Len Barson has worked as a part of the environmental community in Washington State for the past twelve years. He has also worked in Congress for a total of four years on environmental and energy issues, and spent two years as counsel to the Washington State Senate. He currently works on ballot measures around the country, focusing on initiatives involving regulatory takings and on measures to raise funds for conservation. He also is the lead for the environmental caucus in the Ruckelshaus Dispute Resolution Process relating to regulatory issues, and works on a variety of other projects as well.

Rod Brown, Secretary

Founder, Cascadia Law Group

Rod currently practices environmental law at the Cascadia Law Group PLLC. In the late 1980s he helped lead the environmental community's successful campaign for Initiative 97, which created our state's Superfund cleanup law. In the 1990s he served as Washington Environmental Council's representative on the Growth Strategies Commission, which led to the creation of the Growth Management Act. He has also served as Washington Environmental Council's representative on the Regulatory Reform Task Force and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation. Most recently, Governor Gregoire appointed him as one of the two environmental community members on her Climate Action Team.

Mark Walsh, Treasurer

Chief Operations Officer, The Schuster Group

Mark Walsh serves as Chief Operating Officer for The Schuster Group, a prestigious green real estate investment management and development firm headquartered in Seattle. Mark has over 20 years of real estate investment management experience and oversees all operations for the company. Over the course of his career, he has been responsible for $1 billion in assets in the Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Indianapolis markets. Mark holds a Masters in Business Administration in Finance and Marketing from the University of Southern California and a Bachelors of Arts in Economics/Business from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mark and his wife of 22 years have two children and reside in Federal Way. They are an active family that spends their free time skiing, hiking the Olympics and traveling.

Jessica Finn-Coven

Policy Specialist, Climate Solutions

Jessica currently serves as the Policy Associate at Climate Solutions. She has worked for the U.S. Climate Action Network and for Greenpeace in both Washington DC and Beijing. Jessica received her MA in economics and energy policy from the Johns Hopkins University and her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. Jessica and her husband live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.

Peter Goldman

Founder, Washington Forest Law Center

A graduate of Seattle University Law School, Peter was a law clerk for the late Justice James M. Dolliver in the Washington State Supreme Court. Peter worked for eleven years in the criminal division of the King County Prosecutor’s office where he was promoted to Senior Deputy. Peter founded the Washington Forest Law Center, a non-profit public interest environmental law firm. Peter is also heavily involved in efforts to develop and promote progressive forestry policies. He and his wife Martha founded the Kongsgaard-Goldman Foundation in 1988, a leading environmental foundation. He is also very active in assisting Democrats in federal, state, and local races. He has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations including the Rails to Trails Conservancy and the Anti-Defamation League.

Peter and Martha have three boys. Peter has been a bicycle commuter his whole life. In his spare time, Peter loves to bike, climb, ski, and hike. He has climbed Broad Peak, an 8000 meter peak in the Himalayas, and has climbed big mountains around the world.

Ken Lederman

Principal, Foster Pepper LLC

Ken is a principal at the law firm Foster Pepper LLC, where he practices environmental law with a specialty in all aspects of environmental litigation. Ken previously worked for Riddell Williams and also served as an Assistant Attorney General representing the Washington State Department of Ecology. Ken has served on Washington Environmental Council's Legal Committee since 1994. Ken also serves as a Cooperating Attorney for Futurewise and has litigated several successful appeals under the Growth Management Act, including a recent case before the Washington Supreme Court. Ken is a graduate of Leadership Tomorrow, and he was named one of the Puget Sound Business Journal's "40 Under 40" in 2007.

Ken and his wife, Meredith, and their daughter, Alexandra, live in the Montlake neighborhood of Seattle. They enjoy sea kayaking and sailing, as well as hiking and snowshoeing in the North Cascades, and they particularly love their family time in the natural areas of the Long Beach Peninsula.

Laurie Valeriano

Washington Toxics Coalition

Laurie Valeriano has worked to pass strong environmental health policies at the state level for more than 15 years. She is currently the Policy Director for Washington Toxics Coalition. Over the last several years she led successful campaigns to make Washington the first state in the nation to ban the toxic flame retardant, deca (PBDE) and adopt the strongest standards in the nation for toxic chemicals in toys and children's products. Laurie received her B.A in Political Science from the State University at Albany in 1991. She lives in Seattle with her husband and three children and loves to go camping, practice yoga, and cook delicious meals with friends and family.

Bruce Agnew

Director, Cascadia Center

Since 1993, Bruce Agnew has been the Director of the Cascadia Center. The center is a strategic alliance from Vancouver, BC, to Eugene, Oregon, promoting high speed passenger rail, Interstate-5 freight mobility, seamless border crossings, bi-national and bi-state tourism marketing, and sustainable community development.

From 1987-93, Mr. Agnew was Chief of Staff for U.S. Representative John Miller from Washington state's first district. Before his congressional service, Bruce Agnew was elected to two terms on the Snohomish County Council, and served as President of the Puget Sound Regional Council in 1985. He is a former member of the Citizen Oversight Panel for Sound Transit, and is a member of the Regional Freight Mobility Roundtable.

Mr. Agnew is a graduate of Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley School of Law.

Jeff Albertson

Senior Manager, Business Development, Amazon

Jeff Albertson is currently Senior Director of Product Management at RealNetworks, Inc. in Seattle. From 2002 to 2007, he was a Senior Technical Product Manager in Microsoft’s Windows Embedded group. From 1997 to 2002, he was an early employee at RealNetworks during its pioneering phase of Internet audio and video delivery.

Beyond his service with WCV, Jeff chairs the board of directors at University Street Ministry, which operates the Teen Feed program for homeless youth in Seattle’s University District. He also co-chairs Fighting for the Majority, an annual LGBT community fundraiser for the Washington state House and Senate Democratic Campaign Committees. Jeff holds a BA in Political Science from Middlebury College, is an avid amateur baseball player, and lives in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood with his partner, the graphic designer Benjamin Vogt.

Dave Bricklin

Partner, Bricklin & Newman, LLP

David Bricklin is a partner in the Seattle law firm of Bricklin & Newman, LLP. His practice emphasizes environmental, land use, and community issues. Dave earned his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University. He is a graduate of The Harvard Law School, where he was a co-founder and editor of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. Dave has practiced environmental and land use law throughout Washington State since 1979. He was closely involved in the development of the Washington Growth Management Act. Dave is a past president and director of the Washington Environmental Council; former co-chair of Washington Conservation Voters; a founding member and current director of Futurewise (formerly 1000 Friends of Washington) and is on the board of Climate Solutions.

Julie Colehour

Colehour + Cohen

Julie Colehour is founding partner of Colehour+Cohen, a public relations and social marketing firm that focuses on environmental and sustainability issues for a variety of public and private sector clients. She has spent her career working to motivate people to alter their behaviors for social good. Her causes have included everything from organic farming to water conservation to green building to recycling and energy-efficient products. Julie is a Seattle-area native who grew up hiking, skiing and kayaking in our beautiful backyard. She currently lives in rural unincorporated King County with her husband, seven year old son and twelve year old daughter.

Kurt Guenther

Founder, Guenther Media

Kurt is the founder of Guenther Media and brings more than 20 years of national experience to the Washington Conservation Voters board. His work includes serving as creative coordinator for Clinton-Gore in ’92, the first ever branding campaign for AmeriCorps, and work with political innovators for campaigns across the nation.

Kurt is a founder of doingsomething, an all-volunteer network featured in the national media, two-term member of the Partner Board at his children's public school, and a baseball/swimming/soccer dad. Kurt attended Occidental College and Boston University, where he graduated from the School of Public Communication with graduate work in advocacy. He lives with his wife, two children and a nice dog named Ty in Seattle.

Dan McGrady

Governmental Affairs, Vulcan Inc

Dan is Vulcan Inc.’s Government and Regulatory Affairs Manager. He has over twenty years of government and political experience. His focus is transportation, housing, land use and tax issues at the local and state level. Prior to working for Vulcan, Dan was a Legislative Aide to a Seattle City Councilmember for seven years, a Legislative Aid to a State Senator and has managed several political campaigns. Dan and his wife Jeanne have two children: Kelan (4) and Lauren (2), and they live in the Ballard neighborhood.

Bill Pope

Attorney & Environmental Activist

Bill Pope is a lawyer and environmental activist, as well as an innkeeper (Mazama Country Inn, 1994 to present). For 10 years he was a corporate lawyer with Microsoft, after which he served as general counsel of Vulcan Inc. and Vice President of the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation. Bill served on the steering committee of the Loomis Forest Fund, which raised over $17 million to save 25,000 acres of “old growth” forest in north central Washington State. Other environmental organizations he has been involved with include the Cascade Conservation Partnership (Steering Committee 1999-2002) and the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy of Washington (1998-2004), as well as a previous stint on the Washington Conservation Voters Board (1999-2002). Bill currently also serves on the Board of Trustees of Earthjustice (2002 to present), the CLC Council of Advisors (2005 to present), the Board of the Wilderness Land Trust (2003 to present), and the Methow Conservancy Advisory Board (2005 to present). Bill has lived all his life in Seattle and has three (nearly) grown kids.

Nancy Ritzenthaler

President, Ritzmark Holdings

Nancy Ritzenthaler has been active in the Washington environmental community for 10 years, as a board member of Conservation Northwest, and as supporter of many other green causes. After a career in business development at Microsoft and Hewlett Packard, she now manages a Whidbey Island vacation rental compound www.whidbeybeachfront.com which donates most of its profits to environmental and progressive causes.

Nancy received her MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, and a BS degree in forestry from the University of Washington. She lives in West Seattle with her husband and 3 children. Nancy grew up on Bainbridge Island and is a native Washingtonian. She spent her formative years hiking and climbing on the Olympic Peninsula. Her passions include cycling, nordic and alpine skiing, being a soccer mom, and enjoying the beauty of the Northwest.

Mike Vaska

Member, Foster Pepper LLC

Mike grew up in Redmond, Washington when its single stoplight was the only monopoly in town. Mike's father was a Russian immigrant who, as a young boy, was separated from his family by the Nazi's to serve as forced labor. The first in his family to go to college, Mike attended Stanford. Mike is a member practicing antitrust law and business litigation at Seattle's Foster Pepper & Shefelman. Mike is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. For more than a decade, Mike has been a leader on transportation issues in the Puget Sound region. He led a coalition of business, civic and environmental groups who reshaped the region's light rail transit plan, then campaigned successfully for voter approval. Since the election, Mike has chaired the joint Seattle Chamber–Downtown Seattle Association Task Force on Light Rail, and served on Sound Transit's Project Review Committee.

Mike was Treasurer for Referendum 49--a measure placed on the ballot by the Legislature and passed by the voters--that funded more than $2 billion in highway projects. He served on the Steering Committee for the Washington Transportation Alliance, a coalition of labor and business working for transportation solutions. Mike is also the Republican Member of the King County Redistricting Committee and a board member of the Chief Seattle Council. Mike lives on Cougar Mountain with his wife and two boys, and likes to climb, ski and play soccer whenever he gets a chance.

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2010 Board of Directors

Len Barson, Board Chair