Lois Barber, President and Executive Director of EarthAction. Lois is also the founder and President of 2020 Vision, a US grassroots organization with 30,000 members that educates and mobilizes citizens on US environment and military policy issues. Lois served as the Creative Director of the World Future Council Initiative, which created the World Future Council, a global forum to protect the interests and rights of future generations. The World Future Council was launched in May 2007. She currently serves on the International Steering Committee of Global Action to Prevent War. Prior to her work with 2020 Vision she founded and directed three other social change organizations.
Tom Pelletier is a 30 year veteran of direct mail fundraising and has written more than 2,500 successful fundraising letters for a wide range of non-profit organizations, including international development agencies, cancer centers, homeless shelters, and environmental organizations. His writing has won numerous awards, most recently the 2007-2008 Renewal Package of the Year Award from the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association. He also writes about science and nature and has served as a volunteer and/or board member for organizations such as EarthAction, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, and the Urban Ecology Center.
Jan Roberts graduated from the University of South Florida in 1974 with a BA in Psychology and in 1976 with an MA in Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling. In 2008, she was accepted into the Ph.D. Program for Leadership Management & Administration with emphasis on Sustainable Development at Greenleaf University in St. Louis, MO. Her career as social entrepreneur began with the creation of social change agencies for women in the late 1970’s in Tampa, Florida. She was counselor and then director of the Women’s Resource Center for women offenders, and was co-founder of the Centre for Women (formerly Women’s Survival Center) for displaced homemakers and women in transition. In the ’80s, Jan co-founded Behavioral Medicine Consultants, Inc., which offered holistic treatment to people who were being legally addicted to prescription drugs. In the ’90s, Jan was a partner in a private psychological practice and then founded the grassroots community building organization, the Institute for Ethics & Meaning. In 2000, Jan was recognized at the International Launch of the Earth Charter at The Hague Peace Palace as leading the major grassroots effort in the United States. In 2005 Jan founded Earth Charter U.S. with the mission to inspire, educate and engage people in making the Earth Charter’s vision and principles for sustainability a reality through policy initiatives, community actions, and personal behavior changes. That same year, Jan launched Earth Scouts, a scouting program for boys and girls from 3 to 13 years of age. Jan serves as NGO delegate to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and Advisor to Earth Charter International based in Costa Rica She is author of A Community Spirit of Caring Begins with You published by IUniverse.com in 2000.
Jackie Smith is Associate Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies, and a Senior Fellow in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of a book on globalization and popular movements, entitled Social Movements for Global Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) and co-author of Global Democracy and the World Social Forums (Paradigm Publishers 2007). She has co-edited three books and more than 40 articles on transnational activism, including Coalitions Across Borders: Transnational Protest in a Neoliberal Era (with Joe Bandy), which explores how people have developed organizations and techniques to build transnational alliances among people of widely varying cultural, political, and economic backgrounds.
Anne Zill is the Founder and Director of the Center for Ethics in Action, which is focused upon women’s leadership and the ethical compass that guides us. She has been a foundation program associate with the Stewart Mott Charitable Trust for more than 30 years. Earlier she was the News Director and Producer with National Educational Radio (NPR’s predecessor). She has published articles in The Washington Post, Barnard College Alumnae Magazine, Washingtonian, and The Maine Times, among other publications. She is a graduate of Barnard College with a Master’s Degree in journalism from American University. In 1974 she co-founded the Women’s Campaign Fund, and served as Board Chair and/or Co-Chair for many years. She was also the sole founder of its tax-deductible sister entity in 1982, the Women’s Campaign Research Fund. In 1974 she also co-founded the Fund for Constitutional Government, and has been its President for many years. This publicly supported entity sponsors investigative journalism reports and projects such as the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to promote an open, honest and accountable operation of government.
