Staff

Lucy Blake, CEO

Lucy Blake joined the Apollo Alliance as Chief Executive Officer in July 2007 after more than 20 years of leadership in the field of environmental protection and sustainable development. Prior to joining Apollo, Lucy founded and led the Sierra Business Council, an association of over 500 member businesses working to secure the economic, social and environmental health of the Sierra Nevada region of California and Nevada. The Council won national recognition for engaging business leaders at the forefront of a regional campaign for sustainable development and for finding common ground in a region known for polarization. While at the Council. Lucy was honored with the MacArthur Award, awarded to individuals for exceptional creativity and initiative, and the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Award from the California Council for Economic and Environmental Balance, among other awards. From 1984 to 1992, Lucy served as Executive Director of the non-partisan California League of Conservation Voters, the largest state political action committee for the environment in the nation. Lucy graduated with honors from Brown University and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Steven and their daughter, Gabriella.

Daphne Butler, Executive Assistant

Daphne Butler joined the Apollo Alliance in October 2007 as the Executive Assistant to Lucy Blake and Jerome Ringo. Before joining the Apollo Alliance, Daphne worked as the Development Assistant for individual giving at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where she gained experience in major gifts, nonprofit membership, and event planning. Prior to the Louvre, she interned in the development office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and worked for the Davidson College Annual Fund. Daphne graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Davidson College.

Cathy Calfo, Deputy Director

Cathy Calfo joined the Apollo Alliance in November 2007, having served for the past decade as California’s Deputy State Treasurer and as a senior advisor to the former State Treasurer, launching some of the most innovative policy initiatives in the country, including the Green Wave which invested nearly $1.5 billion in renewable energy, cutting-edge environmental technologies, and environmentally responsible companies; and Smart Investments and the Double Bottom Line, that redirected state funding to revitalize urban neighborhoods, curb sprawl and promote energy-efficient and sustainable development practices. A leader in her home community of Santa Cruz California, Cathy served as a founding member of the city’s commission for the prevention of violence against women, for five years on the city planning commission and as a member of the board of directors of Above the Line, a shelter for homeless youth. She has three sons -- seven year-old Elijah; Kris, who recently graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz; and Kaj, who attends Sonoma State University.

Carla Din, Western Regional Field Director

Carla Din joined the Apollo Alliance in 2004 as the Western Regional Field Director. Prior to this position, Carla served as the Environmental Liaison for the United Steelworkers, District 11, and led the labor program of the Rose Foundation for Communities & the Environment's Maxxam Corporation capital strategies campaign. Carla represents United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard on the California State Teachers' Retirement System's Clean Tech Advisory Committee. She is a board member of the Northern California Solar Energy Association and the Northwest Energy Coalition, and an Advisory Board Member of MMA Renewable Ventures' Bright Futures Program. In 2005, Carla was one of the recipients of the Byron Sher Environmental Leadership Award from the California League of Conservation Voters. Carla holds a Bachelor of Art's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Richard Eidlin, Business Outreach Director

Richard joined the Apollo Alliance in March 2005 as the Business Outreach Director and is responsible for recruiting private companies to support federal and state based policy initiatives. Richard has been involved in the clean energy industry since the early 1990’s. He has worked for several solar energy firms in the Northeast and Rocky Mountain West, focusing on building residential and institutional markets. Richard has served as a strategic consultant to the UN Environment Programme, where he directed a series of conferences that brought together private firms, NGOs, U.N. agencies, and national and local governments to develop sustainable development projects. Richard also worked for the NYC government as a senior policy analyst, consulted to CH2MHill and served as an adjunct faculty member with Boston College’s Center for Corporate Community Relations for five years. He was a founding member of NH BSR and is now a Board member of CORE, a trade group of sustainable businesses in Colorado. He also served as a renewable energy consultant to candidate (and now Governor) Bill Ritter of Colorado. Richard has a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Wisconsin and Bachelors from the University of Maryland.

Kate Gordon, Program Director

Kate Gordon joined the Apollo Alliance in October, 2007 as Program Director. Prior to starting in this position, Kate worked as the Director of the Apollo Strategy Center, the policy arm of Apollo formerly housed at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. Kate has served on many energy policy committees including the Midwest Agriculture Energy Network, the National Wind Coordinating Committee, and RE-AMP. Besides her energy work, Kate’s work for COWS included corporate tax policy, progressive federalism, and rural economic development. Before coming to COWS, Kate worked as an employment and consumer rights litigator at Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Oakland, CA. She is the author of several published articles on contract fairness and regional economic development. Kate has a JD and Masters in City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mac Lynch, Program Assistant

Mac Lynch joined the Apollo Alliance in December 2007 as Program Assistant. Before joining Apollo, Mac worked as Education and Outreach Intern for Lake Champlain Basin Program in Grand Isle, VT; and as Outreach Intern for Forest Watch in Montpelier, VT. He graduated with honors from Hamilton College with a BA in Environmental Science and Communications.

Michael Patch, Office Manager

Michael Patch joined the Apollo Alliance in February 2008 as the Office Manager of the San Francisco location. Before joining the Apollo Alliance, Michael worked as Choral Sales Manager for American Music Company and as Membership Coordinator for the International Essential Tremor Foundation. Michael is also currently the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Oakland East Bay Men’s Chorus and performs classical music throughout the United States. He received a K-12 teaching degree from UM-Kansas City.

Heidi Pickman, Communications Advance Associate

Heidi Pickman joined the Apollo Alliance as Communications Advance Associate in April 2008 following a nearly decade-long career as a producer and editor in public radio. Most recently, she was an independent radio producer for National Public Radio, Marketplace Productions, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and YouthRadio. Prior to that Heidi was a producer for American Public Media, where she helped found and produce "Weekend America,” a program heard nationally on NPR member stations. She also was the Los Angeles bureau chief for Youth Radio, and produced Marketplace and the Marketplace Morning Report. Kai Ryssdal, the host of Marketplace, told us that Heidi was a superior talent, "a producer's producer." Heidi earned her BA and MA in economics from Tufts University in Medford, Mass., is a doctoral candidate in economics at UCLA, and has studied at the Institute for Justice and Journalism at USC. She has a keen interest in anything that has to do with Spain. She taught at the Institute for International Studies in Seville, and speaks Spanish fluently. Heidi says she has "a passion for social change," and "would contribute an interesting background in environmental economics and journalism with a strong desire to see clean energy become the norm." Sounds like she picked the right place to do her work.

Mary Raftery, Chief Operating Officer

After working for ten years in Sacramento as a field staff, then Legislative Director for the statewide environmental group, CALPIRG (now Environment California), Mary left to direct a non-profit health organization in San Diego. Mary then began consulting with organizations such as the Audubon Society and Physicians for Social Responsibility on program start-ups, organizational development and strategic planning. She also served as the Development Director for The Rockefeller Family Fund’s Technology Project and later at Stanford’s performing arts program, Stanford Lively Arts. Mary went on to become the Executive Director for the newly forming Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, an organization spearheading interdisciplinary university-wide programs. Mary graduated with Honors in International Relations from Brown University.

Jerome Ringo, President

Jerome Ringo came to the Apollo Alliance in 2005 as a dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal advocate of clean energy. He has first hand experience of the challenges we face after working for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry. More than half of that time was spent as an active union member working with his fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. Louisiana’s petrochemical industry focuses on the production of gasoline, rocket fuel, and plastics – many of which contain cancer causing chemicals. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities – primarily poor, minority communities – Jerome began organizing community environmental justice groups. Jerome’s experience organizing environmental and labor communities and his drive to further diversify the environmental movement bridges many of Apollo’s partners to create a broad based coalition to provide real solutions for our energy crisis. In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, Jerome became the Chair of the board. In so doing, he also became the first African-American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome was the United States’ only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, and represented the National Wildlife Federation at the United Nations' conference on sustainable development in 1999.

Dan Seligman, Washington Director

Dan Seligman, Apollo’s Washington Director since 2006, has dedicated the last 15 years of his career to forging non-traditional alliances among environmentalists, unions, businesses and governmental leaders in the fight for progressive economic policies. As director of Apollo’s Washington, DC office, Dan built the alliance of labor unions, clean energy businesses, and community justice organizations that created a new $125 million per year program to train “green collar” workers for next-generation clean energy and efficiency technologies. He also secured a title in the Senate climate security bill that would provide incentives for clean energy manufacturers to build production facilities in the United States.

Before joining Apollo, Dan served two years as a Strategic Campaign Coordinator at the Service Employees International Union, where he led successful campaigns for tax policies that support quality state and local public services. From 1993 to 2004, Dan directed the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program, advocating for international trade that is safe, clean, and fair. At the Sierra Club, Dan became one of the countries’ leading media voices on progressive trade policies and built a strategic alliance among environmental, labor, family farm, and manufacturing interests that endures to this day.

Before joining the Sierra Club, Dan served as a consultant on international environmental policy at the World Resources Institute, where he ghost-wrote a book on environmental economics, among other projects. As a paralegal at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC during the mid-1980s, Dan drafted guidelines for the Soviet Union’s first joint venture law during the early months of Perestroika under President Gorbachev. Dan holds an MA in Latin American Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a BA in American History. Dan hails from Joliet, Illinois in America’s industrial heartland. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland with his wife Jennifer Wofford and their infant son Robbie.

Keith Schneider, Communications Director

Keith Schneider, Communications Director, joined the Apollo Alliance in March 2008, the culmination of a 30-year career in journalism, public interest advocacy, and communications that included long stints at the New York Times and at the Michigan Land Use Institute, which he founded and directed.

Keith is a leading innovator in applying the new tools and techniques of online communication to secure public interest outcomes. As communications director at the Apollo Alliance he is helping to design and oversee a novel and effective program of Web-based research, content, communications, and dissemination to move the United States towards a clean energy economy.

Keith's career in non-profit public interest communications began in 1995 when he founded the Michigan Land Use Institute, a statewide research and policy organization. He was executive director during the organization's first five years, and later was editor, director of program development, and deputy director.

Keith, a nationally known writer, also reports for the New York Times, where he has contributed since 1981, and where he served from 1985 to 1995 as a national correspondent based in Washington. His work has been recognized with numerous honors, including two George Polk Awards for national reporting, among the most prestigious in American journalism.