy Forum. Kearns worked on many political campaigns. Kearns has a Bachelors of the Arts from LeMoyne and a Masters in Environmental Science from Yale.

Anne L. Kelly

Anne L. Kelly is Director of the Policy Programs at Ceres where she also leads BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy) an advocacy coalition of consumer brands promoting progressive climate and energy policy. An environmental lawyer and mediator with 20 years of experience in the state, federal and private sectors Anne also holds an Master in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School and previously ran an environmental crime unit for the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. She has taught environmental law and Boston College Law School and Tufts University.

Annie Leonard

Annie Leonard captivates and compels millions to action through her creative films that call attention to the high environmental and social costs of our consumerism, the corruption of our economic system, the pervasive use of toxic chemicals in everyday products, and much more. With more than two decades of experience investigating and organizing around environmental health and justice issues, Annie has translated complex issues into accessible and engaging films and other media. Her 2007 film (created in collaboration with the Sustainability Funders and Free Range Studios) has been viewed over 20 million times around the world and has inspired a book of the same title, educational curricula, a podcast series and 7 additional films. Annie now Co-Directs the Story of Stuff Project. See www.storyofstuff.org to learn more.

Danielle Lewis

Danielle Lewis has a decade of experience working with nonprofits and foundations to develop communications strategies and lead trainings that build their capacity to communicate more effectively. In 2011, Danielle worked with the Surdna Foundation to assess the communications capacity of 30 grantees in its Sustainable Environments portfolio and conduct research on ways to strengthen the national green economy conversation. Danielle is now working with Surdna to develop a shared message platform and pilot a collaborative storybank, both focused on building support for investments in the green economy. Danielle also leads Spitfire Strategies’ work with the Packard Foundation’s Marine Fisheries subprogram, working primarily with a coalition of grantees encouraging businesses to sell more sustainable seafood. Danielle was born and raised in the D.C. area and holds a B.A. in rhetoric and communication studies and Spanish from the University of Richmond.

Leslie Lowe

Leslie is the founder and Managing Director of UCI Environmental Accountability, a consulting firm that advises foundations, institutional investors and non-profit organizations. For seven years, she directed the Energy & Environment Program at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility where she led research on corporate environmental performance and risk disclosure, and organized shareholder campaigns for corporate sustainability, transparency and accountability. She is the Senior Strategist for As You Sow’s Investor Campaign on Coal Risk, a Senior Fellow of The Future 500, and an advisor to the Calvert Foundation’s Green Initiative. Leslie is an attorney, a graduate of Harvard Law School, who received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College, a Masters of Science from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and did post-graduate research in economic and social history at the University of Paris.

Conrad MacKerron

Conrad MacKerron, Senior Program Director, As You Sow, has two decades of experience leading shareholder advocacy engagement on social and environmental policies at publicly traded companies. He founded As You Sow’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program and has led environmental initiatives on behalf of investors at Apple, Best Buy, Coca-Cola, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, McDonald’s Corp., Nestle Waters NA, and PepsiCo, among others. He focuses on engaging companies to develop producer responsibility policies to deal with post- consumer packaging and end-of-life electronics. He researched thousands of public companies on social and environmental issues as a research analyst for various social investment firms. A former journalist, he was Washington Bureau Chief for Chemical Week and a writer for BNA Environment Reporter. He is the author of Unlocking the Power of the Proxy and Business in the Rainforests: Corporations, Deforestation and Sustainability

Mary Ann Manahan

Mary Ann is a Research Associate at Focus on the Global South, Philippines Program, where she works on environmental issues such as land reform, water conservation, and the role of international financial institutions (ex. ) in the privatization of public utilities and natural resources. Focus on the Global South recognizes the role youth play in the health of the environment and local activism, and has created specific campaigns for youth engagement around issues such as globalization and climate justice. Mary Ann has also been involved in environmental grantmaking, serving on the Grantmaking Committee of the Other Worlds Are Possible, which included the Giving Circle Initiative of Grantmakers without Borders, Other Worlds, and the Clarence Foundation. She currently serves on the International Financial Institutions Board, a Global Greengrants Fund global advisor partner focused on the environmental impacts of projects financed by international financial institutions.

Marianne Manilov

Marianne is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Engage Network, formed to respond to the inquiry How do we build stronger movements to make real systemic change? The Engage Network marries the best online organizing strategies with a unique, small circle approach to offline base building. The result is Change on a Human Scale- a robust network of deeply engaged donors, members and constituents where real scalable change can happen. Marianne has written pieces on organizing and social change and been quoted extensively in the media including: The Huffington Post, The Journal, The Washington Post, , , Good Housekeeping, and Business Week. She has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Good Morning America, and on the BBC.

Pete Myers

Pete Myers is founder, CEO and Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences. He holds a doctorate in the biological sciences from UC Berkeley and a BA from Reed College. For a dozen years beginning in 1990, Myers served as Director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia. Along with co-authors Dr. Theo Colborn and Dianne Dumanoski, Myers wrote Our Stolen Future, a book (1996) that explores the scientific basis of concern for how contamination threatens fetal development. Myers is now actively involved in primary research on the impacts of endocrine disruption on human health. He has chaired the board of the Science Communication Network since its founding in 2003. He serves on the board of the Jenifer Altman Foundation and is board chair of the H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.

Kumi Naidoo

Born in South Africa, Kumi Naidoo became involved in the country’s liberation struggle at the age of 15. In 1986 he was charged with violating the emergency regulations and was forced underground for almost a year before fleeing to exile. During this time he was a Rhodes Scholar and later earned a doctorate in political sociology. After Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990, Naidoo returned to South Africa to work on the legalization of the African National Congress. During the democratic elections in 1994 he directed the training of all electoral staff in the country and was one of the official spokespersons of the Independent Electoral Commission. Kumi Naidoo has served as Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, was the founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) and also the founding Chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), where he remains global ambassador. He previously served as a board member of Global Reporting Initiative (2006-2011) and Earth Rights International (2008-2011), while he presently sits on the board of Food and Trees for Africa and is a member of 350.org’s international advisory board. Naidoo has also served as a board member of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and in 2003 was appointed by the former Secretary General of the United Nations to the Eminent Persons Panel on UN Civil Society Relations. In 2012 he was appointed to the UN Women’s Global Civil Society Advisory Group. Kumi Naidoo is currently Executive Director of Greenpeace International and President of the civil society alliance ‘Global Campaign for Climate Action’ (GCCA).

Todd Paglia

Todd Paglia started his advocacy career with Ralph Nader in 1995 by taking on some of the largest companies in the US on issues of corporate welfare and consumer protection. He also led in the transformation of the purchasing practices of the federal government, the world’s largest consumer of paper. These two bodies of work were very different and the contrast was immediately clear as was the choice: continue uphill battles in the courts or in the halls of Congress with limited progress against companies with hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists (which many peers were already doing) or bring financial leverage and power to environmental issues by shifting the purchasing practices of the largest buyers on Earth (which almost no one was doing). After more than a decade with ForestEthics, Todd has helped lead the organization by protecting millions of acres of endangered forests and consequently shifting 100’s of millions of dollars towards more sustainable purchasing.

Beth Parke

Beth Parke is Executive Director of the Society of Environmental Journalists, an educational organization of news professionals who cover environment for print, broadcast and online media. SEJ's mission is to advance public understanding of environmental issues by strengthening the quality, reach and viability of environmental journalism. From 1980 – 1992 Parke produced radio series independently and on staff with NPR affiliates. Beth earned an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication, U of PA, in 1979.

Dr. Manuel Pastor

Dr. Manuel Pastor is Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California where he also directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and co-directs USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. His most recent books include Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions (Routledge 2012; co-authored with Chris Benner) Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton 2010; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh), and This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America (Cornell 2009; co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka.

Jaimie Mayer Phinney

Jaimie Mayer Phinney, Speaker: Jaimie Mayer Phinney is an avid philanthropist, creative producer, and arts entrepreneur. She is a Trustee of The Nathan Cummings Foundation, where she previously served as an Associate for over twelve years. She is also the Program Director of Slingshot, an organization dedicated to Jewish innovation and creating a next generation of strategic leaders in the philanthropic field. Jaimie has served as the Chair of The Buddy Fund for Justice through the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, tackling next generation philanthropy head-on, and is currently the Chair of the Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival. In the arts world she founded Don't Eat The Pictures Productions, a theatre, film, and event production company dedicated to developing and seeding new work.

Matt Prindiville

Matt Prindiville is the Associate Director for the Product Policy Institute (PPI). PPI is a national environmental policy organization dedicated to mitigating the environmental impacts of products and packaging. Prindiville helped found and currently coordinates the CRADLE2 coalition, a national network of public- interest organizations focused on source reduction and recycling of consumer products and packaging. PPI and CRADLE2 bring together groups around the country to advocate for extended producer responsibility (EPR), or “Make It, Take It” policies, which hold producers responsible for waste and the life-cycle impacts of their products and packaging. Prior to joining PPI, Prindiville spent eight years as Clean Production Project Director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. He has been at the forefront of product stewardship and safer chemicals policy in Maine and the United States, working to pass groundbreaking EPR recycling programs, the phase out of lead, mercury and toxic brominated flame retardants and the advancement of the nation’s first comprehensive chemicals assessment program at the state level. As a policy and campaign strategist, he has helped develop and contributed to many coalition efforts to advance safer chemicals policy, mercury reduction and product stewardship.

Nomi Prins

Nomi is an author, journalist and Senior Fellow at the non-partisan public policy institute, Demos. Her latest book, Black Tuesday, is a historical novel about the 1929 Crash. Her other non-fiction books include: It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America which foreshadowed the current banking crisis, and Jacked: How Conservatives are Picking your Pocket whether you voted for them or not. She is a commentator for numerous international TV and radio programs including CNN, C-SPAN, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, the BBC, NPR, and Marketplace. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, The Nation and other places. Before becoming a writer, she served as a Managing Director at in New York and Senior Managing Director at Bear, Stearns in . Her website is: http://www.nomiprins.com.

Rick Reed

Rick Reed has spent the past 21 years working as an activist and grant-maker, primarily in sustainable agriculture and climate protection. Rick is a passionate advocate for using the tools of systems analysis to align the efforts of funders and NGOs. Rick’s work embodies his belief that the era of powerful, centralized organizations working on their own to achieve social change is over, and that networked approaches will be the most effective social change agents in the 21st Century. He has been testing and evolving these ideas though his work as a Senior Advisor for the Garfield Foundation’s Midwest Global Warming Initiative, RE-AMP, which he helped co-found in 2004. RE-AMP is a collaboration of over 130 NGO’s, including 15 foundations, covering an eight state region in the upper Midwest. Rick earned a BA from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies and an MS in Molecular Biology from UC Davis. He is a self-taught systems thinker who owes much to the writings of Donella Meadows and Peter Senge. Rick currently serves as a Senior Advisor to both the Garfield Foundation and the RE-AMP Steering Committee.

Julia Roberson

Julia Roberson directs Ocean Conservancy’s ocean acidification program. Prior to joining Ocean Conservancy, she managed Pew Environment Group’s Global Tuna Conservation Campaign. Before joining Pew, Roberson launched and managed campaigns in London and Paris for SeaWeb, including Caviar Emptor and L’Autre Caviar, which sought protection for endangered Caspian Sea sturgeon. She also ran Too Precious to Wear, a SeaWeb campaign which partnered with representatives from the jewelry and design sectors to raise awareness of the threats facing the world’s corals. Roberson also oversaw communications and research projects for Seafood Choices, a SeaWeb program that works to make the world’s seafood supply economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. Roberson began her career working in the editorial and marketing departments of Euromoney magazine. Roberson holds a degree in communications and English from Appalachian State University.

Jasmine Ruddy

Jasmine Ruddy is currently a sophomore and Environmental Health Science major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Last year, she became involved in the Sierra Student Coalition and the UNC Beyond Coal campaign. She has also been involved with the local Orange County chapter of the Sierra Club, and has worked with Mountain Justice to fight against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. During her college career, she hopes to help UNC become the first public university to successfully divest from coal and continue to work to protect our environment.

Jill Ryan

Jill Ryan, Executive Director, has coordinated Freshwater Future since 2000. Jill received her bachelor's degree in biology from Grand Valley State University in Michigan, her master's degree in zoology from the University of Maine, and her law degree from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She has a background in nonprofit management and capacity building, environmental toxicology, and human services, and has taught environmental law and online legal research. Jill has held positions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Chautauqua Area Girl Scout Council. She has a passion for working with nonprofits, citizens and grassroots groups. Jill works with the board, manages staff, directs programs and conducts fundraising activities.

Doug Siglin

Doug Siglin is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s federal affairs and Washington office director, based on Capitol Hill. CBF is the oldest and largest regional water quality group in the United States. It has nearly 200,000 members and supporters from around the nation and the world, and 170 staff working in restoration, education and advocacy in more than a dozen locations around the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake watershed. Doug spent nearly four years as a Peace Corps volunteer in what was then called Zaire, followed by graduate work in economics. This is his thirtieth year working on US water and other environmental policy issues, first as a Congressional staffer for several years, and then as head of government relations for three national environmental groups prior to joining CBF.

Kate Sinding

Kate Sinding is a Senior Attorney and Deputy Director of the New Yoek Urban Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she specializes in New York regional issues, including a variety of energy, land use and solid waste matters. Prior to joining NRDC in November 2006, Kate was a partner in the specialty environmental law firm of Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C. Kate is a member of the New York State Advisory Panel on High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing and sits on the board of the New York Product Stewardship Council. She has taught Environmental Law at Columbia University and Fordham University Schools of Law. Kate is a graduate of Law School, the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and Barnard College.

Kobi Skolnick

Kobi S is the Director of Leadership Development at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He has trained hundreds of people worldwide in transformative leadership development, facilitation, advocacy for social change, conflict prevention, fostering cultural empathy, and creating conflict resolution and organizational capacity programs, while establishing and building peace networks on local, national and international levels. His writing has been published in a number of media outlets around the world and he has lectured for various international organizations and universities, such as Stanford, Yale, Harvard, American University, and Oberlin, and has appeared on numerous media outlets across the globe. Kobi has been volunteering at OWS since it began in September in numerous roles, the most prominent of which have been facilitation, environmental justice, PR and movement building.

David Slottje

David Slottje is Executive Director of and Senior Attorney at Community Environmental Defense Council, Inc. CEDC is a 501c3 public interest law firm and works for its clients on a pro bono basis, relying on grants and grassroots donations to fund its operating expenses. CEDC uses the power of the law to assist municipalities and citizen groups to protect their health, safety, and welfare from the negative impacts associated with industrial-scale shale gas extraction. Mr. Slottje is admitted to the bar in Texas, Massachusetts, and New York.

Brooke Smith

Brooke is the Executive Director of COMPASS, an organization that helps scientists find their voice and science find its audience. She leads COMPASS in vision, strategy, fundraising, and administration. She is passionate about the role science and scientists have in transforming dialogues to shape our future. Her education is rooted in ecological and ocean sciences. Her career has included work with federal and state policy, science communications, organizational development, and fundraising. Brooke has been a government employee and a consultant, and for the last decade, part of the non-profit sector. She holds an MS in oceanography from Oregon State University’s, and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She holds a courtesy faculty appointment at OSU, serves on the Board of Directors for the Surfrider Foundation (as Vice Chair), and was recently a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow. She lives in Portland OR, trail runs, and loves being with her husband and two young daughters.

Sharon Smith

Sharon Smith is an organizer and trainer active in social change movements for global justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability, and author of The Young Activist’s Guide to Building a Green Movement and Changing the World. She worked with student networks to achieve landmark environmental victories in the logging and finance sectors and has trained thousands of youth in advocacy for social change. As Program Advisor for the Brower Youth Awards at Earth Island Institute, Sharon supported hundreds of emerging environmental activists and co-produced Emmy award-winning films shown on The Sundance Channel and PBS. In 2011, Global Greengrants Fund worked with Sharon to conduct an extensive study on the creation of a youth program. As a result of her work, Global Greengrants is launching an international youth program to foster a strong generation of young environmental stewards who are committed to bringing about positive change in their own communities, and in the world. Felice Stadler

Felice is associate director of NWF's global warming solutions program. In addition to strategic direction, she leads several initiatives including NWF's dirty fuels campaign and the Fair Climate Project. Before her current efforts, Felice directed NWF's national mercury campaign and spent three years at the Natural Resources Defense Council as policy director for the Clean Air Network. She has worked on clean air and toxics policy at the state and federal level for more than 18 years and has served on several federal and local advisory committees, testified before Congress, and published numerous articles.

Nadia Steinzor

Nadia Steinzor is the Eastern Regional Director of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks, a national organization dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the impacts of irresponsible mineral development (www.earthworksaction.org). Nadia works with a growing movement of landowners, concerned citizens, and environmental organizations to educate and support impacted communities, advance state oil and gas regulations, and promote Earthworks’ federal reform agenda. Nadia has worked for nearly two decades in communications, writing and editing, and research to promote action and policies on environmental protection and land conservation. She holds an M.S. in Environmental Policy from Bard College and an M.A. in Peace and Development Studies and a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Nadia lives in Willow, New York, in the eastern Catskills.

Rhea Suh

Rhea S. Suh was nominated and confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior in the spring of 2009. In this role, she oversees the human capital, fiscal, business and budgetary management of the Department’s $12 billion budget and more than 70,000 employees. She also provides policy leadership on international affairs, land conservation, sustainability, youth employment and diversity. During her tenure, Ms. Suh has led diplomatic negotiations for an agreement to permanently protect the Flathead River basin in the U.S. and Canada from oil, gas and minerals development. She has also elevated the Department’s engagement in a number of important multilateral processes including the Arctic Council. Prior to her current position, Ms. Suh served as a program officer and manager at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and as a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she planned and managed multi-million dollar conservation initiatives. Most notably, she led the successful effort to protect 21 million acres of coastal temperate rainforest, known as the Great Bear Rainforest, in British Columbia.

Carmera Thomas

Carmera is the Maryland Restoration, Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF). Before coming to CBF for the Conservation Corps, Carmera worked with the Annapolis Community Action Agency, Summer “Green Works” Program. The program employed underprivileged high school youth from Anne Arundel County Public Schools at different environmental organizations; Arlington Echo and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), to name a few. She has also been recognized as a GlaxoSmithKline Women in Science Scholar.

Ana Toni

Ana Toni is Partner in consultancy company, Public Interest Management, and the Chair of Greenpeace International Board. She was Ford Foundation Representative in Brazil from 2003 to 2011. She founded ActionAid in Brazil and worked for the organization in both UK and Brazil for more than five years. She worked for Greenpeace International in both Holland and Germany and for TV Globo in the UK. Ana has been in several Boards in the past and today is at present also a member of Baoba Fund for Racial Equity Board.

Patrick Walsh

A Pennsylvania native, Pat Walsh developed a love for the outdoors through his family’s camping trips during his youth. After learning about the horrors of mountaintop removal coal mining in 2010, he was launched headfirst into the world of environmental activism and social justice. With other interested Swarthmore College students, he co- founded Swarthmore Mountain Justice, a student group dedicated to ending MTR and other dangerous extraction practices. The group works toward anti-oppression and has been engaged in a fossil fuel divestment campaign for the past year. A current junior, Pat is dedicated to make Swarthmore a truly sustainable institution.

Brad Warren

Brad Warren is the founder and director of the Global Ocean Health Program, the joint ocean-acidification initiative of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and the National Fisheries Conservation Center. This program works to protect fisheries and ecosystems from acidification and related consequences of unmanaged wastes by: (1) documenting impacts; (2) cultivating effective witnesses and leaders on the waterfront; and (3) building both capacity and public engagement in preventing and managing acidification. Warren proposed and serves on Washington State’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification, the first program of its kind. He has worked in fisheries and marine conservation since the early 1980s. He was editor of Pacific Fishing from 1996 to 2004, a correspondent and editor for National Fisherman from 1981 to 1996. He founded the National Fisheries Conservation Center (1994) and has served as an advisor and consultant to NMFS, FAO, and industry and conservation groups.

Cole Wilbur

Cole Wilbur is a Trustee and Past President of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. He was the CEO at Packard for 23 years. Cole was Interim President and CEO of the Council on Foundations during the fall of 2005 and received the Distinguished Grantmaker’s Award in 1999. He previously was the CEO of the Sierra Club Foundation for six years. Prior to that, he worked in international banking. He is on the boards of The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, the Institute for Global Ethics, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Colorado College, and the Stanford Theatre Foundation. He serves on a number of Advisory Boards and in the past served as a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foundations and for the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Jim Young

Jim Young serves as Associate Director at the Blue Green Alliance, leading its program development work and managing communications strategy. Jim has 20 years of experience working with unions and labor coalitions and is also a Principal at The Labor Institute in New York City. Since 1972, The Labor Institute has provided training and education programs on economics, the environment, and occupational health to unions across the U.S. and Canada. Jim serves on the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, the oldest and largest statewide labor- environment alliance in the country. A former full-time journalist, Jim has written about economic and environmental issues for Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Village Voice, (U.K.) and has authored or contributed to many reports, including Building the Clean Energy Assembly Line: How Renewable Energy Can Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing and the American Middle Class (2009).