NAELS Board of Directors
Durwood J. Zaelke, Director, INECE Secretariat
Durwood J. Zaelke is the President and founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, and serves as the Director of the INECE Secretariat. He also is the founder and Director of the Research Program on International and Comparative Environmental Law at American University Washington College of Law, where he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law and Scholar-in-Residence, teaching International Environmental Law and related courses. He was appointed Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School in 1999, teaching International Environmental Law and Policy. He is also the founder and former President of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
Richard H. Taketa, Chief Executive Officer, SCRMA
Rick Taketa is Chief Executive Officer of SCRMA and serves as Chief Executive Officer and President of York Risk Management Services. Rick is responsible for the company's overall strategic direction, execution, and management. Prior to joining SCRMA, Rick was a co-founder and managing director of a private investment firm, Eventide Management. Before that, Rick was a corporate securities lawyer with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, where he advised public and private companies and executives in business transactions. Rick has been an executive director and a legislative director for two organizations in Washington D.C. He sits on the Board of Directors of Friends of the Earth, the National Association of Environmental Law Societies, and Casa Teresa, a shelter for pregnant women. Rick earned his B.A. from Colgate University and J.D. from Stanford Law School.
Thomas T. Ankersen, Professor, UF Levin College of Law
Thomas T. Ankersen is an attorney and Director of the University of Florida College of Law's Conservation Clinic, an interdisciplinary clinical program in applied legal education that operates both domestically and internationally. Ankersen also directs the UF Center for Governmental Responsibility's Conservation Law Program, a program of applied research, policy development and training that lends supports to governmental and non-governmental organizations in Latin America. He recently began a Summer Program in Environmental Law in Costa Rica. He is an affiliate faculty member at the University of Florida's Center for Latin American Studies.
Ankersen currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Environmental and Land Use Law Center, is a member of the Tropical Ecosystems Directorate of the United States Department of State Man and the Biosphere Program, a member of the Board of Directors of the Forest Management Trust and serves on the Board of Advisors of Florida Defenders of the Environment.
Ankersen holds a J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law where he was a member of the Law Review, served as President of the Environmental Law Society, and received the Dean Maloney environmental law writing award. He holds B.A's in English and History and an M.A. in History from the University of South Florida where he specialized in environmental history. Prior to joining the law school, Ankersen served as an attorney in the Denver and Tallahassee offices of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. Prior to that he was senior litigation associate in the law firm of Peeples, Earl and Blank in Miami, Florida, where he specialized in environmental litigation. Prior to law school Ankersen worked as an environmental planner for a design firm in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Aimee Christensen, President, Christensen Global Strategies
Aimée Christensen is the founder and CEO of Christensen Global Strategies, advising clients seeking to address the global challenges of climate change, ecosystem degradation, and resource scarcity. Her clients have included the Clinton Global Initiative, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Swiss Re, The Elders, the United Nations Development Program, Virgin Unite, and Wolfensohn + Co. Previously, Aimée worked with Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, where she developed strategy, guided early initiatives, and built the team working on global warming and its broader relationship to poverty, development, and public health. She worked closely with Google's Greenteam to develop the corporate climate strategy including a commitment to carbon neutrality and adoption of a “shadow price” for carbon.
Michael Gerrard, Director, Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School
Michael Gerrard is Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. Until late 2008, he headed the New York office of Arnold & Porter LLP and its environmental practice, and he is currently Senior Counsel to the firm. He has practiced environmental law in New York since 1979. He has tried numerous cases and argued many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals, and handled the environmental aspects of many transactions and development projects.
Elliott Laws, Senior Counsel, Crowell Moring
Elliott Laws is a senior counsel in the Washington, DC office and practices in the firm's Public Policy and Environmental and Natural Resources Groups. He provides crisis management, strategic counseling and legal and policy advice on environmental and energy policy issues and litigation. Mr. Laws formerly served as President of Safety, Health and Environment for Texaco Inc. An Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the Environmenta Protection Agency, he was responsible for regulatory and policy development and implementation for solid and hazardous waste management. This included the Superfund, RCRA, Brownfields and underground storage tank programs. Previously, he was a Justice Department and EPA attorney and a Manhattan Assistant Distrcit Attorney. Mr. Laws was a member of the pre-election transition team for the Obama Administration.
Lee C. Paddock, Associate Dean for Env Studies and Professorial Lecturer in Law, GWU Law
Dean Paddock is associate dean for environmental law studies. He chairs the Committee for Innovations, Management Systems, and Trading of the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources. Prior to coming to GW Law, he was the director of Environmental Legal Studies at Pace University Law School from 2002 to 2007. Dean Paddock has served as a senior consultant for the National Academy of Public Administration on several projects since 1999. He also was a visiting scholar at the Environmental Law Institute between 1999 and 2002, focusing on clean air act, state-federal relationship, and enforcement issues. Dean Paddock graduated from the University of Iowa Law School with high honors and served as a law clerk to Judge Donald Lay of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. His recent publications include Keeping Pace with Nanotechnology: A Proposal for a New Approach to Environmental Accountability and Public Involvement, 21 Pace Environmental Law review 243 (2004) and Clean Air and the Politics of Coal, 20 Issues in Science and Technology 62 (winter 2004).
Greg Wetstone, Vice President, Government Relations, Terra-Gen Power
Gregory Wetstone is VP of Government Relations for Terra-Gen Power. Prior to joining Terra-Gen, Greg was the Senior Director for Government and Public Affairs at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is broadly responsible for efforts to promote wind energy through government policies and public communications. Before joining AWEA, Greg served as Director of Advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). While working there for more than a decade, Greg developed the organization’s legislative program and became its first legislative director in 1995. Greg has a B.S. in biology from Florida State University (1975) and a J.D. from the Duke University School of Law (1978).
