Sustainable Conservation greatly appreciates the guidance and advocacy of our devoted Board and Advisory Board members in accelerating and expanding our conservation efforts across California.
Board of Directors
Charles Ahlem
Owner, Charles Ahlem Ranch and Hilmar Cheese Company
Laura Beaudin
Partner, Bain & Company
Chris Buchbinder, Board Chair
Portfolio Manager and Senior Vice President, Capital Group Companies
Kim Delfino
California Program Director, Defenders of Wildlife
Dan Dooley
Of Counsel, Bolen Fransen Sawyers LLP
Jennifer Hernandez
Partner / Co-Chair, National Environmental Team, Holland & Knight LLP
Chip Koch, Secretary
Manager, Environmental Planning and Permitting, Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Cynthia Hunter Lang
Director of Business Development for Brazil, Urban Innovation Exchange
Steve McCormick
Co-Founder, Earth Genome Project
Adán Ortega, Jr.
Principal, AOA (Adán Ortega Associates)
Tina Quinn
Co-Founder, Industrial Property Manager and Broker, Oppenheim Properties; Co-Founder, Sustainable Conservation
Russell Siegelman
Educator, Investor, Philanthropist
Mark Valentine, Treasurer
Stuart Woolf
President and CEO, Woolf Farming Company
Advisory Board
David Anderson
Attorney at Law; Land Conservation Consultant
Paul Betancourt
Director of Strategic Vision, VF & B Farms
Frank Boren
Co-Founder, Sustainable Conservation
Don Bransford
Owner, Bransford Farms
Louis Calcagno
Supervisor, Monterey County 2nd District
Frank Casey
Ecosystem Services Theme Lead for the Center for Science, Decisions, and Resource Management, United States Geological Survey
Ralph Cavanagh
Senior Attorney and Co-Director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s Energy Program; Visiting Professor of Law, Stanford University and UC Berkeley
Gretchen Daily
Bing Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University
John Dawson
Co-Founder, Zentek Technology
Dan Emmett
Co-Founder, Douglas, Emmett and Company; Board Chairman, Douglas Emmett, Inc.
Bob Epstein
Co-Founder, E2
John Finegan
Founder, Beck Ag
Steve Gross
Vice President of State Relations, Wine Institute
Charlene Harvey
Co-Chair, Campaign for the Presidio and the Golden Gate National Parks; Board Member, Presidio Trust
Laura Hattendorf
Portfolio Director, Mulago Foundation; Co-Founder, Sustainable Conservation
Winston Hickox
Partner, California Strategies, LLC
Kristine Johnson
Founder and Executive Director, Kingfisher Foundation
Rich Kelley
Co-Founder, Search Fund Partners
Bob Kirkwood
Director of Government and Education Affairs, Hewlett-Packard Company (Retired)
Sally Liu
The Nature Conservancy
Jerry Meral
Director of the California Water Program, Natural Heritage Institute
Richard Morrison
Senior Vice President, Bank of America (Retired)
Jeff Mount
Senior Policy Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center
Rebecca Patton
Chief Operating Officer, Wildlife Conservation Network
Wendy Pulling
Director of Conservation Programs, The Nature Conservancy, California
Karen Ross
Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture
Greg Rosston
Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; Co-Director, Public Policy Program, Stanford University
Deborah Schmall
Partner, Paul Hastings
Rebecca Shaw
Associate Vice President, Environmental Defense Fund’s Land, Water, and Wildlife Program
Lester Snow
Executive Director, California Water Foundation
Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Jr.
Perry L. McCarty Director, Woods Institute for the Environment
Kris Timken
Artist, Photographer, and Visual Studies UC Santa Cruz PhD Candidate
Tony Turkovich
Farmer/Proprietor, Turkovich Family Wines
Allison Harvey Turner
Program Director, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Stanley Van Vleck
Partner, Stern, Van Vleck & McCarron
Paul Wenger
President, California Farm Bureau Federation
Sustainable Conservation’s Board Chair Chris Buchbinder and his wife Nina with their sons (left to right) Holden, Dane, Rhys, and Jude.
Meet Our New Board Chair
“Finding common ground between environmental and economic interests isn’t just a smart option for California – it’s the only option,” says Chris Buchbinder, whom Sustainable Conservation’s Board of Directors elected as Chair in December 2014.
Impressed by Sustainable Conservation’s track record of uniting people to solve the toughest challenges facing California’s land, air, and water, Chris joined our Board in 2006. Ever since, he has brought his financial expertise as a portfolio manager and senior vice president at the Capital Group Companies to bear on guiding the economic foundation of Sustainable Conservation’s environmental solutions.
While Chris excels as a professional investor, that role comes second to his identity as a father. Chris and his wife Nina raise their four boys among the redwoods of Mill Valley, a special pocket of California that highlights our state’s staggering physical beauty and the myriad recreational opportunities on offer within our outdoor playground. Sustaining California’s natural wealth for his children to enjoy means a lot to Chris.
Chris succeeds former Chair Russell Siegelman, who helmed Sustainable Conservation’s Board for 13 years. We are grateful for Russell’s legacy, which helped deliver our collaborative approach to conservation to the forefront of the environmental movement in the Golden State – and we look forward to Chris’s leadership to expand our impact even further in stewarding the resources on which we all depend.
Sustainable Conservation helps California thrive by uniting people to solve the toughest challenges facing our land, air, and water.
Every day we bring together business, landowners, and government to steward the resources on which we all depend in ways that make economic sense. Because we know that common ground is California’s most important resource.
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