Board of Directors
Helen Spiegelman
President
Vancouver, BC
Bio-
Helen is co-founder of the Product Policy Institute. She worked with citizens and local governments in British Columbia during the 1990s (as Director of Communications for the Recycling Council of British Columbia) to build the political support that resulted in the most advanced and comprehensive EPR program in North America. She is currently spearheading a new civic organization, Zero Waste Vancouver, that is functioning as a test laboratory for PPI to learn how to effectively engage citizens in local EPR campaigns. She has been a leader of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (Vancouver) and is a former Steering Committee member of the Computer TakeBack Campaign.
David Sitzhal
Vice President
Seattle, WA
Bio-
David is co-founder of the Northwest Product Stewardship Council and President of Full Circle Environmental, Inc., a Seattle-based resource conservation consulting firm established in 1993. He is a Board member and past President of the Washington Toxics Coalition, a board member of the Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation, and a founding member of the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He served as one of the stakeholders of the groundbreaking National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative, and is currently involved in program work as well as state and national policy development for the take-back of unwanted medications.
Steven Sherman
Treasurer
Berkeley, CA
Bio-
Steven, a resource economist and consultant, is a leading technical and policy expert on the management of municipal organics such as food scraps and yard trimmings. Having worked on municipal organics program development since the late 1980s, his consulting, research, operations, policy, education and training efforts has helped to lay the groundwork for food scraps management as a cornerstone of zero waste and advanced recycling efforts taken by local governments. Several of his clients, including San Francisco, Portland, and Alameda County (CA) Waste Management Authority, have won state and national awards for their leadership in organics management (e.g., food scraps composting and anaerobic digestion, plastic bag restrictions, landfill bans, mandatory source separation of organics from trash). Steven was co-founder and policy director for the California Organics Recycling Council. He received his B.A. from Yale College and M.S. in Resource Economics from Cornell University. LinkedIn [1]
Melissa Walsh Innes
Yarmouth, ME
Bio-
Melissa Walsh Innes is the Vice President of Business Development at The Endurance Group in Yarmouth, Maine, as well as an elected State Representative in the Maine Legislature, serving her second term. Serving on Maine’s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Melissa focuses on promoting the sustainable management of materials through product stewardship, both at the state and national level. Melissa was the sponsor of Maine’s first-in-the-nation Product Stewardship Framework Law of 2010, and currently works with legislators, businesses, NGO’s and consultants around the world to help foster a constructive dialogue in this policy area. Melissa blogs at http://theinneseprreport.blogspot.com/ [2], and looks forward to more work with PPI and other groups and funders to hold discussions and forums on epr policy issues. Melissa enjoys living in Yarmouth, Maine, with her husband, Shawn Walsh, a law student, and her three daughters, Molly, Clare and Sophie.
Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt, D.P.A
Ramsey County, MN
Bio-
Commissioner Reinhardt has worked on environmental policy at the local, state and regional level for over 20 years. She holds leadership positions with the National Association of Counties (NACo) where she wrote and facilitated adoption by NACo of four product stewardship resolutions, including one supporting the framework approach to product stewardship. In Minnesota, she chairs the Environment and Natural Resources Committee of the Association of Minnesota Counties. She currently serves as chair of the Ramsey/Washington Resource Recovery Board, Secretary/Treasurer of the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board for the Twin Cities region and is a member of the National Paint Product Stewardship Initiative. Commissioner Reinhardt holds a Doctorate of Public Administration from Hamline University.
Raymond Gaudart
Secretary
Rossland, BC
Bio-
Raymond is a founder of the British Columbia Product Stewardship Council. Raymond was the Director of Environmental Services for the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary based in Trail, BC for 17 years until his retirement in June 2007. He is former a Board President of the Recycling Council of British Columbia.
Bill Sheehan, Ph.D.
Ex Officio (non-voting)
Executive Director
Athens, GA
Bio-
Bill is a big picture thinker, policy expert and advocate who has been at the forefront over the past two decades of two important U.S. sustainability movements. Bill helped launch and lead the civic movement for “zero waste” in the mid-1990s, as co-founder and executive director of the GrassRoots Recycling Network. Zero waste became the goal of the U.S. recycling movement and has since become a vibrant global, citizen-driven movement.
Understanding that achieving zero waste will require more than “recycling on steroids,” Bill co-founded in 2003 the Product Policy Institute to focus on public policies that address “upstream” issues including product and packaging design. He developed, with Helen Spiegelman, an historical analysis that showed how municipal recycling and waste management has enabled the growth of throw-away and toxic products and packaging. Based on the analysis, Bill helped local governments organize Product Stewardship Councils to work for state-level legislation that facilitates the transition from government-run to producer-led recycling systems. Bill helped form independent Product Stewardship Councils in California, New York, Texas, Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Trained as a biologist and insect ecologist, Bill holds a Ph.D. in ecology from Cornell University. He held research positions at the University of California at Berkeley and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service before turning to resource policy.
The PPI Team
- Bill Sheehan, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Athens, GA
Bio -
Bill is a big picture thinker, policy expert and advocate who has been at the forefront over the past two decades of two important U.S. sustainability movements. Bill helped launch and lead the civic movement for “zero waste” in the mid-1990s, as co-founder and executive director of the GrassRoots Recycling Network. Zero waste became the goal of the U.S. recycling movement and has since become a vibrant global, citizen-driven movement.
Understanding that achieving zero waste will require more than “recycling on steroids,” Bill co-founded in 2003 the Product Policy Institute to focus on public policies that address “upstream” issues including product and packaging design. He developed, with Helen Spiegelman, an historical analysis that showed how municipal recycling and waste management has enabled the growth of throw-away and toxic products and packaging. Based on the analysis, Bill helped local governments organize Product Stewardship Councils to work for state-level legislation that facilitates the transition from government-run to producer-led recycling systems. Bill helped form independent Product Stewardship Councils in California, New York, Texas, Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Trained as a biologist and insect ecologist, Bill holds a Ph.D. in ecology from Cornell University. He held research positions at the University of California at Berkeley and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service before turning to resource policy. 
Matt Prindiville
Associate Director
Rockland, ME
Bio-
Matt joined the Product Policy Institute in 2011. He has been at the forefront of product stewardship and safer chemicals policy in Maine and the United States, helping to pass first-in-the-nation EPR programs for electronic waste, mercury-containing thermostats, and fluorescent light bulbs. Matt has also worked to phase out the use of lead, mercury and toxic brominated flame retardants in consumer products and helped advance the nation’s first comprehensive chemicals assessment program at the state level. Prior to joining PPI, Matt and Product Policy Institute worked together on Maine’s first-in-the-nation framework EPR legislation and more recently on founding and guiding the new national NGO EPR coalition, CRADLE².
Matt brings a wealth of technical knowledge on creating and implementing EPR legislation as well as real-world practical experience in running successful advocacy campaigns, building broad coalitions, and working with stakeholders from every side of the issue. He has extensive experience in developing and communicating advocacy messages to diverse audiences, including elected officials, business leaders, the press and the public. He has helped author and pass many of Maine’s EPR laws by negotiating with multiple stakeholders to find common ground while pushing for the strongest and most transformative policies that are backed up with sound evidence and research. 
Sego Jackson
Local Government Strategist
Everett, WA
Bio-
Sego is principal planner for Snohomish County Solid Waste Management Division located in Washington State and a former Board member of PPI. For four years he served as one of fifteen government negotiators in the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative, representing the concerns of local governments regarding toxicity and end of life management of electronic products. He has been engaged in development of local, state and national policies, pilots and programs related to product stewardship and electronics, as well as pharmaceuticals and other products. Sego is a founding councilor of the Green Electronics Council, is a founder and steering committee member of the Northwest Product Stewardship Council and he is a frequent contributor to projects of the Product Stewardship Institute.
Alicia Culver
Product Stewardship Purchasing Strategist
Berkeley, CA
Bio-
Alicia is executive director of the Green Purchasing Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the amount of toxic chemicals in consumer products through the development of bid specifications and policies promoting the procurement of environmentally preferable products, and is a Board member of PPI. She is currently working directly with local governments and other entities in New York, Washington State and the Bay Area (including San Francisco Department of the Environment, Alameda County General Services Agency, Bay Area Green Business Program) on a variety of green purchasing initiatives. In the past decade she has been a senior researcher at INFORM Inc., Deputy Director of the New Jersey Office of Sustainable Business, and Director of the Government Purchasing Project.
Sara O’Neal
Development & Administration Consultant
Asheville, NC
Bio-
Sara has 20 years of experience in fundraising, organizational development and strategic planning, split between being a practitioner and a consultant. For nine years, she was President of Green Pursuits, a nonprofit consulting firm whose clients included human services, arts, environment and historic nonprofits. She has held the following staff positions: Executive Director of WildLaw, Director of Development of the Atlanta Ballet, Interim Executive Director of the Atlanta Women’s Health Center, and Director of Major Gifts East with Sierra Club’s Centennial Campaign. During 2008, Sara taught three classes for Duke’s Nonprofit Management Program and will teach one class in 2009.
Lynne Pledger
Northeast Product Stewardship Organizer
Hardwick, MA
Bio-
Lynne became engaged with waste management issues when a regional landfill tried to expand in her rural community. She honed community-organizing skills and went on to serve on the Sierra Club Zero Waste Committee, which broadened her understanding of waste issues and solutions. A writer and editor, she has helped develop PPI documents, and has made numerous presentations on EPR to citizen groups and officials in the Northeast. She is co-founder of Don’t Waste Massachusetts, an alliance of 25 environmental organizations supporting EPR and other waste reduction measures. She also works with Zero Waste groups around the Northeast. She was recently appointed to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Solid Waste Advisory Committee.
Chris Sparnicht
IT & Design / Webmaster
Bio-
Chris is a freelance graphic design, web databasing and IT consultant who has been working with non-profits for over 12 years. Visit Laughter on Water [3] to learn more about Chris
Stephanie Welsh
Social Media Consultant
Bio- Stephanie Welsh resides in Portland, Oregon in a very green (both literally and figuratively) community. She joined PPI as a social media consultant after living for 2 years in Shanghai, China. Prior to that, she worked for Intel Corporation where she focused on marketing and branding. Her experience managing an online marketing team was concentrated on web design and management, but also the more interesting arena of online interactions with customers and partners. Working on an executive blogging program hooked her on the idea that people could have fabulous interactions online if social media was used to its fullest extent.
Valerie Hoy
Web Associate
Bio-
Visit valsgalore.com [4] to learn more about Valerie.
Sky Campbell
Accountant
Bio-
TBA
Heidi Sanborn, MPA
Advisor
Sacramento, CA
Bio-
Heidi is PPI outreach director outside of California, while within the state she leads the California Product Stewardship Council as executive director. She has been working in the solid waste industry for over 17 years. In 2000 she served as Technical Advisor to CIWMB Chair Linda Moulton-Patterson. She subsequently worked as an independent consultant to the Product Stewardship Institute to assist in facilitation of the Paint Product Stewardship Initiative, and as Senior Manager at R3 Consulting Group Inc. in Sacramento California. Heidi is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and received a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Southern California. She received the “Recycler of the Year” Award in 2002 from the California Resource Recovery Association. Visit Heidi's consulting site [5].
