Speakers Bureau
Activist/organizers are available to speak in high school and university classes! Schedule a visit today!
Cathryn Chudy is a retired therapist and environmental activist, on the board of the Oregon Conservancy Foundation (OCF), a regional nonprofit foundation that works to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to oppose the resurgence of nuclear power and its Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMNR) designs, and promote the use of clean renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation applications. She is also with the SW WA Alliance for Community Engagement and the Sierra Club’s SW WA Beyond Fossil Fuels task force in Vancouver, WA.
Cager Clabaugh has worked since 1993 for ILWU Local 4, serving as president from…He is currently… Clabaugh was an outspoken critic of–and helped mobilize labor unions to resist–the proposed Tesoro-Savage oil terminal, which would have been the largest oil terminal in North America. Watch an interview with him here.
Robert Collin has been an environmental scholar and activist since 1986, writing among the earliest EJ publications in articles, book chapters (one on reparations in Robert Bullard’s 2006 book The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution), and encyclopedias. He is active as a collaborative founder of the Coalition for Environmental Justice CAER at the University of Oregon from 1993-2004 and was appointed to Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Environmental Equity Commission, the founding appointment to the first legislatively created EJ state agency – Environmental Justice Task Force at which he spent eleven years. Professor Collin was one of two EJ expert witness’s recognized in Federal Court in the Spokane Midnite mine uranium superfund cleanup settlement.
Rachel Cushman is an enrolled citizen of the Chinook Indian Nation, where she/yaka is both an elected and hereditary leader. In 2017, Cushman was elected to the Chinook Tribal Council, but her role as a leader stems from her ancestor, Clatsop Tyee Wasilta. Cushman is an Indigenous knowledge practitioner, activist, educator, and canoe skipper. For over twenty years, Cushman has fought to protect Chinook and Indigenous lands, waters, rights, and sovereignty. She/yaka is a published scholar and a world-renowned expert on Chinook history and politics. Her/yaka scholarship engages with the resurgence of Indigenous ways of being/knowing, non-colonial economies, and Indigenous land stewardship, as well as the praxis of radical sovereignty. Currently, Cushman is pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.
Barbara Ford is a retired clinical social worker, a student of and collaborator with the groundbreaking eco-psychologist Johanna Macy, a longtime climate justice activist/artivist who is a longtime volunteer with 350PDX, helping to create art-based actions and develop resilience training for climate justice. She is a painter and singer/songwriter and poet, who publishes in Medium, you can find out more about her work here.
Denis Hayes was the national coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970 and he has since extended the event to 180 nations. During the Carter years, he head federal research and development of solar and renewable energy. He has been a Silicon Valley lawyer; a professor of engineering at Stanford; and the author of books on solar energy and on the far-reaching impacts of the cattle/beef culture on America. He is currently chair and CEO of the Bullitt Foundation.
JoDe Goudy: I am of Creation … I am a Grandson, a son, and a father who does his best to be a good relative to all of my friends and family. I am Yakama … I follow and practice our Ways of Life to the best of my ability. The Owner and Founder of Redthought, a platform designed to invoke “Right & Respectful” relations in dealing with the greatest challenges facing Native Country and the World at this time. Former Chairman of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council. I am an advocate of Free, Independent, Clear, & Coherent Thought. My work is in supporting the efforts to bring awareness to the greatest domination system that has ever existed in the known history of man. Specializing in awareness surrounding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and its historical and present-day use, and implications. My thoughts are dedicated to aligning with others to understand what shapes and forms reality. And to take that understanding and refining it into something better for the generations that are coming.
Bill Moyer is a radical solutionary, committed to addressing root problems by supporting the capacity, cohesion and vision of a vibrant social movement. Bill’s belief that “Our ‘No!’ is only as powerful as our Yes! is compelling” led to the development of the Solutionary Rail campaign. In 2016, Bill co-authored the book Solutionary Rail, a people powered campaign to electrify US railroads and open corridors for a clean energy future.Since then, the campaign has evolved into a national effort to put US rail infrastructure back in service of public interest over Wall Street profit. Railroads are efficient, easily electrified and could provide the right of way for a national renewable energy grid. They connect us all and everyone has a stake in their future as critical infrastructure for a localized, just and sustainable society. Thus, rail is unique in its capacity to be a source of common cause and shared vision amongst often unlikely allies. Grand strategy instructs that power is relational. Victory in a moral conflict relies on movement cohesion and broad alliances. Today, the divide and conquer strategy of those who concentrate wealth and power is working against the 99.9% of the people who have more in common than not. Thus, Bill finds the Solutionary Rail work particularly compelling as an strategic antidote in these dangerously polarized times. Bill hosts the new podcast Reconnect America and posts essays on the Solutionary Rail substack.Bill lives with his wife and daughter in the woods of Vashon Island, WA in the Salish Sea.
“Ilarion ‘Kuuyux’ Merculieff Unangan (Aleut) | Alaska Raised on the St. Paul Island in the Bering sea, four-years-old Ilarion was given his traditional Unangan (Aleut) name: Kuuyux. There is one Kuuyux in each lifetime, and he was given the name by the former Kuuyux that came looking for the child to inherit him as Kuuyux: a bridge, a messenger; carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times. Nowadays he is president of GCILL – Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways (https://www.gcill.world/), and co-founder and ongoing key speaker for the wisdomweavers.world (https://www.wisdomweavers.world/) He has over 50 years of experience serving his people, and others around the world in a number of leadership capacities. He started climbing up the conventional rat-race ladder, became co-chair and head of 17 boards and councils, till he jumped. Ever since then he has been living the legacy of his traditional name: Kuuyux.
Don Motanic is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. A Technical Specialist with the Intertribal Timber Council since 1995, Don Motanic had a 42-year career as a Forest Engineer and Forest Manager with the Bureau of Indian Affairs that included living and working with the Yakama Nation, Umatilla, and Spokane Tribes. He has engaged with Native youth through the American Indian Science and Engineering Society-(AISES). He has served as President of the Board of Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. since 2019, and on advisory councils for Curriculum and Programming with Wisdom of the Elders, Inc., the Washington Agricultural Forestry Leadership Foundation, Washington State University-Vancouver Native Advisory Council, Society of American Foresters, Big Brothers, and Big Sisters. At home in Brush Prairie, WA, he is involved in the family’s Horse Boarding Business with his wife Mary Beth, helping their daughter Jayme move into breeding and training reining horses.
Shelly Vendiola, Swinomish / Visayan (Co-founder) Michele Vendiola, known by her nickname–Shelly, is an enrolled member of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and Visayan. She has served as an educator, facilitator, activist, and mediator for over 30 years. She co-founded the native Community Engagement and Peacemaking Project and offers consultation in the areas of facilitation and community engagement services including: leadership development, strategic planning, organization mapping, dispute resolution, interest-based negotiations and peacemaking circles throughout the country. Currently she works as a Strategist and Indigenous Leadership Programs Consultant for the Na’ah Illahee Fund, and serves on the board of the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Na’a Kaani Native Programs. She continues to work in partnership with the Swinomish Department of Environmental Protection and Co-Chairs the Protect Mother Earth Subcommittee. Shelly developed a place-based curriculum about the history and culture of the Swinomish peoples and taught a series of cultural sovereignty courses for over 10 years at the Northwest Indian College – Coast Salish Institute in their Native Studies Leadership Program.
Roben White is a Lakota-Cheyenne organizer (enrolled Oglala, Pine Ridge), a member of the WSU Vancouver Native American Community Advisory Board (NACAB) and a long-time member of and organizer with WSU Vancouver’s Collective for Social and Environmental Justice (CSEJ). White is co-creator of CSEJ’s The Thin Green Line is People History Project. White is a long-time labor organizer, Native rights and environmental justice organizer and former President of International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) Local 10 and has a background in business. White is a sculptor and painter, whose paintings have been exhibited internationally.
My name is Linda Wiechman and Iwork with Robert Lundahl filmmaker and the Legacy forest group here in Port Angeles, I am an Elder of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. My goal is preserving our native culture through our plants and trees and also the effects of climate change and the impact of timber removal from Old growth forest, and the impact it has on our restoration of the salmon and effects on Killer whales among other species.
Yael Zeligman-Merculieff | Jewish-Israeli ancestry with Yemen, Syrian, Lithuanian & German roots. In 2016 Yael was a struggling single mom in Israel. She was an alternative educator by day, and a TED volunteer-translator by night, when she saw a video of a man talking about things she felt when she gave birth. It was Ilarion ‘Kuuyux’ Merculieff, a traditional messenger of the Indigenous Unangan (Aleut) people in Alaska. Yael contacted him to ask permission to translate, and… today they are married in Alaska, raising the two girls together. Alongside him Yael learns from and works with Indigenous Elders from throughout the world. She also co-creates ‘Wombs of Peace רחם של שלום رحم السلام’ circles in the Middle East and beyond. https://www.gcill.world/wombs-of-peace
Yolotli X is a Chicano community organizer, urban farmer and direct actionist born in occupied Multnomah territory—so-called Portland, Oregon. Their journey through the frontlines of social change reflects a deep commitment to land back, food sovereignty, and climate justice. During the Shell No movement, they helped rally community at Shell gas stations and showed up to actions that led to the halting of two oil rigs & ice-breaker ship bound for the Arctic. Yolotli’s early activism emerged from lived experience in street life. “In street life, you learn quickly what the root causes are to most problems,” they often say—a reminder that lived truth is the foundation of revolution. Yolotli helped facilitate one of the city’s first BLM rallies. In 2018, they were nationally recognized with an award for Direct Action and Community Courage by Jobs w/ Justice Portland for leading candle-lit vigils in response to the Zero-tolerance policy from ICE and spurring nationwide mobilizations under the banner of Abolish ICE. Today, Yolotli is a proud participant and co-visionary of the Municipal Eco Resiliency Project (MERP)—a grassroots initiative building a community-led urban farm project.