Our Expanding Staff: Meet the Climate Policy Center

Rafe Pomerance, President, is a founder and President of the Climate Policy Center. From 1993-1999, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development. Prior to joining the State Department, he spent eight years as a Senior Associate at the World Resources Institute. From 1975 to 1984, Mr. Pomerance was on the staff of Friends of the Earth, including four years as President. There, he began his work on climate change in 1978. From 1973-1977, He also served as the coordinator of the National Clean Air Coalition. founder and Chairman of the Board of American Rivers, and Chairman of the Board of the League of Conservation Voters. Mr. Pomerance earned a BA in History from Cornell University.

Brooks B. Yeager, Executive Vice President for Policy, held a number of senior environmental policy positions in the Clinton Administration, including leading global negotiations as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Development at the State Department from 1999 – 2000, and coordinating natural resource policy as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs under Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. From 2001 until 2005, Mr. Yeager was the Vice President of the Global Threats Program at World Wildlife Fund-U.S. Prior to his government service, he directed the Washington D.C. Office of the Audubon Society, led energy and wilderness conservation campaigns for the Sierra Club, and worked on the legislative staff of Rep. Jim Weaver (D-Oregon). Mr. Yeager has also consulted widely with environmental and public interest organizations. Mr. Yeager received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University.

William B. Newman, Jr., Legislative Consultant, works on business and Congressional outreach. He is the former Vice President and Washington Counsel for Consolidated Rail Corporation, and former Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Kevin J. Parker, Development Consultant, manages development and fundraising issues. He most recently served as the director of foundation relations at the Worldwatch Institute, and over the past 20 years has worked in fundraising for organizations including Environmental Defense, the World Resources Institute, and Conservation International.

Carole Florman, Media Consultant, has spent more than 20 years as a communications strategist and spokesperson in government, politics and the non-profit sector. She served as deputy director of public affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration. Other clients and former employers include the League of Conservation Voters, for which she ran a Florida Global Warming Education campaign; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; the ACLU; and the Library of Congress. She earned a Masters of Public Administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a BA in Liberal Arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Nigel Purvis is a Senior Fellow at the Climate Policy Center and at the United Nations Foundation. From 2005-2007, he served as Vice President for Policy and External Affairs at The Nature Conservancy, a leading global conservation organization.  From 2002-2005, he was a senior scholar in the foreign policy program of The Brookings Institution, where he directed the Environment and Development Project.  During this period, Nigel also was an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Mr. Purvis directed U.S. environmental diplomacy, including most recently as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment and Science.  He was a senior U.S. negotiator on climate change from 1998 to 2001.  Early in his career, Mr. Purvis worked as an international lawyer at the U.S. State Department, as a securities attorney at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell and as a lecturer at Georgetown University.  He is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

New Faces in Portsmouth Office

Joining our staff in the Portsmouth, NH office are Kay Harrison, webmaster and communications associate, and Anne Stephenson, campus outreach coordinator, working primarily on our campus renewable energy activities.

Kay comes to us from the nonprofit Tree Care Industry Association, where she managed a complete site redesign and established a new website offering consumers information about tree care. Kay is no stranger to clean air, having previously worked for an energy technology company producing pollution control equipment.  She also brings writing and editing skills and a background in corporate communications and journalism.  Kay was initially attracted to Clean Air - Cool Planet by the mission of reducing GHGs and the idea that she could use her skills “to contribute to that cause, so I could do what I wanted to do.”

Anne recently completed a Ph.D. in architectural history at the University of Chicago, where she also completed her accreditation as a green building consultant (LEED AP).
Her dissertation, under the direction of an architectural historian, a cultural historian, and a geographer, left her with “the desire to create educational opportunities about green buildings, GHG reductions, and to use college campuses as learning spaces, independent of the classrooms.”

Both Kay and Anne started at CA-CP on January 28th.