BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David M. Siegel
Chair
Dave is an award-winning urban and regional planner with over 40 years’ experience helping build communities locally, across the country and internationally. He is past national President of the American Planning Association, responsible for leading the 13-member APA Board of Directors in governing the association, and in setting and achieving strategic goals. Dave was elected to the College of Fellows for the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2008, and helped found and currently serves as a member of the Oregon 2050 Coordinating Committee, a joint effort of the APA, AIA, ASLA and other partners dedicated to formulating and advancing a vision for Oregon.
Harrison Pettit
Vice Chair
Harrison is an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience leading strategic growth initiatives in agriculture, bioenergy and the forest products industry. Today, he is a Partner and Vice President of Pacific Ag, LLC, the nation’s largest crop residue harvest and supply company. Board service awakens a long-held interest in rural international development starting as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin’s Year in India Program followed by 2.5 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, a job at Peace Corps supporting the AID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer program, and as a World Bank Intern designing Social Investment Fund Projects for Latin America.
Wendy Stickel
Secretary
Wendy Stickel has worked in international development for over 30 years, including overseas assignments and extensive travel with USAID and the World Bank in Latin America and Southern Africa. Throughout her career she has spearheaded programs that support partnerships between local governments and civil society organizations and the communities they serve, including an innovative program of grants to black-led community-based organizations in apartheid South Africa to prepare for that country’s transition to majority-rule. She has also worked extensively in program evaluation and strategic planning, served as a senior advisor to USAID’s public-private partnership initiative, and developed guidelines for designing and evaluating USAID’s programs to develop local capacity to ensure sustainability of program benefits.
Erick Petersen
Treasurer
Erick Petersen is Vice President of Business Development and Head of Strategic Partnering at Enel X, a global business leading the transformation of the energy sector as part of the Enel Group. Erick has been working in the renewable energy industry for 15 years and has spent his career building high performance teams and businesses.
Eli Lamb
Eli owns a small renewable energy and management consulting company: Green Lightning Consulting, LLC. He is promoting Oregon tax reform centered on taxing the carbon content of fossil fuels and is a founding partner of Social Venture Partners Portland. Eli’s specialties– research, writing, financial analysis and energy economics and policy — enable him to develop and compare alternative approaches to economics and energy policy.
Jasmine Avgerakis
Jasmine is a professional humanitarian. She holds a Masters of International Management from Portland State University and has over 10 years of international experience. She has worked and led emergency programming in Colombia, Kenya, South Sudan, Nepal, Turkey, Greece, Yemen, Haiti, Somalia, and Puerto Rico. She recently worked for the Multnomah County Office of Emergency Management where she led the development of the Multnomah County Reunification Plan and produced an 18-segment video training for disaster workers. She is currently the Deputy Director for Mercy Corps Northwest supporting communities across the Pacific Northwest to uncover equitable access to resources, and charge toward a vision of breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty.
Joe Richards
Board Liaison to Technical Advisory Committee
Joe is a senior engineer and business leader with over 26 years of U.S.-based and international water resources engineering, project management, and civil design experience. He is a Principal Engineer at Stantec based in Portland, Oregon. He provides leadership within Stantec’s Environmental Service Business Center focused on Ecological Restoration. Joe has worked on a national and international basis in the water resources field including international development work with Peace Corps Nepal and Green Empowerment where he served as Program Director from 2001 to 2003. Joe was instrumental in establishing the Asia Renewable Energy Network for Green Empowerment and completing development of the Long Lawen Project with partner organization PACOS. Joe’s technical understanding in water resources, renewable energy and community development enables him to effectively interface with diverse audiences to solve community issues with appropriate technologies through local NGOs.
Melanie Billings-Yun
Dr. Melanie Billings-Yun is an international negotiator, mediator, and business professor, on the faculties of Portland State University in Oregon and Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Having lived 25 years overseas in Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, France, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, Melanie has worked with groups throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to resolve disputes and build sustainable and mutually profitable relationships. With environmental and community groups in Malaysian Borneo, in 2014 she co-founded the Oregon-Sabah Collaborative to promote cooperation in educational exchange, environmental research and conservation.
Rebecca Eaton
Rebecca has over 30 years of professional experience, much of it dedicated to addressing issues of poverty, workforce preparedness and climate change. In her work at ICF, a global consulting firm, she leads complex projects that involve providing technical assistance, training, survey efforts and/or research designed to help caseworkers and program administrators more effectively understand and address the needs of low-income and other vulnerable populations. Prior to joining ICF, she served as Executive Director of the nation’s leading certifying body addressing workforce preparedness in the renewable energy sector (the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners) and managed corporate partnerships in World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Change Program. She has experience in coalition building; developing and leading non-profit organizations and programs; providing technical assistance to federal and state agencies and Fortune 500 companies; and undertaking corporate greenhouse gas emission inventories and mitigation efforts.
Robert Haley
Bob Haley is the founder of and partner in Advanced Wealth Management, a financial services advisory firm. He is a veteran (US Army), and an attorney by training who found happiness in a career other than the practice of law. He has spent the last 38 years helping individuals and organizations understand how to manage their financial resources to obtain financial stability and achieve their life goals.
Steve Gretzinger
Steve Gretzinger has dedicated his career to developing innovative approaches to sustainable forestry. Living in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru for over 20 years has honed Steve’s ability to work with different cultures on different sides of the fence to achieve the same goal. He has a unique track record that includes channeling substantial investor capital into large private reforestation efforts in Brazil, leading the turnaround of a large forest products company in Peru’s Amazonian region, spearheading the design of Guatemala’s award-winning community forest concession program, assisting indigenous groups in Nicaragua’s Miskito Coast and Panama’s Darien region to maintain their traditional territory by actively managing native forests, and helping International Finance Corporation clients in India, Africa and South America to diversify their supply chains. Steve now works as Acquisitions Manager for Portland-based GreenWood Resources to develop new investment opportunities in Latin America.
Board Member Emeritus: Francie Royce
Francie Royce spent over 23 years with the City of Portland in various positions from City Planner, Annexation Coordinator to Project Manager focusing on alternative transportation programs and policy development. She is also a founding member of both the Portland-Corinto Sister City Association and the npGreenway, a trail advocacy group. Since leaving regular employment she has been delighted to have some freelance travel articles published and to contract as an event coordinator for a non-profit.
Late Board Chair: Linda Boise
Linda Boise was a health planner, educator, advocate, and researcher who worked in community service and health programs for over 35 years. In her role as director of education at the OHSU Layton Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease Center, she studied how health care is delivered for persons with dementia and their families and developed and evaluated model primary care programs. Linda’s volunteer service with Green Empowerment began in 2009 when she led a fundraising campaign to support building a solar water system in a village in Nicaragua. In 2013, she led a task force to develop recommendations for incorporating health outcomes assessment into Green Empowerment’s energy and water projects. Learn more about Linda’s contributions to Green Empowerment on our blog.