Staff
Jennifer Krill, Executive Director
Extracting social and environmental justice from corporate boardrooms since 1995, Jennifer Krill joined EARTHWORKS as the Executive Director in January 2010, where she supports the organization's national and international programs on mining and fossil fuel extraction. Prior to EARTHWORKS, Jennifer directed campaigns at Rainforest Action Network (RAN), where she helped negotiate a landmark policy from Boise Cascade to protect old growth forests, managed RAN's program to convince Japanese paper companies to stop buying old growth pulp from Tasmania, led the grassroots organizing campaign resulting in Home Depot ending its purchases of endangered wood products, directed the successful campaign to jumpstart Ford Motor Company, co-designed RAN's innovative effort to spur the nation's largest banks to stop financing climate change-causing industries, and helped found RAN's ambitious Rainforest Agribusiness Campaign working to get big agribusiness out of rainforest regions.
During her fifteen years of advocacy and organizing, Jennifer has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, the Ecologist, and many others. She has delivered dozens of presentations at venues including the Forbes Executive Women's Forum, the University of Michigan Erb School of Business and the Environment, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
Jennifer currently serves on the board of Plug-in America and is a former board member of Dogwood Alliance. She holds a B.A. and a B.L.A. from Ball State University.
Gwen Lachelt, Oil & Gas Accountability Project Director
Gwen Lachelt ("Lak-ult") is a native New Mexican and was raised in Alaska and Colorado. She is the director and co-founder of EARTHWORKS' Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP). Gwen has worked on oil and gas issues since 1988 when Amoco, now BP, announced plans to drill a thousand gas wells in her community. Lachelt's work to prevent and reduce the impacts caused by oil and gas development spans the globe. She has dedicated her career to protecting landowner rights, air and water quality threatened by energy development. Her work has resulted in numerous policy reforms and new laws at the federal, state and local level throughout the United States and Canada. Lachelt began her non-profit career as a community organizer for Western Colorado Congress, later serving as its executive director. She served as the first executive director of the San Juan Citizens Alliance and was a visiting Sociology instructor at Fort Lewis College. In 2005 the Ford Foundation selected Gwen as a national finalist for the prestigious Leadership for a Changing World award. Lachelt's work has been covered in media outlets such as The Durango Herald, Time Magazine, Newsweek, People, ProPublica, Mother Jones, CNN, The Denver Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Dallas Morning New, Vancouver Sun, Anchorage Daily Times, National Public Radio, PBS, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News. Gwen has a B.A. in Political Science and pursued graduate studies in Environment & Community at Antioch University. She is a founding board member of Durango Community Access Television and BearSMART Durango.
Payal Sampat, International Campaigns Director
Payal Sampat currently leads our award-winning No Dirty Gold corporate/markets campaign. She heads up our global efforts to monitor and reform the mining industry, working with communities affected by mining and local organizations from around the world. She joined EARTHWORKS in 2002 from the Worldwatch Institute where she remains a Senior Fellow. At Worldwatch, Payal researched and wrote about mining, materials, freshwater, and natural resources issues. Payal is the author or co-author of several books, article and reports, including 'Mind Over Matter: Recasting the Role of Materials in Our Lives,' 'Forging a Sustainable Materials Economy,' 'Deep Trouble: The Hidden Threat of Groundwater Pollution,' and 'Scrapping Mining Dependence.' Payal began her environmental career as an organizer for the Bombay Environmental Action Group, in Bombay, India, where she worked on campaigns to protect coastal areas and public lands. She holds degrees from Tufts University, MA, and St. Xavier¹s College, Bombay.
Bruce Baizel, Oil & Gas Accountability Project Staff Attorney
Bruce comes to OGAP from Dine CARE, a Navajo action group, and Round River Conservation Studies, groups he staffed and represented for eleven years. Bruce received his law degree in 1986 from the University of Denver College of Law, has a BA in Biology and a Masters in International Relations.
Scott Cardiff, International Campaign Coordinator
Scott coordinates our campaigning support for community groups struggling against mining impacts internationally. He also works on the No Dirty Gold campaign and on international mining policy. Scott is a conservation biologist and environmental organizer by training. Scott conducted biological research and investigated impacts of a mining boom occurring in Madagascar, where he previously served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He also worked as an organizer for a campaign on climate change and worked on research for a forest conservation campaign. Scott speaks French, Malagasy, and Spanish and holds a BS in Natural Resources from Cornell and a Masters in Conservation Biology from Columbia University.
Cathy Carlson, Senior Policy Advisor
Before joining MPC, Cathy was Director of the National Wildlife Federation's regional office in Boulder, Colorado as well as the public lands issues coordinator and advocate. She has been an advocate for mineral policy reform since 1987 in both Washington, D.C and in Colorado. Besides her expertise in mineral development, Cathy has extensive expertise in natural resources issues on public lands in the western U.S. including oil and gas leasing and development, livestock grazing, and fisheries and wildlife habitat conservation. She received her Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University.
Bonnie Gestring, Northwest Circuit Rider
Bonnie began work with EARTHWORKS in May 2001. For the previous 5 years, Bonnie worked as a Community Organizer at Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) in Helena, Montana. She was a leader in campaigns to stop gold mining on the Blackfoot River and to pass the citizen's initiative banning open pit cyanide process mining in Montana. She has also provided critical support to residents in Libby, Montana dealing with illness and death caused by the W.R. Grace operation there. Bonnie is an effective strategist with a demonstrated commitment to local communities.
Prior to working with MEIC, Bonnie has been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Belize and a park ranger in several national parks across the West. Bonnie received a B.S. in biology from Montana State University in 1987 and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana in 1999.
Jennifer Goldman, Oil & Gas Accountability Public Health & Toxics Campaign Director
Jennifer Goldman is the Public Health & Toxics Campaign Director for the Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP), a program of Earthworks. Jennifer has worked on local, state, federal and tribal oil and gas issues since 2001 when she joined OGAP as a community organizer and the organization's Associate Director. In 2003 and 2004, Jennifer served as OGAP's New Mexico State Director where she established a state wide oil and gas network and launched several reform efforts, including permanent protection of the Valle Vidal in New Mexico's Carson National Forest, a statewide oil and gas pit regulation, and state surface owner's protection legislation. In 2005, Jennifer organized the first grassroots summit in North America on public health and toxics issues associated with the exploration and production of oil and gas. Jennifer currently works for OGAP from their Bozeman, Montana office. She works with communities across the country and Canada on oil and gas reform efforts that address the environmental, social and public health impacts of dirty energy.
Lauren Pagel, Policy Director
Lauren joined EARTHWORKS in August of 2002 from the Union of Concerned Scientists where she helped organize their campaign to reduce the use of antibiotics in food animals. Before UCS, Lauren was a part of the Legislative team at Friends of the Earth, working on a variety of issues ranging from the Farm Bill to trade issues. Prior to her work at FoE, Lauren assisted with Mineral Policy Center's Stop the Rollbacks campaign and worked on the field team at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Lauren graduated from Vassar College in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in political science.
Alan Septoff, Research and Information Systems Director
Alan joined EARTHWORKS in July 1997 as Program Coordinator. He came to EARTHWORKS from the National Academy of Sciences. Alan became legislative director of EARTHWORKS in January of 1998. As legislative director, he played a key role in orchestrating the millsite agreement which prevents future mines from using unlimited public land for toxic waste dumping, and led the legislative and regulatory effort to enact stronger mining regulations. Alan became Research and Info Systems Director in June of 2001. He earned masters degrees in Environmental Science and Public Affairs in 1996 from Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Nadia Steinzor, Marcellus Shale Organizer
Nadia joined EARTHWORKS in 2010. She has worked for over 15 years in communications, writing and editing, and research on environmental and social issues for progressive non-profit organizations and has held positions at Zero Population Growth, the International Center for Research on Women, and most recently as Director of Communications at the Mohonk Preserve.
Nadia has worked to promote action and policies on land and natural resource protection, endangered species policy and recovery, the impacts of population growth, and international human rights. As a volunteer, she has served on the executive committee of the Washington, DC chapter of the Sierra Club and is currently a board member of the Woodstock Land Conservancy.
Nadia 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. She lives in Willow, New York, in the eastern Catskills.
