Rodney Brown, Jr., Cascadia Law Group
Rod founded Cascadia Law Group and its predecessor in 1996.  Over the past decade, Rod has worked on many major environmental cases in the Northwest and was the principal author of Washington's Superfund law, the Model Toxics Control Act.  Rod has been appointed to the Governor’s Climate Advisory Team, the Department of Transportation Expert Review Panel, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation, the Washington State Regulatory Reform Task Force and the Washington State Growth Strategies Commission. The Washington Legislature appointed him to the Model Toxics Control Act Policy Advisory Committee, and to the Regional Transportation Leadership Group.  The Director of the Washington State Department of Ecology has appointed Rod to the Regulatory Performance Advisory Board.  Rod presently sits on the boards of the Washington Environmental Council, the Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center and Portland General Electric.  Read more about Rodney Brown, Jr.

James Cox, Group 3
James is a founding partner of Group 3, which specializes commercial and residential green infill development in Taos, New Mexico.  He also writes on sustainable development, organic agriculture, and how to live an environmentally responsible life.

Joe Feller, Arizona State University School of Law
Professor Feller works on environmental and natural resource issues, with emphasis on public land management and water law. His writings on environmental and natural resources law have appeared in numerous legal and scientific journals, and he was an author of the American Bar Association's NEPA Litigation Handbook. Professor Feller has been a leading advocate for reform of livestock grazing on public lands in the western United States, and has represented environmental interests in litigation before administrative boards, federal district courts and courts of appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Before undertaking the study of law, Professor Feller obtained a doctorate degree in physics and he was an Assistant Professor of Physics at Columbia University.  Read more about  Joe Feller.

Jim Furnish, former Deputy Chief of National Forest
                        Systems for the USDA-Forest Service
Jim Furnish is currently a consulting forester in the Washington D.C. area following a 34-year career with the USDA Forest Service. He served as Deputy Chief of the 192 million acre National Forest System under Chief Mike Dombeck for 2.5 years.  As Deputy Chief, Jim was instrumental in creation of the Roadless Area Conservation and Forest Planning regulations, two of the most significant and controversial in recent agency history. He also sought to elevate the priority of recreation, especially the establishment of a "fee for use" concept. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Chief, he served as Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor from 1992-1999. As Supervisor, Jim directed a total reformation from a timber-dominated mission to one of conservation biology under the Northwest Forest Plan. Dramatic reductions in timber harvest and forest road networks were followed by a focus on young-stand management to enhance late-successional habitat for wildlife, fish, and other old-growth dependent species. Jim was generally regarded as one of the most pro-environment senior officials in the Forest Service.

Alex Levinson, Sierra Club Deputy Legal Director
Alex Levinson is the deputy director of the Environmental Law Program at the Sierra Club. He bears the unusual distinction of being the first staff lawyer ever hired by the Club (in 1991) and he served as the law program's first director before reducing his duties and assuming the deputy director position in 2001. Before joining the Sierra Club, he worked on several political campaigns and practiced criminal defense trial law. He also published a paper on gene sequencing, see Journal of Molecular and Applied Genetics. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School.  Read more about Alex Levinson.

Andrea Rodgers Harris, General Counsel, Snoqualmie Tribe
Andrea Rodgers is In-House Counsel for the Snoqualmie Tribe in Washington, representing the Tribe on a variety of legal issues, including Indian Child Welfare Act cases and the development of the Tribe's legal infrastructure.  Prior to joining the Tribe, Andrea was a staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center where she gained experience in environmental law and assisted tribes in their efforts to protect natural, cultural and spiritual resources.

William Rodgers, University of Washington School of Law
Professor Rodgers specializes in natural resource law and is recognized as a founder of environmental law. He teaches Environmental Law, and Oceans and Coastal Law at the University of Washington and is actively involved with the Berman Environmental Law Clinic. He has produced the first volume of his two-volume treatise entitled Environmental Law in Indian Country (Thomson West 2005) and co-authored the recently published The Si'lailo Way: Salmon, Indians and Law on the Columbia River (Carolina Academic Press 2006). Professor Rodgers was selected as the UW recipient of the Bloedel Professorship of Law from 1987-92. In 1999, Professor Rodgers was selected as the first UW Stimson Bullitt Professor of Environmental Law and is serving his second five-year appointment. Professor Rodgers recently served on the committee for Defining Best Available Sciences for Fisheries Management with The National Academies. He completed a six-year term as a member of the Board of Environmental Studies and Toxicology, National Academy of Sciences.  Read more about William Rodgers.

Jim Strittholt, Conservation Biology Institute
Jim Strittholt is President and Executive Director of the Conservation Biology Institute and has over 10 years experience in applying computer mapping technologies  to address various ecological assessments and conservation planning projects in the U.S. and internationally. He holds undergraduate degrees in Botany, Zoology and Secondary Education from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) where he also earned a Masters in Zoology in vertebrate population genetics. Jim earned a Ph.D. in 1994 from Ohio State University in a self-designed multi-disciplinary program emphasizing landscape ecology, conservation planning, and computer mapping technologies, conducting research at the Center for Mapping - a NASA Center of Excellence. Over the last six years, he has been principle investigator on numerous projects including nature reserve designs, conservation gap analyses, forest and watershed assessments, ecological modeling, and remote sensing applications in conservation. He has also authored numerous reports, peer-reviewed articles, and white papers.  Read more about Jim Strittholt.

Scott Summy, Baron & Budd, P.C.
Under the leadership of Attorney Scott Summy, Baron & Budd’s water contamination litigation practice is recognized as among the largest of its kind nationwide. Currently, the firm represents over 180 municipalities, water providers, and private well owners in 19 states in groundwater contamination litigation, and other water contamination cases.  A frequent lecturer on the subject, Mr. Summy’s passion for clean, safe drinking water and his work on behalf of communities affected by groundwater contamination makes him a tireless advocate of water issues and a nationally recognized litigator. Scott has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the both the prestigious 2006 and 2007 editions of The Best Lawyers in America. In addition his work as lead counsel on behalf of a California environmental group earned his team the “Attorneys of the Year” award from California Lawyer in 2001. Scott has been named to the Law & Politics Media Inc list of “Texas Super Lawyers.”  Read more about Scott Summy.

Charles Wilkinson, University of Colorado School of Law
Professor Wilkinson’s primary specialties are federal public land law and Indian law. In addition to his many articles in law reviews, popular journals, and newspapers, he has authored thirteen books, including the standard law texts on public land law and on Indian law. Over the years, Professor Wilkinson has taken on many special assignments for the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Justice. He was a member of the tribal team that negotiated the 1997 Joint Secretarial Order of the Interior and Commerce Departments concerning tribal rights under the Endangered Species Act. He served as special counsel to the Interior Department for the drafting of the proclamation establishing the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. In 1997 Agriculture Secretary Glickman appointed him a member of the Committee of Scientists, charged with reviewing the Forest Service planning regulations. In 2000, Professor Wilkinson acted as facilitator in negotiations between the National Park Service and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe concerning a tribal land base in Death Valley National Park, and he is currently serving as facilitator in negotiations between the City of Seattle and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Professor Wilkinson has received numerous teaching awards and has won acclamation from non-academic organizations. The National Wildlife Federation presented him with its National Conservation Award, and Outside Magazine named him one of 15 "People to Watch," calling him "the West's leading authority on natural resources law." He has served on several boards, including The Wilderness Society, Northern Lights Institute, and the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.  Read more about Charles Wilkinson.

Mary Wood, University of Oregon School of Law
Mary Christina Wood is Philip H. Knight Professor of Law, Morse Center Resident Scholar (2006-07) and Luvaas Faculty Fellow (2007-08) at the University of Oregon School of Law. She teaches property law, natural resources law, public trust law, federal Indian law, public lands law, wildlife law, and hazardous waste law. She is the Founding Director of the school’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program and is Faculty Leader of the Program’s Conservation Trust Project, Sustainable Land Use Project and Native Environmental Sovereignty Project. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1987, she served as a judicial clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then practiced in the environmental/natural resources department of Perkins Coie, a Pacific Northwest law firm. In 1994 she received the University’s Ersted Award for Distinguished Teaching and in 2002 she received the Orlando Hollis Faculty Teaching Award. Professor Wood is a co-author of a leading textbook on natural resources law (West, 2006) and has published extensively on climate crisis, natural resources, and native law issues. She is a frequent speaker on global warming issues and has received national and international attention for her sovereign trust approach to global climate policy. Professor Wood is currently working on a book entitled, Nature’s Trust: A Legal Paradigm for Protecting Land and Natural Resources for Future Generations.  Read more about Mary Wood.