Our Team

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.

Liz Butler is the Vice President of Organizing and Strategic Alliances at Friends of the Earth. Butler brings over 25 years of experience organizing and campaigning on critical issues, with a focus on both corporate and legislative campaigns.

Michelle Chan is the Vice President of Programs for Friends of the Earth and oversees its campaigns, communications, organizing and political work.

Julie is responsible for compliance, manages the organization’s Finance and Operations Teams, the day-to-day operations of HR and is the chief organizer of the board of directors. Julie studied conflict resolution at George Mason University and is a trained mediator.

Peter Stocker directs our membership and development program and has a wide range of development experience in Europe, Central America and the U.S.

Lisa has developed and led successful science-based corporate accountability, markets, policy, public education and organizing campaigns focused on environmental health and justice for nearly two decades.

Jenny is from Brooklyn, NY and has been building people power to create solutions to environmental and social issues since she learned about the dangers of climate change in high school.

Maggie is the Operations Assistant for Friends of the Earth. In this role, Maggie serves as the welcoming face of FOE and provides overall administrative and technical support for the staff.

Britten Cleveland is a Regional Organizer with Friends of the Earth working to grow and engage our activist base across the country to build long-term people power.

Jeff Conant directs Friends of the Earth’s international forests program, which protects forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the economic drivers of forest destruction.

Stacey Conn is the executive assistant to Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, where she manages all requests for his time. 

Denise is Friends of the Earth’s data systems administrator. She manages our donor database of record and supports FOE’s mission by ensuring the integrity of our supporter data.

Jason is the Food and Agriculture Campaign Associate at Friends of the Earth. He supports the Bee Action Campaign.

Patrick Davis is a Press Officer at Friends of the Earth, where he manages external communications and rapid response for the organization’s campaign teams.

Kate DeAngelis is a senior international policy analyst, working to end public financing for fossil fuels and give a voice to affected communities.

Tiffany is the senior food futures campaigner at Friends of the Earth, where she leads the BeeAction campaign to protect bees, butterflies and other pollinators from pesticides to support a sustainable and just food system.

Audrey Fox is the digital communications coordinator at Friends of the Earth. She produces social content for the organization, tracks and analyzes metrics, coordinates between the communications and campaign teams, and manages the website.

As the Friends of the Earth Fossil Fuels Program Manager, Nicole works to protect the public from dangerous big oil and coal money grabs, land giveaways, and the rollback of critical safeguards by exposing conflicts of interest and ethics violations at government agencies.

Kevynn assists with a variety of tasks but focuses on copy editing materials, writing online content and performing research to help others.

Raised in LA’s San Fernando Valley, she found her passion for environmental justice experiencing the first-hand effects of environmental racism in LA and directly witnessing the effects of climate change in her family’s hometown in Michoacan, Mexico.

As financial analyst, Marco primarily helps with various analysis, budgeting, payroll allocation, financial closing, advance excel and integration projects.

Kari leads the organization’s animal agriculture work, including a climate-friendly food service initiative that aims to leverage state, municipal, K-12 and university food purchasing dollars to support local farmers and ranchers and drive market shifts and consumption towards healthier, plant-forward, sustainable food.

Emily is Friends of the Earth’s grant writer based in Berkeley, CA, and works on the development team to help fund all of the organization’s campaigns.

Erin Jensen is a Press Officer with Friends of the Earth, where she manages external communications and helps generate media coverage for the organization’s various campaigns.

His work at FoE primarily concerns reducing pollution from shipping, and he has worked to help establish the U.S. & Canada’s Emission Control Area and the Polar Code – a suite of regulations pertaining to Arctic and Antarctic shipping.

Marcie directs our oceans and vessels program and provides legal advice to our board and staff as legal director.

Jonathan Kellam works with Friends of the Earth’s donors to directly connect them with our work.

Kendra Klein, PhD is Senior Staff Scientist at Friends of the Earth where she leads work on food and farming solutions.

Katharine Lu is the Senior Sustainable Finance Manager at Friends of the Earth US. She leads the organization’s research on new models of sustainable finance and development, primarily those from China and other emerging markets.

Adam is responsible for Friends of the Earth’s direct mail fundraising program and quarterly member newsmagazine, and has over ten years of fundraising experience.

Gaurav serves as the Senior Forests and Lands Campaigner at Friends of the Earth. He advocates for private financial institutions to stop financing deforestation and human rights violations.

Carrie works to grow our digital base and gives people ways to take online action on the issues they care about.

As Art Director, Josette manages all visual aspects of the Friends of the Earth brand for both print and web.

Ariel collaborates closely with campaigns to develop materials and policy recommendations for activists, journalists and key decision-makers, as well as monitors, researches and analyzes legislative and regulatory attacks on the environment and public health.

As Senior Strategic Advisor, Damon coordinates work on nuclear power and provides strategic advice on climate and energy issues.

For 18 years, Doug Norlen has conducted successful advocacy to achieve environmental, developmental and accountability policy reform of multilateral trade and finance institutions, export credit agencies and private banks.

Karen oversees Friends of the Earth’s international work on sustainable finance, including overseas energy financing by the U.S. and China, and domestic work on defense of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget.

Dana Perls is the senior food and agriculture campaigner with Friends of the Earth, and leads the Food and Agriculture team’s international and national regulatory and market campaigns on biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Lukas works on greening the federal budget and ending subsidies for polluting industries.

Danielle implements and tracks HR processes, ensures the organization is in compliance with state charitable solicitation registration and insurance requirements, makes sure the organization is up to date on administrative processes that keep the office running, and assists with board meeting preparations.

As a member of the Development team, Elizabeth writes and edits email communications and fields comments from FOE members and supporters.

Louisa is Friends of the Earth’s deputy director of planned giving. She focuses on helping supporters craft a legacy that meets their philanthropic and financial goals through gift and estate planning.

Sharon Smith is Friends of the Earth’s senior accountant. She brings with her more than 20 years of accounting experience.

Briana Steele is a Regional Organizer with Friends of the Earth, where she recruits, trains, and engages FOE’s volunteers around the country.

Hallie Templeton is Friends of the Earth’s senior oceans campaigner, leading our strategic campaign to highlight the dangers of industrial ocean fish farming and expand support for sustainable seafood production alternatives.

Jahnavi is the finance director at Friends of the Earth. She comes to us with more than 15 years of accounting management experience with various non-profit organizations.

Caity is the Grants Coordinator at Friends of the Earth, where she works as the project manager for all foundation fundraising activities.

Ernesto S. Vargas is the Climate and Energy Program Director for Friends of the Earth. Since 2008, he has been organizing on immigration, labor rights, civic engagement and climate.

Chloë Waterman currently serves as senior food campaigner where she implements policy and markets campaigns to advance a sustainable and just food system.

LA fights against unjust redistricting by developing and implementing campaigns and grassroots leadership throughout environmental communities in North Carolina.

Verner focuses on protecting the marine environment from shipping pollution and disturbance in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic.