Another Successful Summer of Social ChangeThis summer, The Fund for the Public Interest launched 57 campaign offices across the country—including in new lo-cations, such as Doylestown, Penn.—to educate the public, build membership, raise money, and help win campaigns for part-ner groups. Fund offices worked on campaigns with Environment America and its state affiliates, U.S. PIRG and the state PIRGs, the Human Rights Campaign, Environmental Action, and Fair Share Alliance—the new face of Progressive Future. Altogether, the summer canvass effort raised nearly $10 million for these social change organizations.

Some of the highlights from the summer include:

• Canvassers across the country had conversations about impor-tant issues with over 1.7 million people throughout the summer.

• The New Brunswick, N.J. of-fice broke the season fundraising record in early August, and was on track to raise over $360,000 for the summer.

• Some great guests came to brief the canvass—Rep. John Dingell (Mich.) briefed the Ann Arbor office on the importance of pro-tecting Lake Michigan with the Clean Water Act (legislation that he co-authored); Mayor Michael Nutter spoke to the Philadel-

phia canvass about preserving Pennsylvania’s rivers and open spaces; and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson talked about the importance of protecting the environment on a conference call with offices across the country.

Here are some of the issues about which canvassers talked to the public:

U.S. PIRG’s Campaign to Stop Subsidizing ObesityNearly one in three kids in Ameri-ca is overweight or obese, yet our taxpayer dollars are subsidizing processed junk food. We spend nearly $16 billion every year on subsidies to big agribusiness, which has artificially driven down the cost of unhealthy food. While new members of congress have promised to cut wasteful spend-ing, Big Agribusiness spent $121 million last year alone and em-ployed more than 1,100 lobbyists.

We know that the only way to counter this powerful special interest is to build up enough support to silence these corporate lobbyists.

Environment California’s Campaign to Ban the BagCalifornians use more than 12 billion plastic bags each year. Too many of them end up in the

In This Issue . . . Program Highlights . . . pg 2Huge legal victory for NELC, PennEnvironment and more.

Alumni News … pgs 3-5Read about featured alumni Tanya Africa and Phil Radford.

In Memoriam . . . pg 6We remember alumnus Chuck Mundorff.

Congratulations, Adam! . . . pg 7Adam Ruben will receive the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award.

Job Opportunities . . . pg 7Check out these job listings for yourself or a friend.

Fall 2011State PIRG Alumni Newsletter

A SUCCESSFUL SUMMER—Massachusetts and New Hampshire summer canvass directors celebrate the collection of thousands of petition postcards.

—Continued on page 5

PennEnvironment and Sierra Club. National Environmental Law Center attorneys helped rep-resent the groups.

Judge Robert Mitchell agreed that the Clean Water Act violations the company committed amounted to a staggering 8,684 instances since 2005, discharging as much as 3 million gallons of wastewater with elevated levels of selenium, manganese, aluminum, boron and iron into the Conemaugh River. Only $250,000 is assessed for U.S. civil penalties, with the remaining $3.5 million of the record settlement going to the Foundation for Pennsylvania Wa-tersheds for restoration and preser-vation projects in the Conemaugh River watershed.

Said Kurt Limbach, who lives downstream of the plant, “As a longtime member of both PennEnvironment and Sierra Club, I am proud of the lasting contribu-tion these groups have made to overcoming this beautiful river’s legacy of industrial pollution.”

Campaign Highlights

House Committee Votes To Slash Agribusiness Subsidies On May 26, a key U.S. House committee voted to limit the income threshold below which farmers can receive agricultural subsidies to $250,000 per year. U.S. PIRG’s Gary Kalman ap-plauded the move, saying the subsidies had driven down the cost of fats and sugars by subsi-dizing commodity crops like corn and soybeans.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that since the 1970s—as the costs of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil have gone down—obesity rates in 6- to 11-year-old children have quadrupled. Today, one-third of all children are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, the prices of fruits and vegetables, grown with relatively little government sup-port, have increased by nearly 40 percent over the past 20 years.

Kalman added, “We can take important steps toward curbing

childhood obesity by curbing taxpayer subsidies to agribusi-ness that make a box of Twinkies cheaper than a bag of carrots.”

Shareholder Support For Fracking Resolution At Ultra Petroleum Doubles Through their shareholder ad-vocacy program, Green Century Funds are working to improve corporate practices on the is-sue of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The increasingly widespread practice involves injecting up to 7.5 million gallons of water into a natural gas well in order to increase production. Ma-jor concerns surround the toxic chemicals used in the fracking fluid and disposal of the resulting wastewater.

On May 25, Ultra Petroleum shareholders, despite not being allowed to speak on the matter, voted on a proposal co-sponsored by Green Century Funds that called for increased transparency and risk management in frack-

ing, but the company took the unusual step of not announcing the vote at the meeting.

Now we know what Ultra was hiding: Shareholder support for the resolution doubled from the 21 percent it received last year to a whopping 42 percent. This is an extraordinary level of support for an environmental proposal and a significant increase in support from one year to the next. On the same day, similar resolutions on fracking received 41 percent of the vote at Chevron and 28 percent at ExxonMobil.

Victory for NELC, Sierra Club, and PennEnvironmentAfter a four-year legal battle, GenOn, the Houston-based owner of a coal-fired power plant near Johnstown, Penn., will pay a record $3.75 million in penal-ties and act quickly to end Clean Water Act violations under the terms of a settlement reached with citizen groups including

Page 2

Environment Colorado and canvass staff with EPA Region 8 Administrator Jim Martin at a July 26 press conference delivering 23,887 comments in support of EPA’s strong action to restore Clean Water Act protections.

We have all worked hard together to build a movement that we can be proud of. You can help sustain this legacy of social change—and make sure there are organizers to keep up the fi ght for generations to come—by participating in our planned giving program. Ask us how. For more information, call 1-800-841-7299 or email PlannedGiving@USPIRG.org.

The battle never ends.

Alumni Profiles

A native of “the biggest little city in the world,” Reno, Nev., Tanya Africa grew up in a political family where environmental issues were always a top concern. By the time she became a student at UC Berke-ley, Tanya had already volunteered on multiple candidate campaigns.

Her plans to pursue a green capi-talism approach and make change by eventually becoming head of an international conglomerate changed at the start of her junior year when she heard a handsome CALPIRGer give a class rap. Tanya got a call later that day from campus organizer Joan Clayburgh, but missed her first volunteer shift. Luckily, CALP-

Tanya Africa: Building Infrastructure for Change

IRG called her back. Tanya felt bad and showed up the next time. Joanie then asked her to coordinate the recruitment drive phonebank, and the rest is, as they say, history.

As a CALPIRG student board member and chair, Tanya worked alongside campus organizers like Matt Baker, Benson Chiles, Derek Cressman, Kathy Brown, and Andre Delattre. This ex-perience, and the education she received on organizing, made a big difference to Tanya, and to her future career path. While her val-ues remained the same throughout her experience as a CALPIRG student, her politics became more sophisticated. Plus, she learned

the nuts and bolts of organizing, from bread-and-butter recruitment strategies, to how to power-map decision makers.

In 1990, Tanya took a few weeks off to work on CALPIRG’s Big Green campaign with Tom

Jim Delso, David Kean, Tanya Africa, and Joan Clayburgh on a snowshoeing trip.

Powers and others. The experience proved so influential that when Tanya graduated and was offered a job at a law office upon gradua-tion that paid twice as much, she thought back to her experience on

—Continued on page 6

Phil Radford is the executive director of Greenpeace USA. In this role, Phil relishes work-ing with a very creative team of people (dozens of whom are fel-low alumni), toppling companies who refuse to do right by the environment.

With more than 4,000 staff glob-ally and a field presence in 42 countries, Greenpeace plays to its strengths by fighting corporate campaigns on issues such as de-forestation in Indonesia and the Amazon and by taking on local

Phil Radford: Greenpeace Executive Directorcampaigns to shut down coal-fired and nuclear power plants.

From Oak Park, Ill., Phil was turned on to organizing in high school when a friend’s mother got Phil and his friends involved in fighting a proposed incin-erator in their neighborhood. The students testified against the incinerator, and the community organizing effort was successful. Raised in a religious household, it was occasions like these that opened Phil’s eyes to people who were “walking the walk” and

actually doing the good work to make the world a better place.

The summer before starting col-lege at Washington University in St. Louis, Phil saw a poster for “summer jobs for the environ-ment,” and eventually landed a job as a field manager with The Fund in Chicago.

Working alongside people such as Tom Fendley, Ivan Frish-berg, and Viv Watts, Phil has fond memories from those early

Phil Radford

—Continued on page 6

Abigail Larson SmithCampbell Caya Prochazka Henry and Emmett SchultzMiriam Hubbard Villa

Page 4

Weddings and Babies:Alumnus Steven Biel and En-vironment Maine State Direc-tor Emily Figdor announced the birth of Harper Eva Figdor Biel on April 27 in Portland, Me. Big sister, Bella, turns four in November.

Fund and New Voters Project alumni Alana Campbell and Ben Prochazka welcomed a baby girl, Campbell Caya Prochazka, to the world on July 18 in Fort Collins, Colo.

PIRG alumna Robin (Hubbard) Villa welcomed Miriam Hubbard Villa to the world on April 25 in Denver, Colo.

Cora Segal Taylor was born to alumni Jodi Segal and Jim Taylor on June 16 in Columbus, Ohio.

On Feb. 9, Emmett Roger Schultz was born at home in Albany, Calif. to CALPIRG and Fund alumni Megan Jennings and Garth Schultz. Big brother Hen-ry just turned two.

Page 4

WISPIRG alumna Emily Larson Smith and husband, Matt, cel-ebrated the birth of Abigail Lar-son Smith on April 26 in Denver.

PIRG and Fund alumnus Jason Zauder and Stephanie Grut-man were married on May 29 in Aventura, Fla. Alumna Susannah (Lindberg) Randolph and many friends from the FSU Florida PIRG chapter were in attendance.

Movers and Shakers:MASSPIRG alumnus Jon Braman’s most recent album of ukelele hip hop, entitled You and Me, is now available on iTunes and cdbaby.com.

Green Corps alumnus Peter Colavito changed jobs last winter from his position as political di-rector at SEIU 32BJ in New York to become the SEIU’s director of government relations.

PIRG National Student Cam-paign for Voter Registration alumna Beth (DeGrasse) Cole reports that she works at the U.S. Institute of Peace, applying good

PIRG skills to conflict zones around the world. Beth would love to hear from fellow alumni living in or passing through D.C.

Fund and Toxics Action Center alumna Maggie Drummond started a new job in May with the Maine Development Foun-dation, as a program manager responsible for working with employers in Maine to increase post-secondary education op-portunities and attainment for employees.

Fund, CALPIRG, and Earth To n e s a l u m n a C o r i n a McKendry received her Ph.D. in Politics from UC Santa Cruz in June and this fall will begin a new job as an assistant professor at Colorado College, teaching environmental politics.

On June 7, The Los Angeles Times featured a story about one of Greenpeace’s recent campaign actions targeting Mattel. The article included a photo of Green Corps alumna Elise Nabors dressed as Barbie and driving a bulldozer.

Alumni Updates

Fund alumnus Rogue Robertson completed a Master’s in Commu-nications in Portland, Ore., in May.

PIRG Fuel Buyers, PennPIRG, and PennEnvironment alum Emily Schiller was recently ap-pointed by the Philadelphia City Council to serve on the board of the newly formed Philadelphia Energy Authority. The Authority was created to evaluate issues of energy sustainability and af-fordability for the city and its residents. Emily continues to serve as associate director for sustainability and leadership at Penn’s Wharton School.

Former canvasse r Brian Selander, the chief strategy of-ficer for Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, is pleased to report that in May, Gov. Markell signed civil unions into law, made medical marijuana legal, beat back legis-lative efforts to pull the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and defeated a parental notification bill.

MASSPIRG alumna Wendy Swart Grossman has been get-

ting a lot of press and radio hits about her new book, Behind the Wheel: A Mother’s Journey of a Year on the Road. The

commit to a permanent no-spray policy for Cape Cod.

Toxics Action Center’s mission is to work side-by-side with neighborhood groups to clean up and prevent toxic pollution, while also developing long-term leaders to fuel the broader envi-ronmental movement.

Since 1987, they have organized with over 675 communities and di-rectly trained over 10,000 people in the skills they need to run effec-tive local campaigns.

Toxics Action Center Update

into action. Early actions by the community group GreenCAPE temporarily halted the spraying through the winter, but more work was needed.

Toxics Action Center Organiz-ing Director Sylvia Broude worked closely with the group and other Cape allies to directly pressure NStar to abandon its plans to spray. Last summer, Toxics Action Center helped the group build support among Cape Cod businesses, hold a call-in day, and shine a spotlight on the issue in the media.

Following this increased atten-tion, NSTAR invited the group to meet and negotiate a com-

Toxics Action Center Victory on Cape CodThe electric utility company NSTAR won’t be spraying her-bicides on Cape Cod for at least another year. The announcement came after almost two years of intense campaigning by Toxics Action Center and local leaders concerned about the health im-pacts from chemicals entering the region’s water supply.

Two years ago, NSTAR pro-posed spraying a mixture of five toxic herbicides under 150 miles of power lines across Cape Cod in Massachusetts to control tree and brush growth.

NSTAR’s intention to spray alarmed residents across the Cape and they quickly sprung

promise, but ultimately refused to back off their plan. So the community groups ratcheted up the pressure, organizing with residents to pass non-binding resolutions against the spray plan in all 15 affected Cape Cod towns, and convincing state leg-islators to pledge their support.

Now residents are breathing a big sigh of relief, but they know the fight’s not over. Tox-ics Action Center continues to work with GreenCAPE and other groups to force NSTAR to

Alumni Updates (continued) Summer Canvass

ocean, where they join other trash in the Pacific Garbage Patch—a toxic soup of debris twice the size of Texas.

Unless California does some-thing, the problem will get worse. Environment California is working to cut use of plastic and Styrofoam, and has already seen victories in Los Angeles County, Long Beach, San Jose, Marin County, and Santa Monica. Canvassers are build-ing support for local bans on Styrofoam takeout containers and plastic grocery bags.

—Continued from pg. 1book chronicles her experiences throughout a year traveling the United States with her family in a 29-foot-long RV.

Cora Segal Taylor Harper Eva Figdor BielStephanie Grutman and Jason Zauder

Page 6

2009, he became a judge in Eu-gene, Ore. Chuck is remembered fondly by fellow PIRGers as a hard worker who was involved lifelong in fighting the good fight. Chuck was also a loving husband to alumna Deborah Hallick Mundorff, and a devoted father, son, coach, friend, sports fan, Rotarian, and musician.

Survivors include Deb; children, Charlie and Samantha; his moth-er; and three siblings. Memorial contributions can be made to Sheldon High School Athlet-ics and sent to Matt Binkerd, In Memory of Chuck Mun-dorff, Sheldon High School, 2455 Willakenzie Road, Eu-gene, OR 97401. Please contact michaelmbruce@yahoo.com for information about a college fund for Charlie and Samantha.

The Public Interest Network family was saddened to learn of alumnus Chuck Mundorff’s sud-den and untimely death on June 20 at the age of 52.

Chuck served as chair of the OSPIRG student board in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After his time with OSPIRG, Chuck gradu-ated from law school and special-ized in workers compensation cases statewide as an attorney. In

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Tanya Africa Profile—Continued from pg. 3Big Green and took the PIRG job instead.

Tanya worked as executive as-sistant to Doug Phelps, the president of The Public Interest Network. In this role, she worked with CALPIRG staff, plus man-aged special projects like Free The Planet. Tanya also worked as a campaigner on projects like the “No on M” defensive campaign to save MASSPIRG funding alongside Hyam Kramer and Leslie Samuelrich, and the 20th anniversary of Earth Day with Gene Karpinski.

Since leaving PIRG staff in 1997, Tanya has been busy: she was the associate director of the Sierra Business Council, working alongside California League of Conservation Voters’ first execu-tive director Lucy Blake; traveled internationally; and helped the Truckee Donner Land Trust raise millions of dollars and protect over 20,000 acres. In 2005, Tanya

started working with MoveOn.org, first on the field team and then managing the development of MoveOn’s electoral GOTV strategy.

In 2009, she started working with MoveOn’s software devel-opment team at We Also Walk Dogs, where she is now the project manager for ActionKit, an online organizing toolkit (www.actionkit.com). The group works only with progressive non-profits. Tanya loves working with a small team of talented people who are very committed to their work—it reminds her of PIRG.

Tanya also enjoys working on the back end to forward progressive change and helping to propagate analysis-based best practices to force industry improvements.

Tanya and David Kean live in a historic house in downtown Truckee, Calif., with a cuddly Rottweiler and a less-cuddly cat. You can reach Tanya at tanya@wawd.com.

In Memoriam

Remembering Alumnus Chuck Mundorff

Phil Radford Profile (continued)—Continued from pg. 3

and Dave Rosenfeld to conduct press conferences in Kansas City.

During subsequent college sum-mers, Phil was an assistant direc-tor and then canvass director in the Chicago and then Cleveland canvass offices. Bobby Gold-stein, Sam Boykin, and Matt Dundas also came up through those offices.

days on the canvass, including something to do with canvass-ing for pudding (in addition to membership contributions) and a prank involving the boss’ desk.

Phil went on to canvass part-time during college, where he also coordinated with MoPIRG staff Liz Butler

After graduation, Phil worked for a couple of different nonprofit or-ganizations before joining Green Corps as an organizer. From there, he became the field director for Ozone Action; founded Pow-erShift; was a partner at Clean Edge; and then became the grass-roots director at Greenpeace. During that time, Phil’s team doubled the budget of Green-

peace in the U.S., quadrupled the team’s staff, launched a national student organizing pro-gram, and created an online to offline mobilization program.

On July 23, Phil celebrated his marriage to Eileen Simpson, an attorney working to fight corrup-tion. They live in D.C.’s Colum-bia Heights neighborhood.

Current Career Opportunities with the Public Interest Network

Executive Director, Environment Washington——Seattle, WA Create a strategic plan to win policy victories through research, advocacy, coalition-building, grassroots organizing, media publicity, and message development. Oversee staff and lead efforts to build the organization.

Executive Director, Environment Oregon—Portland, ORManage staff; fundraise; and continue to build power at the local, state, and federal levels. Continue Environment Oregon’s history of running effective and winning pro-grams to protect Oregon’s air, water and open spaces, including successful preservation programs to protect special places like Crater Lake, clean water and ocean protection programs, and clean energy and global warming programs, among others.

State Director, PennPIRG—Philadelphia, PAShine a public spotlight on corporate business practices that threaten our health or safety or violate basic principles of honesty and fairness. Conduct research and become

an issue expert; generate media attention; build coalitions; distribute consumer resources on and offline; fundraise and build the organization; and build grassroots power.

State Director, ConnPIRG—West Hartford, CTLead the fight to protect Connecticut’s citizens. Build the organization, craft campaign strategies, and develop programs and campaigns to implement common-sense protec-tions for Connecticut, particularly in the areas of health care, consumer protection, and transportation.

Grants Project Manager, The Public Interest Network—Los Angeles, CAWork with the network’s advocates, organizers, attorneys, executive directors, and development staff to raise funds from foundations and large donors for a wide array of public interest projects and programs. These programs include advocating for health care reform, promoting clean and renewable energy, encouraging young people to vote, training people to be skilled activists and organizers, and many more.

Alumni Achievement Award

2011 Recipient: Adam Ruben

For more information, visit www.uspirg.org/jobs and www.environmentamerica.org/jobs, or call Hiring Director Surf del Mar at 303-573-5885 x325.

Adam Ruben is the 2011 re-cipient of The Public Inter-est Network Alumni Achieve-ment Award. The Public Interest Network created the Alumni Achievement Award to recognize alumni who have helped build and strengthen the public interest movement in especially notable ways. Past recipients include John Richard, NYPIRG alum-nus and director of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, and Ed Lloyd, NJPIRG alumnus and founder of the Environmen-tal Law Clinic at Rutgers Univer-sity. The award will be presented at the gala dinner during Alumni Aspen this December.

Adam was a member of the inaugural 1993 class of Green Corps organizers. From 1995 to

1999, he served as the program’s organizing director and then went on to work as U.S. PIRG field director. Since 2004, Adam has worked with MoveOn.org, where he is now the political director.

Adam he lped spea rhead MoveOn’s 2004 Leave No Voter Behind campaign, an effort that combined cutting-edge online technology with old-fashioned offline activism in a way that reached into 10,000 communities to mobilize over 400,000 voters on Election Day. Remarkably, the campaign volunteers were, for the most part, neither dis-couraged nor dejected about the outcome of the election. Instead, they were hopeful and energized.

By wedding the power of the

Internet to reach, connect and in-spire millions of people with the power of highly motivated volun-teers acting in the “real” world, MoveOn has helped transform progressive action and advocacy for a new age.

Founded in 1998, MoveOn now boasts an online membership of 5 million, and for a given offline action, the organization is frequently able to get tens of thousands involved. Adam Ruben has played a major role in MoveOn’s transformation from an online organization to an organization that takes that online interest and translates it into tangible offline action. And more than anyone else, Adam helped develop the systems, in-frastructure, and model to make

all of this mobilization possible. By taking skills he first learned working with Green Corps and PIRG, Adam has enlarged and deepened civic engagement and democratic action in this country. His work has helped raise the bar for what is possible in terms of organizing people to bring about social change.

Adam lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, alumna Sarah DiJulio, and their two sons.

The State PIRG Alumni Network1536 Wynkoop Street, Suite 100Denver, CO 80202www.pirg.org/alumni

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Save The Date

Alumni and staff gather regularly in cities across the country to catch up with old friends and meet some new faces from the Public Interest Network family. Stay tuned to www.pirg.org/alumni/calendar.html for more details on upcoming events and for photos from past events. If you’d like to help organize an alumni get-together near you, contact Kirsten Schatz at alumni@publicinterestnetwork.org or 303-573-5885 x331.

Aspen, CO Dec. 9-17, 2011 Eligible career alumni should save these dates for the next Alumni Aspen vacation! Contact Kirsten Schatz at alumni@publicinterestnetwork.org for more info.

Printed on recycled paper.

Alumni Daniel Silverman, Lucinda Sikes, and Bob Shireman at the 2011 San Francisco gathering.