Working to protect our environment for both people and wildlife requires many different skills and talents. Above all it requires a passion for the planet and everyone who calls it home. Our staff are all advocates for our planet and they bring with them a complex mix of skills and experience to help Friends of the Earth achieve its mission.

Our president | Our staff | Our board | Our consultants

Lisa Archer, Food and technology program director

Lisa leads Friends of the Earth’s efforts to ensure food, consumer products and emerging technologies are safe for people and the environment. For more than a decade, she has developed and led successful corporate accountability, markets and legislative campaigns focused on environmental health and justice. Most recently, she co-founded and directed The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of women’s, public health, labor, environmental health and consumer groups moving the cosmetics industry toward safe, sustainable production while advocating for smarter laws to protect our health from toxic chemicals and building the movement for chemical policy reform. Recent victories include securing the commitment of Johnson & Johnson to globally reformulate products to remove carcinogens and moving major retailers including CVS and Whole Foods to commit to safe cosmetics policies. Prior to this, she led Friends of the Earth’s Health and Environment Program, developing and running hard-hitting campaigns to prevent the environmental causes of cancer; challenge the untested, unregulated introduction of genetically engineered food and nanotechnology into the marketplace; and promote environmentally sound farming practices. Lisa has appeared in numerous media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, Time Magazine, CNN, CBS, ABC and NPR. Lisa is a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing and holds a dual degree in International Relations and Economics.

Bob Alvarez, Senior analyst

Bob Alvarez serves as a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and as a senior analyst at Friends of the Earth, focusing on nuclear disarmament, the safety risks of nuclear reactors and, in particular, the vulnerability of radioactive spent fuel that is piling up at reactor sites across the U.S. Between 1993 and 1999, Bob served at the Department of Energy as a senior policy advisor. Prior to joining the DOE, Bob served for five years as a senior investigator for the U. S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator John Glenn, and as one of the Senate’s primary staff experts on the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Bob is an award winning author and has published articles in prominent publications such as Science Magazine, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Technology Review and The Washington Post. He has been featured in television programs such as NOVA and 60 Minutes.

Michelle Chan, Economic policy program director

Michelle Chan coordinates the Friends of the Earth's green investments project, which brings environmental advocacy to Wall Street. The green investments project engages in shareholder activism, promotes corporate environmental disclosure, provides outreach to financial analysts, and works with major financial institutions to develop environmental management systems. She is the founder of BankTrack, an international NGO network, and is currently coordinating Friends of the Earth's China-related work. Michelle has served on the Board of CERES, an investor-environmentalist alliance for corporate responsibility; the Council for Responsible Public Investment, and the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment. She is a founding member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Advisory Committee, and in 2002 received the Social Investment Forum's Service Award for outstanding contributions to the field of socially responsible investing. She graduated from the Division of Honors with degrees in Economics, Development Studies, and Geography from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Tom Clements, Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator

Tom is the Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth and is based in Columbia, South Carolina. He monitors a host of energy and nuclear issues from a public interest perspective, including new reactor construction in South Carolina and Georgia, small modular reactors, commercial spent fuel storage, and plutonium fuel (MOX). His work includes a focus on risks associated with nuclear projects at the Department Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Tom holds a Masters in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia and has worked for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Office of Surface Mining in coal strip mine regulation. For the past 25 years has worked on nuclear issues for Greenpeace International, the Nuclear Control Institute, Friends of the Earth and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Tom ran for U.S. Senate in South Carolina in 2010 with the Green Party and garnered about 10 percent of the vote, the largest percentage nationwide of any third party candidate for federal office that year. He also served two years in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica (1986-1988) and immediately before moving to Columbia, SC in 2007, served a year with a human rights group in Colombia, South America.

Jeff Conant, International forests campaigner

Jeff Conant directs Friends of the Earth's international forests program, which seeks to protect forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the root causes of forest destruction. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, he was communications director with Global Justice Ecology Project, where he advocated for climate justice at the UN and other global arenas. He is also an author and popular educator, having co-authored A Community Guide to Environmental Health with Hesperian Health Guides (2008), as well as having developed educational materials on a wide range of issues related to ecological and social justice. As an independent journalist, Jeff has written frequently for outlets such as Alternet, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, Race, Poverty and the Environment, and Z Magazine. He is also the founding editor of synbiowatch.org.

Julie Dyer, Executive assistant

Julie joins Friends of the Earth as executive assistant to the president. In addition to supporting the president, Julie serves as a liaison to the board of directors. Julie has previously worked in higher education and as a judicial assistant. She has experience in administrative support, editing, and event planning. She looks forward to using her previous experience to help increase efficiency at an organization that helps to defend the environment. Julie is currently studying Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. She enjoys spending time with her husband and children at their home in western Loudoun County.

Ross Hammond, Senior campaigner

Ross has over 25 years experience advocating on a number of public policy issues including: opening up U.N. processes to civil society; reforming aid institutions like the World Bank and IMF; combating the tobacco industry’s efforts to spread death and disease in the global South; and confronting the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on the U.S. political process. Through his work with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids he helped usher in the world's first public health treaty (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control). He has helped form and lead both domestic and international coaltions, and has and has provided short and long-term advocacy and communications consulting to a host of NGOs, foundations and multilateral institutions. In his free time he cooks, attends his kids’ soccer and baseball games, and plays disc golf. A native of Buffalo, he holds a BA from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Applied Economics from the American University.

Eric Hoffman, Food and technology policy campaigner

As the food and technology policy campaigner, Eric focuses on protecting people and the environment from emerging genetic technologies such as ownership and control of human genes, human genetic engineering, animal cloning, animal genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Originally from Baltimore, Eric earned a degree in political science and a minor in environmental studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. After graduation, Eric was an Emerson National Hunger Fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center. During the year-long fellowship he worked at the Community Food Bank in Tucson, AZ and the National Family Farm Coalition, focusing on the role and viability of local food systems and sustainable agriculture. Since then, he served as a policy assistant for the National Family Farm Coalition and the Community Food Security Coalition where he works on agriculture policy, including efforts to fight the genetic engineering of seeds, farm to school policy, as well as food sovereignty.

Read Eric's blog.

Ian Illuminato, Health and environment campaigner

Ian's work focuses on protecting people and the environment from threats posed by nanotechnology. He has worked for Greenpeace Italy, Greenpeace International, and the United Nations Environmental Program in Italy and has extensive experience monitoring the impact of technological change on the environment. At Greenpeace he helped lead an international movement against genetically engineered crops in Europe and the Middle East. He persuaded Europe's largest rice company to stop importing American rice to keep its stock GM-free. He also works closely with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics to remove toxins from beauty products. He has authored reports including, “Nano and biocidal silver: extreme germ killers present a growing threat to public health” and “Nanotechnology, climate and energy: over-heated promises and hot air?” His writing has appeared in publications including the Journal of Nanoparticle Research and the European Journal of Oncology. He has also appeared in numerous media outlets including the New York Times, Scientific American, Business Week and Reuters. He has also served on the Executive Committee of Friends of the Earth International. Ian has a B.A. degree in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

John Kaltenstein, Marine program manager

John Kaltenstein combines an environmental/natural resources law background with a passionate commitment to advocacy on behalf of the environment and social justice. He has done legal work and analyzed compliance requirements for smelting and metallurgy operations in Peru, written amicus briefs on impacts of a proposed mariculture operation in Costa Rica as well as a shrimp aquaculture project in Belize, research Endangered Species Act issues and developed conservation recommendations on groundfish bycatch. He has also worked for the SEIU Health Care Workers Union, conducting training and education work, and managed litigation involving complex antitrust, securities and health care issues. While in law school, he co-chaired his law school’s environmental justice advocacy group. He holds a J.D. from Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, OR and a B.A. from Swarthmore in Political Science.

Marcie Keever, Oceans and vessels program director

Marcie Keever has a strong background in campaign implementation, expertise on air issues, and experience in dealing with agency relations and legislative initiatives. Previously, Marcie served as program director for San Francisco Beautiful where she implemented a campaign to stop the proliferation of digital billboards in California and prevented the placement of advertising on the Golden Gate Bridge. Prior to that she was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow for Our Children's Earth Foundation, conducting air pollution case work, including lawsuits against the Tennessee Valley Authority for its dirty coal fired power plants. She has also done work for a number of environmental justice organizations including as a staff attorney at the Golden Gate University Environmental Law and Justice Clinic. Marcie holds a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco with a certificate in Environmental Law, and a B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara with a double major in Environmental Studies and Law and Society.

Carrie Mann, Membership associate

Carrie is the membership associate at Friends of the Earth. Previously, she worked for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, where she supported sustainable development and green building projects. Carrie graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BA in Political Science and International Studies. She has studied and lived in China and traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

Kris Marchu, Stewardship coordinator

Kris brings a history of international fundraising and a passion for the environment to Friends of the Earth by coordinating the stewardship endeavors of the organization. She comes from a Greenpeace background having done fundraising for both the US and Australia-Pacific offices and before that she was an English instructor in Osaka, Japan. Kris has a Masters in International Relations from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and a BA in International Studies from CSU Long Beach. She enjoys traveling abroad, studying Japanese, and reading fantasy novels while drinking fancy tea.

Damon Moglen, Climate and energy program director

Damon leads Friends of the Earth’s climate and energy team. He came to Friends of the Earth in 2010 from Greenpeace USA where he was the global warming campaign director. Damon started his work on environmental issues with Friends of the Earth in Washington, D.C. in 1984 -- since then he has worked on climate, energy and nuclear issues for nearly 20 years with Greenpeace International, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has also worked for the ACLU as a field director and for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids as their international advocacy director. He has extensive experience directing campaigns at local, national and international levels. Damon is married to an environmental engineer at the Inter-American Development Bank, has a daughter and two sons, and lives in Takoma Park, MD.

Karen Orenstein, International policy analyst

Karen Orenstein’s work at Friends of the Earth U.S. focuses on international climate finance. In other words, she campaigns to get the U.S. and other rich countries to provide and effectively deliver -- in line with what climate science and justice demand -- funds to ordinary people living in developing countries to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop along ecologically sound pathways. Karen came to Friends of the Earth with more than a decade of grassroots advocacy experience in environmental and international human rights campaigns. This included seven years at the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), where she led Washington efforts to support genuine self-determination and justice for the people of East Timor and human rights protections for the peoples of Indonesia and West Papua; she continues to serve on ETAN’s board. Karen has done research and volunteer work for the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition and PETS DC, and lived in Tanzania. Not unimportantly, she has 2 cute cats.

Read Karen's blog.

Erich Pica, President

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica is a nationally recognized expert on energy subsidies who for more than a decade has worked to reform U.S. tax and budget policy in ways that reduce pollution and spark a transition to clean energy.

Read an extended bio.

Follow Erich on Twitter: @erichpica

Anna Prow, Managing director

Anna brings 10 years of experience in organizational leadership to her role as managing director, most recently as chief operating officer at Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth. Prior to that, she spent a career chapter in international development at NGO’s like National Democratic Institute and International Research and Exchanges Board. 

Service as a Peace Corps Volunteer heightened her sensitivity to complex global issues, as did five years on staff at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. She developed her commitment to learning in six years as a public high school teacher and as academic director at the School for International Training in Madagascar. And she honed her skills as an advocate and activist as a local volunteer leader and a member of the Board of Governors of Human Rights Campaign. Anna has an MS in Urban Policy Analysis from the New School.

James Ross, Director of development

Jim Ross directs Friends of the Earth’s fundraising efforts. Jim comes to Friends of the Earth with more than a decade of donor relations experience. During the course of his career, Jim has developed and implemented comprehensive donor programs in support of conservation, healthcare and educational programs on both a regional and national scale. As an active member of the fundraising organizations AFP and AHP, Jim has taught seminars  on the development of integrated donor affinity programs in complex organizations. Jim is a graduate of Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. His first encounter with environmental disaster came shortly after high school while serving as a member of the United States Coast Guard in Prince William Sound, during the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Jim lives in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania with his wife Amy, and their three daughters, Madelyn, Hannah and Alison.

Adam Russell, Communications associate

Adam supports the communications team in its efforts to expand Friends of the Earth’s web, media and community reach. As a communications associate, Adam manages the organization’s social media accounts, assists in drafting and editing action alerts and helps with outreach to press and supporters. He previously has experience at the Pomona College Sustainability Integration Office, where he helped audit the school’s sustainability efforts, and with the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, where he provided support for campaigns in southern Maryland. Adam attended Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., where he received a B.A. in Environmental Analysis and a minor in Spanish.

Madelyn Rygg, Financial controller

Madelyn fills Friends of the Earth’s key financial position. She brings to Friends of the Earth 12 years of nonprofit accounting and over 25 years overseeing the financial management and reporting, IT, tax and legal matters in multi-company, non-profit and for-profit organizations. She has established and operated import and export businesses in the wholesale computer products and footwear industries, dealing with customers and manufacturers in Europe, South America, Russia, the Middle East and the Far East. She holds a B.S. in accounting from Frostburg State University. Her strength lies in overall business operations, automation and process improvement.

Kathy Sawyer, Director of foundation relations

Kathy has more than 15 years experience raising funds for community-level, national and international nonprofits based in the D.C. metropolitan area focusing on peace, social justice, conservation and green building. She has extensive editing experience in a variety of print media. Kathy has a B.A. in French from Illinois State University and an M.A. in International Development from American University. She has lived and traveled extensively in Japan, Europe and Africa, as well as the Kyrgyz Republic. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering for local organizations, reading, writing, traveling and attending film festivals and live music.

Benjamin Schreiber, Climate and energy tax analyst

Benjamin Schreiber is the climate and energy tax analyst at Friends of the Earth.  Prior to joining friends of the Earth he was a staff attorney at Environment America where he focused on energy issues.  Ben received a B.A. in sociology from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Sharon Smith, Accountant

Sharon Smith is Friends of the Earth's accountant. She brings with her more than 20 years of accounting experience. Her tremendous organization and commitment to producing results above and beyond expectations are an asset to the organization. In her spare time she enjoys creating personal calendars, all occasions’ cards and photo collages. Sharon also has an interest in computers and electronic gadgets.

Peter Stocker, Membership director