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WORKING GROUP Jim Celenza, Education/Technical Specialist, RI Committee on Occupational Safety and Health WORKING GROUP BIOS Jim Celenza is director and previously, the Education/Technical Specialist, for the RI Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (RICOSH). Mr. Celenza is a principal trainer of a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grant program at UMASS/LOWELL on hazardous materials, hazardous waste, and emergency response. He is project director and primary trainer for educational programs for US OSHA Susan Harwood training projects on ergonomics and immigrant workers and teen worker safety. RICOSH spearheads the RI Carbon Monoxide Task Force. RICOSH worked with members of the RI Tobacco Alliance to assist in the implementation of the Smokefree Workplaces Law. RICOSH worked with the Environmental Compliance Certification Program for Exterior Lead Paint Removal Contractors at the RI Department of Environmental Management. RICOSH participates in the Rhode Island Chemical Safe Schools Committee; New England Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected the Rhode Island Chemical Safe School Committee to receive the 2009 Environmental Merit Award. Mr. Celenza was also a trainer on lead hazard mitigation and asbestos abatement through the Asbestos & Environmental Resource Center, Community College of RI, and was a peer reviewer for EPA’s Model Worker Training program on lead abatement. RICOSH launching the GET THE LEAD OUT Coalition. In addition, RICOSH was founder of the New Public Transit Alliance. Mr. Celenza has received awards from the National Safety Council, National Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, RI Department of Health’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. Abel Collins is the Program Manager for the Rhode Island Chapter of the Sierra Club. His work is dedicated to the improvement of the RI’s transportation system through the Transportation Choices 2020 campaign. Abel just recently joined Sierra Club in January of 2010. Previously, he worked as Membership and Outreach Coordinator for the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living and before that as a community organizer with Clean Water Action. Abel is also closely involved with Rhode Island’s agricultural community having helped establish Moonstone Gardens as a working CSA and then managing the community farming effort, Moonlight Garden. He graduated from Brown University in 2000 with a degree in Political Science. Sheila Dormody is the Rhode Island director of Clean Water Fund and co-chair of the Coalition for Transportation Choices. Sheila has been involved in advocacy, grassroots organizing, and training activists for the environmental and peace movements since 1989. She joined the CWF Rhode Island staff in 2000. She coordinated the New England Zero Mercury Campaign and led the Rhode Island campaign that has won first-in-the-nation policies to phase out products that contain mercury. She won a U.S. EPA Merit Award in 2008 for her work to prevent mercury pollution. She is also the president of Ocean State Action Fund, the coordinator of the Coalition for Water Security, the Policy Co-Chair of the national Electronics TakeBack Coalition, and coordinator of the national Mercury Products Campaign. As the Citizen Outreach Director for ConnPIRG, she managed an outreach staff of over 60 organizers on campaigns to hold polluters accountable. As the director of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine Chapter, she coordinated materials for a domestic violence awareness campaign for physicians. As program director for Peace Action Maine, she developed and launched the Peace Voter Campaign to hold federal candidates accountable on peace and justice issues. From 1997 to 2000, Sheila served as the field director for Peace Action’s national office in Washington D.C. and coordinated the national Peace Voter Campaign, activist trainings, and managed national field and phone outreach operations. Jerry Elmer is a Staff Attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation. Jerry’s responsibilities include advocacy and litigation in Federal and state courts and before administrative agencies in the areas of climate change, renewable energy, and clean water. He has litigated to enforce Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Standard in the Public Utilities Commission, litigated in the First Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent siting of a liquefied natural gas facility in densely populated Fall River, Massachusetts (see City of Fall River v. F.E.R.C., 507 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2007)), and litigated in Rhode Island Superior Court (Champlin’s Realty Assoc. v. Tikoian et al., 2008 WL 5707848 (R.I.Super. Feb. 26, 2009)), and Supreme Court to prevent the expansion of Champlin’s Marina in Block Island’s Great Salt Pond. Prior to attending law school, Jerry was Co-Director, Rhode Island Office, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 1972 to 1987. AFSC is the Quaker service and educational organization which was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. Jerry’s work focused on east-west relations, nuclear weapons and disarmament issues, and human rights. He traveled extensively in South and Southeast Asia (including India, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines) researching the status of human rights and the impact of western military and economic aid programs. Some of his articles were carried by Pacific News Service and were published in newspapers from coast to coast; other articles appeared in a wide variety of individual publications, including the Providence Journal-Bulletin. Jerry was the author of the nuclear weapons freeze referendum which appeared as a ballot question in Rhode Island in the November 1982 election, and he served as co-director of the (successful) statewide campaign that worked to have the freeze initiative approved by the voters. The 1982 nuclear freeze referendum was the largest nationally-coordinated voter referendum in United States history, with similar ballot questions appearing simultaneously on ballots in 10 states and 38 cities and counties nationwide. Jerry served on the board of directors of the national nuclear-weapons-freeze campaign during this period. Following each of his trips to Southeast Asia, AFSC arranged national speaking tours for Jerry. During these tours he was booked as a guest speaker on college campuses and appeared on numerous radio talk shows and television programs. In 1977, he was honored to be asked to deliver a lecture on the state of the nonviolent movement in the United States at the Gandhi Bhavan (Gandhi Museum) in Bombay, India. Jerry has testified before Congress and prepared reports on international human rights issues for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and United States State Department. John Flaherty has served as Director of Research and Communications for Grow Smart Rhode Island since May 2003. Grow Smart is a diverse nonprofit that advocates for sustainable economic growth that builds upon and strengthens Rhode Island’s quality of place through policies that achieve revitalized and walkable urban and town centers, housing options and affordability, expanded transportation choices, a vital agricultural sector and responsible stewardship of natural resources. John’s policy work at Grow Smart is focused on transportation – particularly public transportation - and economic development. He is also responsible for Grow Smart’s communications, including its website electronic newsletter and media outreach. He’s been a member of the RIEDC Steering Committee for its Statewide Strategic Plan for Office & Industrial Development (2009), the RIEDC Steering Committee for its Online Site Inventory Project (2009-2010) and the RIPTA Strategic Planning Committee (2009-2010). Prior to Grow Smart, John worked for 15 years helping to build Providence into a leading convention and leisure destination as Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau. He served for several years on the North Smithfield, RI Planning Board and Ordinance Review Committee. He recently spearheaded the Branch Village Revitalization Task Force in that town, a 2-year project resulting in an economic and community redevelopment plan earning the unanimous approval of town officials and now being implemented. A 1987 graduate of the University of Rhode Island, he also attended Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Meg Kerr is the Watershed Program Manager with the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program. She is also co-lead of the Rhode Island Land & Water Partnership and a founding member and treasurer of the Rhode Island Blueways Alliance. Meg is an environmental scientist who has worked on river and watershed management and policy throughout the U.S. since 1980. In Rhode Island, she served on the RI Rivers Council (1991 – 2006), developing river policies and advocating for coordinated river management with state agencies. She worked for the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center (1989-2003) where she developed and managed the “River Rescue” program, which used volunteer water quality monitoring to build local stewardship for Rhode Island’s urban rivers. Prior to her work in RI, she worked for the U.S. EPA in Washington DC (1986-1989) coordinating state water monitoring and promoting volunteer based monitoring programs. She began her career at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Management (1980-1986) where she supervised the water quality assessment and modeling group responsible for developing effluent limitations for NPDES (point source discharge) permits and developed River Watch, a program to promote local stewardship for rivers and streams. Meg has a MS in environmental biology from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a BS in aquatic biology from Brown University. Eugenia Marks she has worked for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island for the past 30 years, where she serves as Senior Policy Director. She has an undergraduate degree in Art History and Psychology from NYU; teaching certificate 18 hours education from Georgia State University; graduate work in product design from North Carolina State; and an M.A. in Environmental Studies from Brown University. She has worked in publications in New York City and in education for a Ford Foundation project in inner-city schools in Atlanta. Volunteer work in several social and educational agencies is included in her experience. Eugenia has served as past president of the Environment Council of RI, and during her term, the Council was awarded National Wildlife Federation’s Affiliate of the Year. Eugenia has been active in the Environment Council since 1985, serving in various positions. She has been awarded U. S. EPA’s Environmental Merit Award and RI Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) Al Hawkes’ Award. Eugenia has served on a number of commissions for state government and currently serves on Statewide Planning’s Technical Committee. She has received Gubernatorial Citations for several projects. Eugenia focuses on public policy related to natural resources, such as land use and concomitant services on water, air and terrestrial resources.
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