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2011 Employee Recognition Award Recipients
2011 BEHIND THE SCENES HERO AWARD
Phil Eager, Senior Assoc. General Counsel, Finance Dept.
"When people think of Sierra Club lawyers, they usually think of the wonderful staff and public interest attorneys who file lawsuits against government and polluters to protect the environment. Less well-known is the "behind the scenes" legal work of Senior Associate General Counsel, Phil Eager. Six years ago, he brought a decade of skill and experience as a successful corporate attorney to Sierra Club's benefit and, literally, its defense. During this time, he has "had our back" in the face of legal threats and lawsuits, defended the value of our brand against people who misuse the Club's name and logo, ensured that we have many of the services and offices we use every day by completing complex contract and lease negotiations, and been a key member of teams delivering important new initiatives like the Sierra Summit and green investing opportunities. Time and again, Phil has earned the trust, cooperation and respect of his colleagues with his hard work, good humor, respect, results-oriented pragmatic approach, and appreciation for the "big picture" On top of all of this, he also is an accomplished birder and wrote a blog about interesting and important bird-related conservation issues as Birder Phil on Sierra Club's Trails website.
2011 LARRY MEHLHAFF AWARD for EXCELLENCE
Liz Pallato, Assoc. Dir. of Conservation Effectiveness, Conservation Dept.
"Liz Pallatto's work exemplifies the Larry Mehlhaff Award. She has been at the heart of developing important new ideas, implementing new systems, collaborating and supporting team efforts, all of which have contributed hugely to the work of the Club, and beyond, to the environmental movement as a whole. The Club's Leadership Development Project with Marshall Ganz, Club staff and chapter leaders beginning in 2005, has had huge influence in the Club, but also outside it. Liz was instrumental in its success internally, and has played a very key role in its adoption by others outside the Club. In the early days of the Obama campaign, Liz volunteered to help campaign staff and Ganz organize one of its first "Camp Obama" trainings. She drew on her knowledge and experience from the Leadership Development Project to develop training guides that became the heart of the campaign's team training approach. This model has been adopted by Power Shift, the New Organizing Institute and many others, including translations used world-wide. Exploring New Technology The sharp economic downturn of 2008-09 meant that in-person training in the Club was greatly curtailed. Liz came up with a key remote training technology a conference calling system with easy to create break-out "rooms", which has since been adapted for many other trainings. Today, Liz is continuing to provide leadership in the Club to develop the Club campaign training and organizing model. "
2011 MIKE MCCLOSKEY AWARD
Jesse Simons, Principal Gifts Director/Dir. of Campaign, Advancement Dept.
"In ten years of stellar service to the Sierra Club, it is difficult to find another individual who has provided such outstanding and consistent work in support of the collective meaning, purpose, and mission of our organization than Jesse Simons. For all those who have worked with him, this declaration comes as no shock. Jesse has an incredibly sharp and strategic mind, a unique ability to synthesize the complex, an uncanny knack for creating order out of the seemingly nebulous, competitive fire, relentless energy, and a deep seated passion for our work. He has used those tools well. Throughout his tenure with the Advancement Department, he has consistently cultivated the undying support of the funding community, which has dramatically redefined the role that each of us, as Sierra Club employees, are able to play as we fight coal, advocate for cleaner energy, and protect our public lands. His ability to secure support for our organization playing a lead role in raising over $100M for the Sierra Club should be celebrated as our organizers, lawyers, media specialists, and legislative experts fight with the sharp edge of the "clean energy sword" term Jesse coined a few years ago."
2011 VIRGINIA FERGUSON AWARD
Rita Harris, Senior Organizer, Conservation Dept.
"Rita Harris has spent all her years as a Sierra Club staffer dedicated to diversifying the organization. Rita has also been a member of the Diversity Council and is seen as a leader within the Club on diversity. Rita and Bill Price, as Dismantling Racism (DR) trainers have trained over 400 people in the Sierra Club. This work is done in addition to their jobs, usually on weekends. This training is not easy and can be emotionally draining. Rita and Bill have trained trainers and Rita has gone all over the country encouraging diversity and DR. She is in demand as a speaker on these issues. In addition, she also convenes an annual EJ Conference in Memphis every November where many different issues are discussed to an overflow audience. She has spent countless hours (in addition to her regular job duties) advocating for diversity, the importance of proper training, and also mentoring staff. The Sierra Club's foundation on diversity and DR has been built in large part by Rita Harris. The Sierra Club owes a great deal to Rita's commitment to DR and she is richly deserving of this reward!"
2011 SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Jill Mastrototaro, Senior Field Organizing Manager, Conservation Dept.
"Jill provided remarkable leadership and comraderie in the face of what has been described as America's worst environmental disaster. Headquartered in the New Orleans office, Jill was at 'ground zero' for what only can be described as chaos. Through this intense and troubling 'baptism by fire' disaster, Jill remained cool and focused on executing and responding to the onslaught of the media feeding frenzy; government ineptitude and the BP cover-up. Jill has gone on to develop a recovery response for the Sierra Club to focus its resources to address the on- going and unfolding issues and to provide a map for recovery of the region. A vision of a clean energy future for the Gulf region is now a discussion thanks in large part to the focused determination of Jill."
20-Year Employees
Gayle Sheehan, our Director of Compliance & Operations Strategy in Conservation, was hired in 1990 as the Donor Acknowledgements Coordinator in the Centennial Campaign - writing personalized thank-you letters to individuals who gave $200 or more. In 1992, she became the Operations Manager and Estates Administrator also with the Centennial Campaign. In 1995, she took over national grants management and continued with that until 2004. She also took on chapter funding in 1997. She ventured into the area of Compliance in the late 90's and has been director of compliance since 2004. Some highlights of Gayle's career with the Club: She was the winner of the first Larry Mehlhaff Award for Excellence in 2007 and winner of the Virginia Ferguson Award in 2002. Without her, the Club's election year activities would probably come to a screeching halt. She successfully revamped the Consensus of Counsel with TSCF just last year. And... she is the only employee that actually has a fan club. You'll have to talk to Bob Bingaman if you want to find out how to join it!
Alison Horton has been a dedicated leader for the Sierra Club and the Organizing Department in particular during her 20 years with the Sierra Club. Her leadership of the Midwest Region and later Central Region has been first rate. It was in the Midwest Region where the original Stop Coal campaign was originated and forged and later become a flagship for our national Beyond Coal Campaign. Whether championing the protection of America's Arctic in her early days, building the work to protect our Great Lakes, forging our work to stop new coal plants, or helping to protect and restore the Gulf Alison has been a leader and champion that we can all be proud of. She has hired and mentored a great staff over the years….and, is just getting her second wind for a strong run into the 21st Century. And, she even takes time to walk her dog!
Paul Rauber is exactly the kind of long-term employee you want. His two decades at the magazine make him one of the most experienced environmental journalists in the country, which means he brings a rich pool of institutional knowledge with him to work every day. At the same time, he has embraced the new digitized forms of story-telling, becoming the club's most reliably entertaining blogger, while also making nimble use of all them newfangled social-networking tools to promote the magazine's website.
Melinda Pierce first came to the Sierra Club in 1991 as a grassroots organizer for the Alaska Coalition -- working to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. In the 20 years since, she has successfully defended endangered species and old growth forests, led campaigns to protect millions of acres of wilderness, improve clean air, protect our coasts from off shore drilling, and secure tax incentives for clean renewable energy. The original issue that brought Melinda to the Club -- Arctic drilling, just won't go away -- she would need to use both hands and feet to count the number of times she has successfully fought off attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. In her current role as Deputy Director for Federal Policy Melinda takes an active hand in all these issues and more.
Mark Bettinger is nothing short of a Sierra Club treasure. Bettinger is widely respected through out the organization for his team work, campaign skills, and outstanding delivery on any project he is assigned. He started his career as a front line organizer, has served as an organizing manager and Regional Staff Director in the old northeast region, provided campaign leadership to our 2010 global warming campaign, and is currently leading the Organizing Department initiatives around training on our new organizing model and designing a system to more effective capture and document our work to build leadership and power at the grassroots level. Bettinger remains as dedicated to the Sierra Club and hard working as he did 20 years ago. --- Bob Bingaman, National Organizing Director