2016 Advisory Board Members

Sustainable Conservation

2016 Advisory Board Members

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS______

Adrienne Alvord

Director of California and Western States, Union of Concerned Scientists

Adrienne Alvord is the Union of Concerned Scientists’ California and western states director, based in Oakland, California. She is working to ensure Californians, and all Americans, transition to a clean energy and fuels economy that reduces global warming, promotes equitable economic growth, and improves public health in western states. Adrienne is leading UCS’s effort to ensure robust implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act, the state’s landmark climate law known as AB 32. She also is working to ensure California’s renewable energy and clean vehicle standards are enforced.

Prior to joining UCS, Adrienne was the environmental policy director for California State Senator Fran Pavley and served as lead staff on AB 32. She led successful legislative efforts to establish clean energy programs and accompanying funding sources, clean vehicles and fuel technology standards, air and water quality rules, and natural resources protection programs. She worked extensively in climate, energy, fuels, waste, and agricultural policy and has deep experience in translating scientific and technical work into policy ideas, and creating strategic partnerships to achieve those policies. Prior to working in the California legislature, Adrienne served as a gubernatorial appointee directing state pesticide legislation and regulations, and previously was policy director for a California nonprofit promoting sustainable agriculture.

Adrienne has a B.A. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. She has been quoted widely, including by the Associated Press, ClimateWire, Fresno Bee, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, San Jose Mercury News, and San Francisco Chronicle, and has appeared on KPFA radio.

David Anderson
Attorney At Law; Land Conservation Consultant
David H. Anderson is an attorney specializing in environmental law and land conservation law. Recently retired, he splits his time among homes in Ketchum, ID; Lake Oswego, OR; and Santa Barbara, CA. In his early career he served as an assistant U.S. attorney and as general counsel of the California Air Resources Board.
David currently serves on the Board of the Wood River Land Trust (Idaho). He is a Trustee Emeritus of California Nature Conservancy, past Board Chairman of the Land Trust Alliance and past board member of Housing Trust for Santa Barbara County.He is also a former board member and chair of the Santa Barbara Foundation, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Land Trust for Santa Barbara County and Santa Barbara Planning Commission.
He is a graduate of Occidental College, University of Southern California and Stanford University.
Paul Betancourt

Director of Strategic Vision, VF & B Farms
Paul isDirector ofStrategic Visionof VF & B Farms, his family farming operation based in Kerman, California. Recent crops grown on VF & BFarms include cotton, Pima cotton, almonds, processing tomatoes, barley, sugar beets, cantaloupes, garbanzos and black eyes.

In addition to ranch duties, Paul is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the Madera Center Community College in Madera, California, teaching courses in American Government. He is also an Instructor at the University of Phoenix in Fresno and teaches classes in Business Ethics, World Religions, Critical Thinking, US Constitution and Personal Finances.

Paul’s community involvement includes: Kerman Unified School Board, 1993-2014; Fresno County Farm Bureau President, 2000-2002; Kerman Community Food Bank Co-Founder; Valley Clean Air Now Board (President, 2006); San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District-Community Advisory Committee (2003-2005); National Cotton Council delegate; Fresno County Trustees Association (President, 1999); California School Board Association (Delegate Assembly, 1998-2000); and Central Valley Regional Water Board (member, 2005-2008).

Paul received his BA in Religious Studies from Westmont College, a second major in Agricultural Business from Fresno State University, and an MA in International Relations from Fresno State University. He is also a graduate of the California Agriculture Leadership Program (Class XXV). Paul’s book, The Swiss Model: Can the Swiss Model of Confederation Be Applied in Afghanistan? [ISBN 978-3-8383-9077-2], was published in 2010. Ten Reasons: Finding Balance on Environmental Issues was published in 2012, and his latest book, This Week on the Farm, was published in 2014. Paul also writes on Ag issues occasionally for the Fresno Business Journal. His blog, This Week on the Farm, can be found at http://betancourtunlimited.blogspot.com/.

Frank Boren

Co-Founder, Sustainable Conservation

Frank co-founded Sustainable Conservation in 1990 based on his belief that we must collectively protect our planet or collectively we will lose it. He served on the Board of Directors for the Atlantic Richfield Corporation from 1990 to 2000. He also served as President and Chairman of the Board of The Nature Conservancy, as founder and member of California Environmental Dialogue, and as a member of the California Fish and Game Commission. He is a former partner at K&B Associates and a former partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker and McNeill Enterprises. Frank graduated from Stanford Law School in 1958 and received his BA from Stanford in 1956.

Don Bransford
Owner, Bransford Farms
Don is a partner with his wife Diane in Bransford Farms, a diversified farming operation growing rice, prunes and almonds in the Sacramento Valley. Don was appointed to the State Board of Food and Agriculture in 2006 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and reappointed in 2011. He is President of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District and Chair of the University of California President’s Advisory Commission on Agriculture and Natural Resources and past Chair of the USA Rice Federation Rice Producers’ Group, the California Rice Commission and the Northern California Water Association. He served on the board, and in other leadership positions with Farmers’ Rice Cooperative and the California Rice Industry Association. He was appointed to the Bay Delta Advisory Council of CALFED by Governor Pete Wilson in 1995 and was appointed to the State of California, Governor’s Advisory Drought Planning Panel in 2000 by Governor Gray Davis. Don was named the USA Rice Federation’s Rice Farmer of the Year for 1999, awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in the U.S. rice industry in 2005. In 2005, he was also awarded the California Rice Industry Award for distinguished contributions to the advancement of the California rice industry. He has also served on Board of Trustees of Colusa Unified School District since 1981. Don represents UC on the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching (CARET). He earned a bachelor’s degree in General Science from Oregon State University, a master’s degree in Exercise Physiology from CSU Sonoma and a doctorate of education in Exercise Physiology from University of Tennessee.

Frank Casey

Ecosystem Services Theme Lead for the Center for Science, Decisions, and Resource Management, United States Geological Survey

Dr. Casey is an agricultural and natural resources economist whose areas of expertise include financial and institutional incentive mechanisms for resource conservation, and developing economic policy alternatives for habitat conservation by private landowners, including ecosystem service payments and markets. Currently he is the Ecosystem Services Theme Lead for the Center for Science, Decisions, and Resource Management at the United States Geological Survey. Prior to joining the USGS in 2010, Dr. Casey was the Senior Director for 11 years for Defenders of Wildlife’s Conservation Economics and Finance Program.

Dr. Casey’s previous experience includes working in the private sector as a natural resources economist, including promoting public land and water conservation in the western United States, and managing economic research projects in the agricultural sector in the Southeast. He also has over 13 years’ experience in agricultural development and natural resource conservation in West Africa where he designed, developed, and implemented several multi-million dollar agricultural and natural resource economic research and development projects, and developed agricultural development policies at the national level. He has served as an economic policy advisor to the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Ministry of Agriculture in Niger, West Africa.

He earned his Ph.D. in Food and Resource Economics in 1996 from the University of Florida; an M.S. in Agricultural Economics in 1984 and a Masters of Professional Studies, International Agriculture in 1983 both from Cornell University; and a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations in 1979 from California State University, Northridge. He is lead editor for a book entitled, “Flexible Incentives for the Adoption of Environmental Technologies and Agriculture,” and authored a recent report entitled, “Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation: An Ecological and Economic Assessment.”

Ralph Cavanagh
Senior Attorney and Co-Director, Natural Resources Defense Council Energy Program; Visiting Professor of Law, Stanford University and UC Berkeley

Ralph is a senior attorney and co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) energy program, which he joined in 1979. In addition, Ralph has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford and UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall), and from 1993-2003 he served as a member of the U.S. Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board. His current board memberships include the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the California Clean Energy Fund, the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, the Renewable Northwest Project, the Northwest Energy Coalition, and the Sustainable Energy Advisory Board of Texas-based Energy Future Holdings. He is a member of the National Commission on Energy Policy, which the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation established in 2002. Ralph has received the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Mary Kilmarx Award, the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the Yale Law School's Preiskel-Silverman Fellowship, the Lifetime Achievement in Energy Efficiency Award from California's Flex Your Power Campaign, the Headwaters Award from the Northwest Energy Coalition, and the Bonneville Power Administration's Award for Exceptional Public Service. He is a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Law School. He is married to Deborah Rhode, who is the MacFarland Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

Gretchen Daily
Bing Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University

Gretchen is Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology; Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment; and Director of the Center for Conservation Biology. She is also Co-Director of The Natural Capital Project, a partnership among Stanford University, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and the University of Minnesota, whose goal is to align economic forces with conservation.

An ecologist by training, Gretchen's work spans scientific research, teaching, public education and working with leaders to advance practical approaches to environmental challenges.Her scientific research is on biodiversity change; on the scope for harmonizing biodiversity conservation and agriculture; on quantifying the production and value of Ecosystem Services and Conservation across landscapes; and on new policy and finance mechanisms for integrating the values of natural capital into major decisions.Gretchen works extensively with private landowners, economists, lawyers, business people and government agencies to incorporate environmental issues into business practice and public policy. Her efforts span fundamental research and policy-oriented demonstration projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Oceania.

Gretchen received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.Her recent honors include the 21st Century Scientist Award (2000), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2005), and the American Philosophical Society (2008), The Sophie Prize (2008), The International Cosmos Prize (2009), The Heinz Award (2010), and The Midori Prize (2010).She serves on numerous boards, including the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics (part of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences) and The Nature Conservancy. She has published over 200 scientific and popular articles and her most recent book is The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable, with journalist Katherine Ellison.

John Dawson
Co-Founder, Zentek Technology

John currently serves on the boards of Island Conservation, OneReef (Chair), Silicon Valley Urban Debate League (Secretary/Treasurer) and D-REV (Chair). He was a researcher at Xerox PARC and later an executive at various Silicon Valley startups including CASE Technology, Gain Technology, Lorichel, and Zentek Technology. John is a lecturer at the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program and a member of SV2. He lives in Palo Alto and owns a small forest in Vermont producing sustainable non-timber forest products.

Dan Emmett
Co-Founder, Douglas, Emmett and Company; Board Chairman, Douglas Emmett, Inc.

Stanford University B.A., 1961. Harvard University, J.D., 1964. Law Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco, 1964-1965. Local Courts Commissioner, Republic of Malawi, Central Africa, 1965-1966. Lawyer, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, Los Angeles, 1966-1970. Co-founder and of Counsel to Mochtar, Karuwin and Komar, Jakarta, Indonesia, 1970-1971. Co-Founder of Douglas, Emmett and Company and Jon Douglas Company, 1971, Douglas Emmett Realty Advisors, 1991.

Currently Chairman of Douglas Emmett, Inc. (NYSE – “DEI”) an office REIT based in Santa Monica, California.

Affiliations include: Member, California State Bar; Real Estate Broker, California; Life Trustee and past Chairman, Board of Trustees, Cate School; Board Member and past President, Santa Monica Baykeeper; Advisory Board Member and Past President, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper; Director, Environment Now Foundation; Director, Patagonia, Inc.; Member, Visiting Committee and Dean’s Advisory Board at Harvard Law School; Chair, Advisory Board, UCLA School of Law Center on Climate Change and the Environment; Co-Chair, Advisory Board of Center for Business and the Environment at Yale; Former Co-Chair of Environment and Energy Policy Advisory Committee, Real Estate Roundtable; Advisory Board Member, Sustainable Conservation; Chair of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Green Building Initiative that lead to Executive Order No. S-20-04; Chair of Governor’s Real Estate Industry Leadership Council; and Director, Greenprint Foundation.

Bob Epstein

Co-Founder, E2
Bob is an entrepreneur and engineer with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder of five companies: Sybase, New Resource Bank, GetActive Software, Colorado Microdisplay and Britton-Lee. Bob is a co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), Chairman NRDC Action Fund and Trustee of the Goldman School of Public Policy.Bob led the E2 team that helped to pass California’s major global warming bills – the “Clean Cars Bill” and the “Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006”. Bob’s community activities are focused on the environment, public education, sustainable food systems and opera.