Board of Directors
John Elder
John Elder and his wife Rita live in Bristol, Vermont and operate a sugarbush in nearby Starksboro with their grown sons. Since 1973 he's taught English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, where his special interests are in American nature writing, Romantic and contemporary poetry, Japan's haiku tradition, and environmental education. Two recent books, Reading the Mountains of Home and The Frog Run, have focused on the landscape, environmental history, and cultural meaning of Vermont. His most recent book, Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa, retraces the travels of the nineteenth-century conservationist and writer George Perkins Marsh. As an environmentalist, John's emphasis is increasingly on the Northern Forest and on the significance of our choices about food for the health of our region.
Torri Estrada
Torri Estrada is a program officer at the Marin Community Foundation, where he manages the Foundation's environmental grantmaking program, including the Climate Change Strategic Initiative (http://www.marincf.org/grants-and-loans/grants/strategic-initiatives/reducing-the-impact-of-climate-change). Previously, Torri served as the coordinator of the Water Funders Alliance at the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a funder working group that facilitated the exchange of information and experience among diverse funders concerned about fresh water and its connection to other critical issues. Torri was also a program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Acting Director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, and Director of the Latino Issues Forum's Environment and Sustainable Development Program. Torri holds a MS degree in Environmental Policy and Sociology from the
Carolyn Finney
Carolyn Finney was born in New York and grew up on an estate where her father was the caretaker and her mother the housekeeper. Though the land was not their own (her family resided in the gardener’s cottage), her parents poured their love into the land. Staying close to her roots, Carolyn pursed an acting career for eleven years, both in New York and Los Angeles. But a backpacking trip around the world in 1987 changed the course of her life. She spent the next five years traveling and living in Africa and Nepal, respectively. Motivated by these experiences, Carolyn returned to school in 1994 to complete her undergraduate degree, focusing on women and development in Kenya. She then pursued a Masters degree in international development, investigating women’s participation in community forestry management in Nepal. She recently completed her Ph.D. in geography at Clark University in Massachusetts. As a Canon National Parks Science Scholarship recipient, she focused her dissertation research on cultural and environmental encounters in the U.S, highlighting how they are gendered and racialized. In particular, her research seeks to broaden our understanding of African Americans and environment interactions by exploring how the attitudes and beliefs of African Americans are influenced by racialized constructions and representations, informing how African Americans participate in the use of national forests and parks. She is currently a Newhouse/Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in Environmental Studies and Humanities. She began her position as Assistant Professor in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley in July 2007. The journey continues!
Gil Livingston
Gil Livingston graduated from the University of Vermont (B.A. 1975, Political Science), received his law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law (J.D. magna cum laude 1978) and was admitted to the practice of law in California (1978) and Vermont (1979). After law school he worked for two years for a small Burlington, Vermont law firm specializing in municipal planning and zoning and environmental work. Gil then worked for Vermont Legal Aid representing mentally ill clients, followed by a position with the Vermont Attorney General's Office doing environmental enforcement and employment discrimination work. He was Executive Officer to the Vermont Environmental Board for three years managing Vermont's Act 250 permit program. Gil then spent five years as a staff attorney for the Chittenden County Public Defender. He became Vice President for Land Conservation and Counsel for the Vermont Land Trust in December 1990 and President in 2007. Gil currently serves on the board of the Black Family Land Trust, and volunteers his time to that growing organization. He and wife Amy Wright live in Richmond, Vermont with their daughter, Addie.
Polly Hoppin
Polly Hoppin is on the faculty of the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and leads the environmental health program at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production. She has been a community organizer (on toxics issues); founded the World Wildlife Fund’s U.S. work on pollution prevention in agriculture, and held senior positions at the EPA and Dept. of Health and Human Services.
Over the years, Polly’s work has focused on developing and promoting solutions to health problems associated with environmental exposures. She has been instrumental in refining and promoting concepts in environmental and health policy that now have wide currency, including pesticide reduction and investments by third party payers in environmental interventions for asthma. Polly believes that health and well-being depend on healthy social and environmental conditions, and on reducing disparities. Consequently, she now spends much of her time identifying strategic opportunities to address social and environmental factors in health and to promote sustainable production and consumption. Her favorite work is analyzing the broad systems contributing to current problems, and facilitating policy and program decision-making by leaders from a range of kinds of organizations, including community-based groups, government agencies and health care institutions, to meet health and environmental goals. Polly lives an urban neighborhood in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with her husband and two daughters.
Melissa Nelson
Melissa Nelson, Ph.D. is a cultural ecologist, writer, educator, researcher, and indigenous rights activist. Since 2002, Melissa has been an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. For the past twelve years she has served as the executive director of The Cultural Conservancy (TCC), a twenty-year old native non-profit organization based in San Francisco. Before SFSU, Melissa taught ecological psychology and environmental justice courses at the California Institute of Integral Studies and served as editor for the Ecopsychology Newsletter. Melissa received her Ph.D. in cultural ecology with a designated emphasis in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis. Her teaching, research, and community activism is dedicated to decolonization and cultural recovery, environmental protection and restoration, and the revitalization and celebration of community health and cultural arts. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe.
Kesha Ram
Kesha Ram is currently the youngest member of the Vermont Legislature and the youngest state legislator in the nation. She is a strong voice for empowering marginalized communities, creating affordable housing, advancing environmental justice, and promoting a just and sustainable economy. Outside of her legislative duties, Kesha is a legal advocate for victims of domestic violence at Women Helping Battered Women in Chittenden County. She is also a member of the Burlington Environment and Energy Coordinating Committee and Climate Action Plan Policy Team. Kesha graduated from the University of Vermont with dual degrees in Natural Resource Planning and Political Science in 2008. Her achievements have earned her recognition as a Morris K. Udall Scholar, Ronald E. McNair Scholar, Harry S. Truman Scholar, and Oxfam Sister on the Planet.
Lauret Savoy
Lauret Savoy writes across threads of cultural identity to explore their shaping by relationship with and dislocation from the land. Her goal is to produce multiple narratives of such connections and edges from stories we tell of land, its origin and history, to stories we tell of ourselves in the land and of relational identity. A woman of mixed African-American, Native American, and Euro-American heritage, a photographer, and professor of geology and environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, she co-edited The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World (Milkweed Editions 2002) with Alison Deming. Savoy has edited, with Eldridge and Judy Moores, the anthology Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology (Trinity University Press, 2006, under poet-publisher Barbara Ras). In fall 2005, she became the director of Mount Holyoke College’s Center for the Environment.
Tom Wessels, Chair
Tom Wessels is a professor of ecology at Antioch University New England where he was the founding director of the masters degree program in Conservation Biology. Tom considers himself a generalist with interests in forest, desert, and alpine ecosystems and the interface of culture and landscape. He is former chair of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation which fosters environmental leadership through graduate fellowships and organizational grants. Tom is an ecological consultant to the Rain Forest Alliance's SmartWood Green Certification program where he helped draft green certification assessment guidelines for forest operations in the northeastern states and adjacent Canada. His books include: Reading the Forested Landscape, The Granite Landscape, Untamed Vermont, and The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future.