Board of Directors

Clayton Thomas-Muller (Chair), of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous self-determination and environmental justice. He is the Oil Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He works across Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48 states of the U.S. with grassroots indigenous communities to defend the sacredness of mother earth against transnational oil corporations. Clayton finds many ways to contribute to the movement of his peoples. For his efforts, Clayton has been recognized by the prestigious Utne magazine as one of the “Top 30 Under 30” activists in the United States.

Tom Van Dyck (Treasurer) has been a leader in the field of socially-responsible investing since starting at Dean Witter in 1983. Joining Piper Jaffray in 1997, he leads the SRI Wealth Management Team called Philanthropic & Social Investment Consulting. Tom has been widely quoted on socially responsible investing in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg Financial News Services, Washington Post and others. In February 1999, The New York Times confirmed Tom's long standing opinion about the ability of socially responsible companies to outperform the S&P 500 in an article titled "Investing by Conscience is Paying Off These Days." Tom has authored numerous articles and studies on the economics of socially responsible investing including "Do the Math," which demonstrates that socially responsible investing provides competitive returns to various investment portfolios in the May 1998 issue of Foundation News & Commentary. Tom is the founder of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy foundation and is active with environmental groups, including Rainforest Action Network and Baykeeper. For his commitment and work in the community, Tom received the firm's coveted Bobby Piper Community Service Award in 2000. He is most proud, however, of his role of active parent to his two children. Tom graduated from Duke University in 1980 with a B.A. in Political Science. He is a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) and is Series 7 and Series 66.

Kenny Ausubel is the founder and co-president of Bioneers, a nonprofit educational organization that promotes practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities. He is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and social entrepreneur whose books include The Bioneers: Declarations of Interdependence; and When Healing Becomes a Crime: The Amazing Story of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinics and the Return of Alternative Therapies. He co-founded Seeds of Change, a national biodiversity organic seed company, and founded Inner Tan Productions, a feature film development company. Kenny is also executive producer and co-writer of the award-winning radio series: Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature. He acted as a central advisor to Leonardo DiCaprio’s feature documentary The 11th Hour, and appears in the film.

Nina Simons is a social entrepreneur who is co-president of Bioneers. She has co-produced Bioneers’ annual conference since 1990. She previously served as president of Seeds of Change and as director of strategic marketing for Odwalla. With each of those prior positions, she helped a mission-driven for-profit company achieve national prominence in record time, through community-based and innovative approaches to marketing. In addition to social enterprise and healing our relationship with the natural world, Nina has an enduring interest in the leadership of women and girls, which is reflected in Bioneers’ diverse programming. This year, she began co-teaching a workshop called Cultivating Women’s Leadership, intended to strengthen the inner resources and tools required to help women of all ages and backgrounds step more fully into progressive change-making. In 2002 Nina produced a retreat for diverse women leaders called UnReasonable Women for the Earth, to brainstorm about envisioning a broad progressive women’s movement with environment at its heart. The gathering served as an incubator, resulting in the formation of CodePink: Women for Peace. Nina speaks and teaches nationally about women’s leadership, cultivating relational intelligence, and organizations as living systems. Nina was named an Utne Reader “Visionary” in 1996 for her cutting-edge work in communication, community building, and ethical commerce. In 2006, she and her husband/partner Kenny Ausubel, (also Bioneers founder), were awarded the Green Cross Millennium Award for Community Environmental Leadership.

Charlotte Brody (Secretary) is the executive director of Commonweal, a Bolinas, California based organization that works on health and environmental issues. She was a founder and executive director of the Health Care Without Harm Campaign, the organizing director for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the executive director of a Planned Parenthood affiliate in North Carolina and coordinator of the Carolina Brown Lung Association, an occupational safety and health organization focused on cotton textile workers. A registered nurse and mother of two, she has been an activist and an organizer since 1964.  www.commonweal.org

Oren Lyons, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan. Oren is a leading advocate for American Indian and indigenous causes, led the first indigenous delegation to the UN, helped establish The Working Group for Indigenous Populations and other international bodies, co-founded The Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth, the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, and many other groups. Oren is also a widely exhibited artist, the author/illustrator of Dog Story and co-author/editor of Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations and the U.S. Constitution, and a major figure in world lacrosse (an Iroquois invention).

David Orr, (www.oberlin.edu/envs), the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, is an award-winning scholar and leader in the sustainability movement, renowned for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and ecological design. He is the author of Design on the Edge; The Nature of Design, Earth In Mind; Ecological Literacy; and The Last Refuge, is a contributing editor of Conservation Biology, and serves on many boards including those of the Center for Ecoliteracy, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Second Nature.

Greg Watson (Vice-Chair), currently Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Technology for the MA Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, and is Vice President for Sustainable Development at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, leading its Offshore Wind Initiative, has considerable experience working on collaborative efforts. He has served, among other posts, as: Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative; Executive Director of The New Alchemy Institute; Director of The Nature Conservancy's Eastern Regional Office; and Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture.  (www.masstech.org)