ELP's Mission

The Environmental Leadership Program inspires visionary, action oriented and diverse leadership to work for a just and sustainable future.

ELP's primary goal is to train and support the next generation of environmental and social change leaders both within and beyond its flagship national initiative, the ELP Fellowship. We define emerging leaders as newly established environmental practitioners with fewer than 10 years of experience in the field. ELP's Regional Networks enable us to build on our national fellowship to serve a broader constituency of emerging leaders and spark new ideas and solutions to pressing environmental and social problems in regions across the country.

Recognizing that every sector plays a critical role in environmental progress, ELP recruits participants for its programs from across the field, including nonprofits, academia, government, and the private sector. ELP also strives to create a community comprised of individuals from different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds and to work with emerging leaders who can strengthen partnerships with public health, religious, labor, and civil rights organizations. Nearly fifty percent of the ELP fellows are people of color. They live and work in all regions of the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska.

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PROJECT DETAILS

In 2004, ELP brought its unique approach to leadership development to the Delaware Valley, and expanded the ELP community, by launching the ELP Delware Valley Regional Network. The geographic scope of the Delaware Valley Regional Network includes the following: in PA - Berks, Bradford, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Columbia, Delaware, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Montour, Northampton, Northumberland, Philadelphia, Pike, Schuylkill, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, York; NJ and DE.

The Delaware Valley region was the first area selected, and serves as a model, for ELP to establish regional networks in other regions across the country to connect, train, and support up-and-coming environmental leaders to build the capacity of each region's environmental community and its professionals, volunteers, and institutions. Through regional networks, emerging leaders from business, government, higher education, and non-profit sectors will bring their diverse issue expertise to create new relationships, forge collaborations, and advance their individual and collective skills and leadership. Emerging leaders (with fewer than 10 years of experience in the environmental field) were selected as ELP Regional Fellows to receive targeted leadership development and skill training.

In 2008, the Delaware Valley Regional Network will continue to further develop local emerging leaders to strengthen environmental efforts from center city neighborhoods and the suburbs to rural areas in the Delaware Valley. Through ELP, emerging leaders have new opportunities to develop their skills, build alliances among organizations in the region, and spur diverse, more comprehensive, approaches to environmental work across the region. In addition, we hope to support regionalism, increase the retention of talented up-and-coming environmental and social change leaders in the metropolitan area, and create new forums to bring together the Delaware Valley area environmental community.

Through the Delaware Valley Regional Network, ELP:

• Selects emerging leaders as ELP Regional Fellows who participate in community building, skill training, and professional development through our Regional Fellowship Program.
• Sponsors networking events to bring together environmental professionals and volunteers across the region.
• Convenes Regional Issues Forums to discuss key environmental issues facing the Delaware Valley.

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ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Richard Bazelon, Bazelon, Less & Feldman
Mr. Bazelon's law practice since 1969 has been commercial litigation, as an associate and partner at Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy & Kauffman, and since 1983 as a founder, partner and now shareholder of Bazelon Less & Feldman. Mr. Bazelon has also represented clients in a number of successful and precedent setting cases concerning business torts, good faith and fair dealing in commercial contract, securities, zoning, condemnation and civil rights. Mr.Bazelon also served as the Chairperson of the Redevelopment Authority for the City of Philadelphia from January, 1984 to 2001.

Blaine Bonham, Executive Vice President, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Mr. Bonham serves as Executive Vice President for The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and leads its urban greening program, Philadelphia Green. Under Bonham's direction, Philadelphia Green has moved to the forefront of urban greening efforts in the nation, and has served as a model for programs in other cities. Bonham is a founding member of the Neighborhood Gardens Association/A Philadelphia Land Trust, an organization that assists communities in making gardens a permanent part of the neighborhood fabric. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council's Greenspace Alliance, a regional effort to preserve open space and natural resources; and on the board of the City Parks Alliance, a national coalition of urban parks advocates. He is the author of several articles and produced Urban Vacant Land: Issues and Recommendations published in 1995.

John Byrne, Professor, University of Delaware
Dr. John Byrne is a Professor at the University of Delaware and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 1980. He specializes in political economy; sustainable development; environmental justice; technology, environment and society.

Kara Coats, Senior Assistant City Solicitor, City of Wilmington, Delaware
Kara S. Coats is the senior assistant city solicitor of the City of Wilmington, Delaware where she is the legal counsel for the City of Wilmington's administration on environmental matters. Kara focuses on the promotion and coordination of brownfields redevelopment within the City and works to improve protection of the City's source water. In addition, she provides advice on regulatory compliance, minimizing City's exposure to environmental liability, and on managing environmental litigation cases. She is a board member of the Brandywine Valley Association, a watershed organization with a mission to protect the water quality of the Brandywine River.

John Cusack, Executive Director of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Mr. Cusack is the founder of Gifford Park Associates, a management and policy consulting firm specializing in the areas of strategic environmental/sustainability management and implementation, climate change risks, environmental finance risks and disclosure, energy, and the relationship between the environmental and financial performance of publicly traded companies. Additionally, Mr. Cusack is the executive director of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS). He has a MCE in Environmental Engineering & Science from Manhattan College, an MBA with concentrations in finance and management from New York University, and is a registered Professional Engineer in New York State.

Medard Gabel, CEO of BigPictureSmallWorld, Inc.
Medard develops a wide variety of educational programs, web movies, and simulations dealing with the environment, globalization, and leadership. Medard is also the CEO of BigPicture Consulting that develops and delivers strategic planning simulations to corporations and organizations. He also developed and runs the Design Science Lab that is held each summer at the UN International School where students from around the world develop strategies for reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals. Medard is the author of six books on topics ranging from global energy and food to economic development. He worked with Buckminster Fuller and has been a consultant to UNEP, UNITAR, the U.S. State Department, Department of Agriculture, USAID, numerous international governments, the Governor's Energy Council of Pennsylvania, and the Food Task Force of Philadelphia. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority.

Fred Lewis, Senior Environmental Corps Volunteer Coordinator, The Center in the Park

Heather McCall is the Assistant State Coordinator for the Main Street New Jersey and Main Street Meadowlands Program with the NJ Office of Smart Growth, Department of Community Affairs. Using the National Trust for Historic Preservation's four point approach to downtown revitalization, Heather works with New Jersey’s 23 with local Main Street communities providing training, mentoring, and technical resources to strengthen central business districts through the organization of local citizens and resources. Prior to her promotion to the state level, Heather was the executive director of Main Street Mount Holly, a volunteer driven non-profit whose mission is to promote, protect, and enhance historic Mount Holly's downtown. Heather worked in real estate finance before catching the Main Street fever, and is currently a member of the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Planning Association, and a board member with Downtown New Jersey

Jaclyn Rhoads, Director for Conservation Policy, Pinelands Preservation Alliance
Ms. Dispensa serves as the director for conservation policy at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. Concurrently, she is a Ph.D candidate in environmental policy at Drexel University where she is a research assistant for the School of Environmental Science, Engineering and Policy working on a watersheds grant exploring the environmental and social implications of urban sprawl. Previously, she was vice president of the Green Building Division at Edifice Rx, a consulting firm specializing in indoor environmental quality, green buildings, and environmental psychology. Jaclyn serves on the speakers bureau for the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

Emily Bockian Landsburg, Business Development Associate, Energy Cooperative
Ms. Landsburg is building a regional biodiesel distribution business. Through Philadelphia Fry-o-Diesel, a subsidiary of The Cooperative, she is also working on commercialization of new technology to produce biodiesel from restaurant trap grease. In addition Emily is founder and owner of DownWind Dockside Services, a yacht maintenance company based in Newport, Rhode Island. DownWind incorporates sustainable practices into its daily operations and collaborates with the RI Department of Environmental Management to prevent boat discharge into local harbors. Previously she participated in mid-sized wind turbine installations with Rhode Island's Lorax Energy and assisted with renewable energy credit sales and marketing for People's Power & Light, a Rhode Island nonprofit.

Janet Milkman, President, The Future of Life, Inc.
Janet Milkman joined The Future of Life, Inc. in 2007 with 20 years of experience working in the public and non-profit sectors on environmental and energy issues. Most recently, Janet served as President & CEO of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, where she grew the organization into the statewide voice for smart growth, recognized for credible research and effective communications and advocacy. At 10,000 Friends, Janet led a partnership with the Brookings Institution in the development of the Back to Prosperity and Restoring Prosperity reports, groundbreaking studies on Pennsylvania’s economic competitiveness, land use and development that set the stage for major policy reform in Pennsylvania. During her tenure, 10,000 Friends published statewide studies on infrastructure investment and land use, and was a leader in efforts to pass conservation bond funds. Janet worked closely with the Ridge/Schweiker and Rendell Administrations to implement statewide land use planning reforms and policies to encourage redevelopment of Pennsylvania’s older communities.

Maurice Sampson, Niche Recycling
Mr. Sampson is the President of Niche Recycling and Waste Reduction Systems, Inc. (Niche Recycling, Inc) a business providing consulting services to government, business and industry. In the recent past, he served as Program Manager for Sustainable Development for PennFuture, a Pennsylvania based, private, not for profit environmental organization, and as a recycling economic development consultant to Philadelphia Self-Reliant, the City of Philadelphia and the Mid-Atlantic Consortium of Recycling and Economic Development Officials (MACREDO). Mr. Sampson has thirty years of experience in the design, development, and implementation of environmental resource programs, with emphasis in solid waste management and recycling. He has testified before legislative bodies at all levels of government.

Patrick M. Starr, Vice President and Director, S.E. PA Office.
Patrick Starr is Director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s southeast regional office (covering Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, and Philadelphia Counties). He heads projects on brownfield redevelopment, redevelopment of the Delaware River waterfront and transit-oriented development and oversees project managers who deal with issues including watershed protection, land conservation and sprawl. He also has served on numerous committees, including the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s Regional Citizens Committee, Regional Infrastructure for Sustaining Agriculture (Steering Committee 1997 to present), the Philadelphia Urban Resources Partnership (Executive Committee 1997 to 1999) and the Philadelphia City Council Select Committee on the Reuse of Vacant Land.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

FOUNDATION SUPPORT

We are grateful to the William Penn Foundation, Surdna Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for their generous support for ELP's Delaware Valley Regional Network.

INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Invest in Delaware Valley's next generation of environmental leaders! Make a gift online through our secure online donation page or mail your tax-deductible contribution to:

 Environmental Leadership Program
 1609 Connecticut Ave, NW 
 Suite 400 
 Washington, DC 20009

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