Consultants

Benson Chiles is the founder and facilitator of Blue Line and the Director of the Coastal Ocean Coalition (COC), a project of Environmental Defense and nine other environmental organizations. Previously, Chiles worked as a Regional Director with the Public Interest Research Group, consulted to numerous environmental organizations, and launched N Space Labs, a data visualization company. Chiles is the founder of the Front Porch Club, a place-based online community, and the Vice-Chair of the Atlantic Highlands, NJ Planning Board. Chiles holds a BA from the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in Organizational Change Management from the New School University.
 
Derek Cressman is an independent consultant with experience in legislative campaigns, earned media, fundraising, and non-profit management. Cressman has extensive background in ballot initiative campaigns having worked to draft initiatives, oversee signature qualification, conduct polling and message development, and direct entire initiative campaigns in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Oregon. In his nearly two decade stint with the state PIRG network Cressman helped train and provide policy backup to PIRG directors and advocates across the country and in Washington, D.C. As a non-profit entrepreneur, he worked with Green Century Capital Management and founded Earth Tones – The Environmental Internet and Phone Company in 1993. From 2003-2006, Cressman founded and directed TheRestofUs.org, a web-based watchdog of money in politics. His has been quoted or placed op-eds in the New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, the Oregonian, Roll Call, National Journal, Orlando Sentinel, Kansas City Star, and numerous other publications. Cressman has testified before the U.S. Senate and California legislature on the topic of campaign finance reform and served as an expert witness in federal litigation. He serves as a fellow with the Poplar Institute and has consulted with Common Cause. Derek graduated from Williams College with a BA in political science and is based in Sacramento, California.
 
Cris Feldman is an attorney in Austin, Texas with the firm of Ivy, Crews & Elliott, P.C. Feldman works in various capacities with several non-profit organizations with an emphasis on good government and conflicts of interest. Feldman is engaged in litigation concerning the illegal use of corporate money in the 2002 Texas state election, including litigation against Tom Delay’s PAC, Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (aka “TRMPAC”). Feldman is a graduate of Tulane University and the University of Texas Law School.
 
Gabriela Goldfarb is an independent consultant with 20 years experience in policy research, writing and analysis, institutional fundraising, project design and management, and process facilitation for regional and national clients. Her practice emphasizes ocean and coastal policy, watershed restoration, and salmon recovery. Some current and past clients include the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, River Network, and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board. She has held senior positions with For the Sake of the Salmon (a Pacific coast salmon stakeholder organization), Oregon Climate Trust, and the California Coastal Commission. The early focus of her career was international, including work for the World Wildlife Fund in Costa Rica and, in Washington, D.C., work for the Pan American Development Foundation and the U.S. State Department. She holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and is bilingual in Spanish. She is based in Portland, Oregon.
 
Jeff Jones is a media consultant and campaign strategist with experience helping grassroots and progressive groups. For the past ten years he was communications director of Environmental Advocates of New York, a statewide government watchdog group based in Albany. He represented the organization to the media, and trained staff and the organization’s coalition partners in communications skills. In addition to his work on ocean resource management issues, Jeff developed the media strategy for the Hudson River PCB cleanup campaign. Other state campaigns include brownfield’s redevelopment, open space protection and funding for environmental programs. Previously, he was a political reporter covering state and national issues from Albany and New York City.
 
Chris Manthey co-founded both the Environmental Background Information Center, which conducts opposition research on behalf of grassroots environmental groups, primarily those involved with landfill and incinerator sitings, and BackTrack Reports, a for-profit firm that provides background research on executives prior to financial transactions. He sold BackTrack Reports in September 2004. Currently he is working on oceans issues, primarily as a volunteer with Surfrider Foundation. Chris was an auditor with Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte Touche) and graduated in Honors Program in Accounting at the University of Connecticut in 1986.
 
Julie Miles is an independent consultant who has an 18-year history of organizing and advocacy on public interest, environmental and social justice issues. Miles currently serves as executive director of Housing Here & Now, an historic New York City coalition of affordable housing, labor, and religious organizations formed to win new policies to create and preserve affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers. Miles worked for more than a decade with the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), holding a variety of student and citizen organizing and campaign positions in several states and Washington DC. Miles has also served as the National Director of the Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness and National Director of The Campaign Against Genetically Modified Food.
 
Deane Rink is a free lance producer, writer, project director, and editor who specializes in bringing scientific information to the general public. He recently served as Director of Research of a PBS series entitled THE INFINITE VOYAGE, and his role was, among other things, to chair meetings of consultants for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation. Rink wrote and produced an online course entitled “Understanding Mass Media,” and he wrote the script for a handheld PDA tour of artifacts held by Smithsonian Institute’s National Air & Space Museum and Natural History Museum. Rink produced eight live broadcasts for PBS and ABC from Antarctica and he served as a researcher for Carl Sagan for the PBS TV series COSMOS and the companion book, one of the best-selling science titles of all time. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Service Award in1999, the American Geophysical Union’s Education award for writing the Hall of Planet Earth for the American Museum of Natural History, the NY Interactive Festival Best CD-ROM award for AMAZONIA in1993, and an Emmy for Best Informational Series for PLANET EARTH in 1986.
 
Liese Schneider is an independent consultant who, for the last eight years, has worked for environmental, consumer, and candidate campaigns. In 1998, Liese started her environmental work as a student with MassPIRG. After college, she continued to work for NJPIRG as a campus organizer and a grassroots fundraising director for The Fund for Public Interest Research. In January 2004, Liese helped to found Grassroots Campaigns, Inc which ran the Democratic National Committee's grassroots fundraising operation and MoveOn PAC's get-out-the-vote campaign. After leaving GCI, Liese was Jonathan Tasini's Campaign Manager (Democratic challenging Hillary Clinton). Most recently, she ran an assembly race in Brooklyn, NY.
 
Sarah Clark Stuart is an ocean conservation policy expert with over fifteen years experience on marine fisheries, marine protected areas and water quality issues. Most recently, she worked for the Coastal Ocean Coalition, a national coalition dedicated to promoting pro-active state-level policies that protect ocean resources. She spent three years working with the Conservation Law Foundation on a project to identify and map important areas of the Gulf of Maine for consideration as marine protected areas. Prior to that Stuart spent seven years each with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environment Program and Environmental Defense working on ocean and coastal issues. Stuart is a graduate of both Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Pomona College.
 
Michael A. Stusser is a columnist, game inventor and fluxus activist. His "Accidental Parent" column (ParentMap magazine) won the prestigious Gold Award at the Parents Publication Awards in 2005, and his "Dead Guy Interviews" (Mental Floss magazine) will be released as a book by Penguin Publishing in 2006. Stusser is a contributing writer for the Seattle Weekly and his free-lance work is frequently published by Law & Politics, Yoga International and the New York Times Syndicate. Stusser is also the co-author of the Doonesbury Game with Garry Trudeau ("Best Party Game of the Year" by GAMES Magazine), and EARTHALERT, The Active Environmental Game (Parent's Choice award-winner). His most recent board game, "Hear Me Out," is available at Starbucks' worldwide. Beginning in the environmental movement at the University of California at Berkeley (BA 1986), Stusser has worked as a political organizer and lobbyist for the Public Interest Research Groups (CalPIRG, MASSPIRG and USPIRG), Greenpeace and the Trust for Public Interest Lands. He was a CORO Fellow graduate in Los Angeles in 1989. Stusser brings an out-of-the-box approach to communications, activism and message, and his ideas promote collaboration, world vision, and success.
 
Traci Van Thull is currently serving as a consultant on water policy for Yolo County. From 2000-2006 she was the Director of the California Wild Heritage Campaign – an effort to permanently protect millions of acres of wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers in California. In that role, she was instrumental in the passage of the Big Sur Wilderness Act and also the Northern California Wild Heritage Act -- legislation that established the Big Sur and the Lost Coast as Wilderness. Her experience with California water policy began when she was with Friends of the River--a statewide river conservation organization in California. As the American River Campaign Coordinator she coordinated the coalition efforts to stop Auburn dam and to build support for other flood control alternatives. Prior to that she was the Field Director for Taxpayers for Common Sense where she directed the national media efforts and coalition efforts for that progressive organization and was also a key participant in the successful 1996 campaign to stop the Auburn dam. Van Thull worked for five years for the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG) in a variety of roles including Field Director. She is a volunteer whitewater guide with the Friends of the River Rafting Chapter, and an avid whitewater kayaker, mountain biker, and trail runner. She holds a B.A. jointly in Political Science and Economics from Rutgers University.