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 through our regional networks and national fellowship program. We define emerging leaders as newly established environmental and social change 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 environmental and social change leaders and spark new ideas and solutions to pressing environmental 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. ELP Fellows live and work in all regions of the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, and Micronesia.

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PROJECT DETAILS

In 2007, ELP will launch the Southeast Regional Network to develop emerging leaders and strengthen environmental efforts from urban neighborhoods and the suburbs to rural areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and central and eastern Tennessee. 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 leaders from all communities, and create new forums to bring together the Southeast environmental community.

Through the Southeast Regional Network, ELP:

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

The Southeast Regional Network is the third and latest expansion of ELP's unique approach to leadership. ELP plans to establish regional networks 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) are selected as ELP Fellows to receive targeted leadership development and skill training.

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ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Brendon Barclay, Founding Director, Sustaining Urban Villages. Brendon is the founder and Executive director of SUSTAINING URBAN VILLAGES Inc. a non-profit he began after adopting a 26 acre urban forest in West End Atlanta, which had been abandoned in 2002 during the country's post 9/11 recession. Over the past five years Sustaining Urban Villages successfully raised over $1.2 million of support for the urban forest property and engaged over 5,000 volunteers in 15,000 hours of volunteer urban forestry conservation. As a 1994 AmeriCorps alumni from the "inaugural class of volunteers" he has worked consistently with national and local community service initiatives from the academic, faith-based and non-profit sectors. Sustaining Urban Villages (SUV) is currently working in the greater metro Atlanta area to promote non-traditional environmental education among school-aged children and their families. According to the state of Georgia's public school "report card" there is a 50% failure rate among students of color, SUV is currently working across sector to find a pragmatic approach to this issue. B. L. A. Barclay is married with three sons and is a licensed minister at a prominent ministry in the metro Atlanta area.

Norman L. Christensen, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University. Christensen's research focuses on the effects of disturbance on structure and function of populations, communities and ecosystems. On going studies include an analysis of patterns of forest development following cropland abandonment as these are affected by environment, stand history and plant demographic patterns. He and his students are pursuing comparative studies of ecosystem responses to varying fire regimes across temperate North America. He is conducting research on the utilization of remote sensing systems such as synthetic aperture radar to evaluate long-term changes in forest ecosystems. In addition to these interests in basic ecological science, Christensen has written widely on the importance of natural disturbance in the management of forests, shrublands, and wetlands. He is interested in the application of basic ecological theory and models to management, and has collaborated with others in the development of the concept of ecosystem management.

Felicia Davis, Mothers and Others Program Manager, Georgia Conservancy. Previously, Felicia served as the Senior Policy Analyst for the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda where she was responsible for environmental programs, public relations, and community outreach for a wide range of civil rights and justice issues. She was also responsible for outreach to African-American and other communities of color on air quality and environmental justice issues and coordinated outreach for a national campaign to clean up coal-fired power plants. Felicia represents the People's Agenda in the Georgia Airkeepers Coalition, Georgia Environmental Enforcement Project, National Clear the Air Campaign, and Climate Justice Initiative, and is co-convener of the Black Leadership Forum's National Environmental & Climate Justice Task Force.

Sheldon Fleming, Executive Director, Wonderland Gardens. Sheldon Fleming has a long history in the green industry business; but a true turning point in his career came in 1987 when his younger sister was murdered, a crime that remains unsolved to this day. A year later tragedy struck again when his mother died in her sleep. O vercome with grief, Fleming sought refuge in what he loved: gardening. He quickly realized how "therapeutic" gardening was, and wondered if the act itself did not posses some kind of a unique "healing power." Looking around his community he realized there must be others who could benefit by spending time in a garden. In 1997, with the help of donations and grants, Fleming opened Wonderland Gardens, it is with in a Dekalb Co. Park and is open to the public. Planted with flowerbeds, vegetables gardens, and trolling path made from tires. Wonderland is also an education center, teaching the joy of gardening and other life-skills to school children, seniors, the disabled and at-risk-youth. By serving as the garden's Executive Director, Fleming has witnessed first hand the incredible impact simple garden has played in his African-American community. In addition to running the day-day operations of Wonderland Gardens, Fleming hosted a National Gardening Show on TV One called "Can You Dig It". The show aired 2005 and 2006 season.

Pegeen Hanrahan, Mayor, City of Gainesville, Florida. Pegeen Hanrahan is mayor of the City of Gainesville, FL. Before her election in March 2004, Pegeen was executive director of the Florida Conservation Alliance, the statewide affiliate of the Federation of State Conservation Voter Leagues. She was a two-term commissioner of the City of Gainesville, where she served three years as Mayor-Commissioner Pro Tem, and chaired both the Gainesville/Alachua County Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization and the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency. She serves as a board member of Alachua Conservation Trust, The Gateway Girl Scout Council, The Healthy Communities Initiative, and Friends of Ring Park. Pegeen currently is developing a strategic plan for the Florida Local Environmental Resource Agencies (FLERA), a non-profit coalition representing city and county environmental programs.

Renee Hoyos, Executive Director, Tennessee Clean Water Network. Renee Hoyos is executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, where she helps state watershed groups influence public policies that protect and restore Tennessee's waters. Prior to TCWN, Renee was special assistant for watersheds and outreach to Secretary Mary Nichols of the California Resources Agency where she managed a statewide watershed group to restore California's natural resources. Previously, Renee was a watershed analyst at the Information Center for the Environment at the University of California-Davis, where she created web-based decision support tools for watershed management and won the EPA Region IX Regional Administrator's 2000 Innovation Award.

Laura Gail Lunsford, Director Park Scholarships, NC State University. Ms. Lunsford directs the Park Scholarships program, one of America's most prestigious undergraduate merit awards, funded by the Park Foundation of Ithaca, NY. Fifty Scholars are selected annually, from among 1,000 applicants, on the basis of scholarship, leadership, service, and character. Lunsford established this program, which is in its eleventh year. She will soon complete her PhD in Psychology and is an expert on talent and leadership development for young people. Under her direction students have engaged in a variety of service activities, including those focused on the environment. Lunsford has received the 2004 Outstanding NCSU Young Alumna Award, a Cook Dissertation Award, been named to Empire's Who's Who for Executives and Professionals and selected by Rotary International to participate in the 2005 Group Study Exchange to the Eastern Antilles. Lunsford has a long-standing interest in solar power and is the first in North Carolina to own the fuel efficient Smart car.

MaryBe McMillan, Secretary-Treasurer, North Carolina-AFL-CIO. A labor activist and North Carolina native, MaryBe was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO in 2005. She previously worked as a public policy researcher for the Common Sense Foundation--a North Carolina-based progressive think tank and the Rural School & Community Trust--a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing rural education. Prior to becoming Secretary-Treasurer, she worked as a program staff person at the North Carolina State AFL-CIO. MaryBe is the first female officer in the history of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO. She holds a doctorate degree in sociology from North Carolina State University and is a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

Edward McNally, Founder, Above the Fold. Edward McNally has been promoting, writing about and celebrating innovation, creativity, sustainability and progressive ideas for over twenty-five years. His progressive marketing solutions company, Above The Fold, crafts and markets messages that matter. This means raising national media and brand awareness for socially responsible companies, sustainable products and programs, liberal political candidates and progressive NGOs. Edward's firm has arranged timely coverage for clients with every type of media outlet, including AP, ABC News, ABC Radio, CNN Headline News, NBC News, PBS, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, TIME, USA Today, Vanity Fair and WeatherChannel.com., to name a few. Some of the companies and organizations Edward has worked with or promoted include the Association for Commuter Transportation, the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign, The Atlanta Regional Commission, EARTH University Foundation & EARTH University (based in Costa Rica), The Georgia Microenterrpise Network, Georgia Organics, The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Seven Stages Theater, The Southface Energy Institute, The Urban Land Institute, The US Green Building Council and Village Habitat, LLC. In 2005, the special events division of Above The Fold, in concert with the national Bioneers organization, launched the first ever Bioneers Forum in the Southeast region. Now in its third year, the annual event continues to bring together progressive innovators in science, business, the arts, social justice and environmental organizing from across the Southeastern US . Based in Atlanta , Edward chairs the marketing committee of the Livable Communities Coalition and serves on the executive committee of the Atlanta Local Food Initiative (ALFI).

Frank Peterman, Director, Public and Political Awareness, The Wilderness Society. In 1995 Frank Peterman and his wife set off from Florida on a national park tour. "We saw ten parks and three black people," he recalls. So they created Earthwise Production, Inc., an organization designed to get African Americans more involved in public lands-a mission he has continued to pursue since joining the Wilderness Society in 2002. A lawyer with degrees from Morehouse College and Howard University Law School, Peterman has devoted most of his career to causes such as conservation, housing, and poverty. He has won awards from the Everglades Coalition and the National Parks Conservation Association, among others.

Adam R. Snyder, Executive Director, Conservation Alabama. Adam is also director of the voter education affiliate, the Conservation Alabama Foundation. Most recently, Adam served as Executive Director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, a river protection and restoration non-profit established in 1997. Prior to joining the Alliance in 2001, Mr. Snyder worked at Operation New Birmingham, a downtown revitalization and race relations non-profit in Birmingham, Ala. He is an honor graduate from the University of South Carolina with a degree in print journalism. A native of Alabama, Mr. Snyder is involved with a variety of civic and volunteer organizations in his hometown. He is married to Dr. Erin Snyder, a member of the internal medicine faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Omega Wilson, President, West End Revitilization Association. Omega R. Wilson is the founding board member and president of West End Revitalization Association (WERA) , a Community-Based Environmental Protection organization and Community Development Corporation in Mebane, N.C., that seeks to maintain sustainable historic African American communities through environmental protection, preservation, stabilization, and planned development. Wilson served as the project manager for three grassroots community-based research studies involving health risks due to the disproportionate and adverse impact of environmental hazards and the denial of basic amenities. The projects have been implemented through the support of the Environmental Protection Agency's (Region 4) Office of Environmental Justice Small Grant Program; University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Project EXPORT; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice through a Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Project (CPS) entitled "Right to Basic Amenities." Of thirty CPS awardees in 2004 WERA was selected as one the top seven most productive in 2006. Omega Wilson was selected to serve as a community representative on the U.S. EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

FOUNDATION SUPPORT

We are grateful to the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation and Moriah Fund for their generous seed funding for the Southeast Regional Network through the Jack Vanderryn Fellowship Initiative.

INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Invest in Southeast'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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