SF Bay Chapter Centennial Celebration and Awards Ceremony

Susan Ives’s activism began in the Ozarks when the U.S. Forest Service sprayed herbicides from helicopters to convert national forest into tree farm. Gordon Robinson, a Sierra Club forester, arrived to testify on behalf of the Newton County Wildlife Association — a band of longhaired plaintiffs living off the grid. Gordon’s testimony produced a moratorium on spraying and a job for Susan at the Sierra Club, sparking a career doing what she loves. That career has included working for Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, former California Secretary of Resources Huey Johnson, and Kenyan activist and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Susan’s graduate thesis at Harvard’s Kennedy School led to the creation of the Massachusetts Environment Trust, which converts pollution fines into grants for environmental restoration. Back in the Bay Area, Susan joined the Trust for Public Land as Vice President of Communications, rebranding TPL as the "land for people” organization providing needed green spaces in urban communities. Today, Susan consults for nonprofits working to change the world. She believes every movement needs a theme song. Here’s hers.

Jeff Levin is the Senior Director of Policy at East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO).
He has 40 years of experience in the field of affordable housing and community development. As EBHO’s Policy Director, he mobilizes and collaborates with member and allied organizations and individuals on regional land use and housing planning, housing elements, equitable development, gentrification and displacement, State legislation, and local housing policies such as inclusionary zoning, impact fees and use of public land for affordable housing.

Prior to joining EBHO in 2013, Jeff worked for the City of Oakland for over 28 years as a project coordinator, program manager, planner, and policy analyst, including 15 years as the City’s Housing Policy and Programs Manager. He has designed and overseen many local housing programs, managed Oakland’s HOME Program and the Oakland Redevelopment Agency’s Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Fund, and authored numerous policy studies and housing plans. He has worked closely with many public and private organizations at the local, regional, state, and national levels. 

He completed his undergraduate work at UC Berkeley and holds a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley. He has won numerous awards from local and regional housing organizations.

The student leaders and mentors from the California Youth Climate Policy Leadership Program (CYCP), demonstrated that true civic engagement and intergenerational growth can happen through policy action. 

Over the course of five months, the student leaders of CYCP accomplished an ambitious learning agenda which included development of a personal leadership plan, field research to understand their school district’s existing environmental and climate policy, development of an advocacy campaign plan, building a coalition, and presenting their advocacy campaign at a school board meeting. Their advocacy plans included topics such as climate literacy, climate action plans, climate impacts and adaptation, zero waste, and transportation.

An environmental trailblazer, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, has authored laws to accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles, expand rooftop solar, mandate clean energy storage, increase energy efficiency of buildings and appliances, and reform clean energy financing. 

Her environmental achievements also include requiring all packaging in California to be recyclable or compostable by 2032; streamlining the creation of more housing near transit and jobs to reduce GHG emissions; jumpstarting the state’s use of green hydrogen; and maximizing nature’s ability to store climate-changing carbon in the soil, grasslands, wetlands, forests, and other natural systems.

Sen. Skinner is chair of the Senate Housing Committee and serves on the Senate’s Environmental Quality, Energy, and Budget committees. She began her public service in 1984 as the first student elected to the Berkeley City Council, and while on the council, she introduced the nation’s first Styrofoam ban. She is also a past member of the East Bay Regional Park District Board of Directors.