By Warner Chabot, Chief Executive Officer, CLCV
We’re excited to share with CLCV’s members, friends, and the entire environmental community some exciting news about important transitions on our Board of Directors. After a decade of exceptional leadership, CLCV’s Board President Tom Adams is stepping down to provide the opportunity for the next generation of Board leadership. Current CLCV Board member Rick Zbur of Los Angeles has been elected to serve as our new Chair of the Board of Directors. The new leadership on the Board is completed by the election of Board members Susan Frank (Silicon Valley) and Leslie Friedman Johnson (Sacramento) to Vice-Chairs of the Board.
[Photo: Clockwise from top left: Rick Zbur, Tom Adams, Leslie Friedman Johnson, Susan Frank.]
Rick Zbur is a partner in the Environment, Land & Resources Department in the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins LLP, practicing in all areas of environmental law and specializing in land use, governmental and administrative law, air quality compliance and transportation issues. Susan Frank is Executive Vice President of The Better World Group, an environmental policy and strategic communications firm. Leslie Friedman Johnson is co-founder of Conservation Strategy Group, LLC, a Sacramento-based consulting and lobbying firm specializing in environmental and natural resources strategy and advocacy.
Fortunately, our outgoing Board President Tom Adams, who has led the Board since 2001, will remain an active and engaged member of the CLCV Board of Directors.
From Outgoing Board President Tom Adams:
“Rick Zbur, Susan Frank and Leslie Friedman Johnson are all veteran leaders of and champions for California’s environmental movement and I’m thrilled that they are stepping into these new roles in service of the environment and of CLCV. The sum of their impressive talents in politics, public policy, coalition management, and in the legal and business arenas provides a rock-solid foundation for our important work to accomplish three major priorities: to elect an environmental majority in the state legislature, engage more diverse conservation voters in the democratic process, and preserve and advance California’s public health and environmental progress.”
For more than a decade, Tom has used his considerable political and policy expertise to protect and advance environmental laws and elect the champions that make California a national and global conservation policy leader. As a direct result of his leadership, CLCV was instrumental in passing landmark environmental laws and electing a generation of environmental champions. Our community is incredibly grateful for Tom’s unique leadership on four historic statewide, environmental initiatives. Tom served on the steering committee that crushed Proposition 23, the Dirty Energy Initiative. He also served as co-chair of successful statewide campaigns to defeat Proposition 90 in 2006 and Proposition 98 in 2008, and to enact Proposition 99 in 2008. In addition, Tom led CLCV’s successful efforts to co-sponsor and pass SB 375, a landmark bill to link climate, transportation and land use policy.
Rick, Susan and Leslie are taking the helm of CLCV’s Board at a time of great momentum in California’s environmental movement, with the 2010 election of many environmental champions to statewide offices and to the state legislature, the decisive victory of a coalition of labor, clean tech, business, consumer, health, and environmental groups over oil companies’ deceptive Proposition 23, and the recent passage of a critical renewable energy portfolio standards bill (SB 2X) by the state legislature. It’s also a time of great concern about the impact of budget cuts on California’s environmental protections and coordinated industry attacks on bedrock laws like the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), as well as uncertainly about the impacts of redistricting and the state’s new “top-two” primary system on the ability to elect an environmental majority.
From Incoming Board Chair Rick Zbur:
“This is a critical time for the conservation movement in California, the nation’s leading environmental state. I am excited by the potential for CLCV to harness the public’s energy and enthusiasm for California’s clean energy future—one that protects our public health while growing our economy—to forge a new and enduring environmental majority in the state legislature. I thank outgoing Board President Tom Adams and all of my fellow Board members for their tremendous leadership over the years, and I’m confident that together we will continue to build a greener California for future generations.”
Rick will assume the duties of Chair of the Board of Directors on June 11, 2011; Susan and Leslie took on the responsibilities of Vice-Chairs as of CLCV’s March 2011 meeting of the Board of Directors. Along with Tom’s continued service as a Board member, our new Board leadership ensures that our movement will advance a strong environmental, public health, and clean energy jobs agenda in an increasingly complex and challenging political and economic climate.
Below are brief biographies of outgoing CLCV Board of Directors President Tom Adams, incoming Chair of the Board Rick Zbur, and incoming Vice-Chairs of the Board Susan Frank and Leslie Friedman Johnson:
Tom Adams (Outgoing Board President, CLCV)
Tom Adams has been a member of the Board of the California League of Conservation Voters since 1995 and Board President since 2001. While currently retired, for more than 25 years Adams specialized in environmental law and appeared before local, regional, state and federal environmental agencies. He has argued before both the U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court.
Adams served as co-chair of the successful statewide campaign to defeat Proposition 90 in November, 2006. He was co-chair again for the successful statewide campaign to defeat Proposition 98 and enact Proposition 99 in June, 2008. In 2010 he was a member of the steering committee of the successful campaign to defeat the Dirty Energy Initiative, Proposition 23.
On behalf of CLCV, Adams was a principal co-sponsor of SB 375 (Steinberg), a landmark bill that links climate, transportation and land use policy. Also on behalf of CLCV, he was a principal co-sponsor of SB 288 (Sher, Laird), a bill that prohibited California air districts from rolling back air quality standards pursuant to Bush Administration initiatives.
Adams has extensive experience with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), especially in the context of industrial projects. He has been deeply involved in many legislative proposals to amend CEQA. He was one of the principal authors of the habitat conservation plan for San Bruno Mountain, the nation’s first habitat conservation plan.
Adams and his wife, Ann Broadwell, have hiked extensively in the Sierras, the southwest, the Rocky Mountain west, the Canadian Rockies, Alaska, Switzerland, and elsewhere. They have hiked to the summit of Mount Whitney several times and completed the rim to rim to rim at the Grand Canyon. They have also hiked in the Himalaya to the Annapurna Base Camp. Adams and his border collie, Whitney, are national competitors in canine agility trials.
Adams is a 1969 graduate of the Harvard Law School and a founding partner of the law firm, Adams, Broadwell, Joseph and Cardozo.
Rick Zbur, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP (Incoming Chair of the Board, CLCV)
Rick Zbur is a partner in the Environment, Land & Resources Department in the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins LLP. Zbur practices in all areas of environmental law and specializes in land use, governmental and administrative law, air quality compliance and transportation issues. He was cited one of Southern California’s top ten environmental attorneys by the Los Angeles Business Journal in its 2009 “Who’s Who in Law” feature, and as a leading environmental attorney by the Journal in 2008 and 2009.
Zbur has served on CLCV’s Executive Committee and as Chair of its Development Committee since 2006. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Audubon California and the Environmental Compliance Support Association of California, and as special outside pro-bono counsel for the Pescadero Conservation Alliance and the St. Josephs Center, a homeless assistance center in Santa Monica, California.
Zbur took a leave of absence from the firm in January, 1996, to run for United States Congress in California’s 38th Congressional District. When he won the Democratic Party Primary in March 1996, he became the first openly gay person in the nation to win a contested primary for the United States Congress. He received strong support from the environmental community, having been endorsed by CLCV and virtually every other leader of the environmental community in Southern California.
Zbur was a member of the California State Bar Environmental Law Section Executive Committee from 1996-1997, and is a member of the American Bar Association, Section of Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law and the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Environmental Section.
Zbur received a B.A. from Yale University in 1979 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1983. He has three children, Shireen Valerie, Rayan Francisco, and Rafael Nihkil.
Susan Frank, Executive Vice President, The Better World Group (Vice-Chair of the Board, CLCV)
Susan Frank is known statewide for her expertise in public policy development, coalition management, and nonprofit lobbying/advocacy having served as CEO and in several senior-level roles in nonprofit organizations over the last 20 years. Frank joined The Better World Group – an environmental policy and strategic communications firm – in January 2008 as Executive Vice President. Her current project work includes coordinating environmental and consumer organizations across seven western states and four Canadian provinces engaged in the Western Climate Initiative process.
From 1999 to 2007, Frank served in a variety of roles for the Bay Area-based Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation including as President & CEO and Vice President, Public Policy. Prior to joining the Kirsch Foundation, she served as President & CEO of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce in Palo Alto, California, for eight years.
Frank has been a member of CLCV’s Board of Directors since November 2005, serving in a variety of leadership roles. In March 2011, she joined the Board of Advisors for the Green Chamber of Commerce in California, which has chapters across the U.S. Previously she served on the Board of Directors for the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research and the Coalition for Clean Air as well as several other local nonprofit boards of directors.
Frank was recognized as a 2011 Women of Influence in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. In 2010, the YWCA of Silicon Valley awarded her a Tribute to Women (TWIN) Award, which honors the region’s executive women. In 2009, she was recognized by Breathe California for her management of a statewide coalition of environmental, public health and environmental justice advocates that successfully campaigned for a strong diesel truck and bus pollution regulation.
Frank has a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Leslie Friedman Johnson, Partner, Conservation Strategies Group ((Vice-Chair of the Board, CLCV)
Leslie Friedman Johnson is a successful government relations strategist who for more than 25 years has advanced a conservation agenda in land conservation, water policy, urban sustainability, clean energy, and the protection of our coasts and oceans. Friedman Johnson co-founded Conservation Strategy Group in 2003, providing a critical voice for many non-profit and government clients in the rough and tumble world of Sacramento. She has served on the Board of Directors of CLCV since 2008.
Friedman Johnson began her career in science and ecological restoration for the Nature Conservancy but soon found her niche in government affairs. Undaunted by red-eye flights to Washington D.C., she labored to pass critical environmental legislation including the 1990 Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Act, the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, and many pieces of legislation related to the CALFED Bay-Delta program.
Ever practical in her approach, Friedman Johnson has focused much of her career on public financing. She was a major player in the successful state-wide campaigns for Proposition 12, 13, 40, 50 and 84; delivering over $15 billion for land, water and cultural resource protection. At the local level, she was instrumental in the passage of a $500 million water pollution prevention measure, Prop O, in Los Angeles.
In 2010, based on her reputation as a proven coalition builder and tested campaign veteran, Friedman Johnson was recruited to take a leadership role in the campaign to stop out-of-state oil companies’ attempt to repeal AB 32, California’s landmark climate change law. The successful “No on Proposition 23” campaign garnered more votes than any other statewide measure in the nation and crushed the dirty energy proposition. Friedman Johnson continues to be a key figure in the ongoing fight to preserve our clean air and climate change laws.
Friedman Johnson lives in Marin County and has four children. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Natural Resource Science and Policy.
