Sierra Club chapters, including our Massachusetts Chapter, are overseen by an Executive Committee, a group of up to nine representatives elected by the Chapter’s members—that means you! Each fall, you have the opportunity to vote for the local voices you believe in— voices that align with the issues and perspectives that you feel will best move our work forward. Collectively, this group helps to direct the Chapter’s efforts both internally and externally, which is why it’s so important that our community expresses their preferences for the composition of this group by casting their votes!
WHAT DO EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS WORK ON?
Guiding Action from Within - Committee members partner with staff to identify and make structural changes within the Chapter to help better center justice and equity in our work and create a more diverse, effective, accountable, and transparent organization.
Facing Challenges in MA - Committee members work to create strategies and campaigns to address key issues in Massachusetts and bring about the structural changes necessary to effectively face the intersecting challenges of the climate, economic, and racial justice crisis impacting Bay State residents.
Don’t miss your chance this year to vote for the leaders who you think will best move the Massachusetts Chapter forward!
Chapter ExCom Candidates
Arthur Desloges of Plymouth
My family and I have been members in the Sierra Club since 2011. My recent background is in legislative advocacy—lobbying to pass environmental legislation that pushes the Baker Administration to take a more proactive role, and working to break logjams in the Mass House and Senate. I just completed a graduate degree at Tufts University where I focused on public policy, and this spring, I interned in the MA Statehouse learning how to get legislation passed. I have other advocacy experience working with the Peace Corps, having served in Ghana, and recently with Sierra Club lobbying state legislators.
Previously, I was a financial executive at a major bank and have extensive management experience promoting inclusion and diversity. I now hope to use my skills and love for the environment to ensure that future generations are defended by a Sierra Club that is the best it can be.
Celia Doremus of Arlington
Environmental protection is in my DNA. My lifelong involvement with environmental concerns began in my home state of Georgia and continues here in Massachusetts. I have worked with the Mass Sierra Club since 2016 on projects tackling climate change, climate justice, biodiversity, and conservation.
I have proudly served for two years on the ExCom leading to involvement in the Chapter Political Action Committee, Development Committee, and Energy Committee. My expertise in marketing is helpful as we develop messages that raise visibility and awareness here in the Commonwealth.
I share the Club’s dedication to community and tireless work to protect the natural environment and all people within it. I am in this for the duration and excited to run again for the ExCom. I want to continue to help heighten awareness of our current work and achieve a general awareness of environmental justice.
David Heimann of Jamaica Plain
I have been a member of the Sierra Club for 40 years, in Massachusetts and other Chapters, bringing a deep institutional memory to the table. I have served on the Mass. Chapter and Greater Boston Group Excoms and have been Chapter Chair, Treasurer, Energy Chair, and Director Search member. I currently serve as Energy Committee Secretary, and am on the Transportation Committee.
I am most proud about bringing the Chapter and national Club to the climate change and environmental justice focus they have today.
I have considerable computational and data analysis expertise, with a Ph.D. in the fields. On the Excom, I will use these skills and my historical insight to advance the Chapter in this data-centered, climate change, COVID-19 world of ours. As well, I will use my background as a child of Holocaust refugees to sustain Excom awareness about diversity, anti-racism, and justice.
Jenny Daniell of Leverett
For the past eight years I have served on the steering committee of one of the largest, most active climate group in western Massachusetts, Climate Action Now (CAN). I chair CAN’s legislative committee and am the representative from CAN to Mass Power Forward (MPF), a statewide coalition of organizations, businesses and churches working to pass progressive energy legislation. As a member of CAN and MPF, I have had the privilege of working with members of the MA Sierra Club staff and with volunteers of several campaigns. I greatly respect the Club’s innovative and effective work and would like to support that work as an Executive Committee member representing the western part of the state. As an attorney and mediator, I hope that my legal skills will be helpful in many capacities, as they have been to other boards on which I’ve served.
Kannan Thiruvengadam of Boston
I grew up in India as a farmer’s son. I live in East Boston, an Environmental Justice (EJ) and Climate Justice (CJ) community. I run Eastie Farm, fostering green spaces that demonstrate regenerative agriculture and community-scale climate solutions.
As a member of Friends of Belle Isle Marsh, I work to protect Boston’s largest salt-marsh. As part of PUEBLO (People United for East Boston’s Liberation & Organization), I fight for housing and racial justice. On the Democrtatic State and Ward Committees, I strive to increase affirmative action and state-wide civic engagement. I also am part of RENEW New England (a regional Green New Deal initiative).
I believe a just, equitable, and sustainable world is possible, and that we can build it through collaboration. That belief is what drives me.
Let me leverage all that to help make Sierra Club a strong solutions-oriented ally to EJ/CJ communities across the state.
Maxine Gunther-Segal of Northampton
As an Executive Committee member, I will represent the perspective of those raised in the midst of the climate crisis as well as that of Western Massachusetts, where I’ve lived for five years. I am studying the sociology of climate change and migration at Smith College, working toward becoming an attorney to defend the rights of climate refugees and other marginalized groups most harmed by environmental degradation. A former intern with the MA Sierra Club, I’ve written for the Sierran newsletter and am currently advocating for Northampton’s plastic packaging ban. I would apply my grantwriting experience working with the finance team. As a member of Sunrise, the youth movement to eradicate fossil fuel money from politics and elect true climate leaders, I’m passionate about uniting Sunrise’s bold energy with the Sierra Club’s formidable activist infrastructure. Together, these movements can help overcome our climate crisis and create a just, livable world.
Paul Dale of Wayland
I became an active volunteer for the MA Sierra Club in 2015. For the last two years, I have served on the Executive Committee and for the last 3.5 years, as Energy Committee Chair. I have been advancing climate and clean energy issues in our legislature and at regulatory agencies, and have enjoyed doing outreach and facilitating training activities for our members, supporters and partners. I hope to do more of this in the future, especially now that so much is done online. If re-elected, I will continue doing my best to support ExComm initiatives for internal and external effectiveness. I will also continue to serve as Energy Chair in 2021, if asked to do so.
Robert Kearns of Braintree
My generation has inherited a climate emergency. This knowledge and my lived experience motivates me to fight for climate justice. Environmental justice is essential. I grew up and live in the Fore River Basin, where we have been fighting against the Weymouth fracked-gas compressor station and for a cleaner future. As a member of the Executive Committee, I have supported the growth of our organization and advocated for improvements to electrify our transportation system, increasing clean energy and river restoration. There is much more to do. I humbly ask for your vote for re-election to Sierra Club Massachusetts' Executive Committee.
Tim Cronin of Weymouth
A millennial & active community partner, I will bring leadership and perspective to the Executive Committee. As a skilled policy advisor & coalition manager, I have the experience to get started on day one.
Professionally, I’ve served as a manager for the Climate Action Business Association, empowering small businesses to advocate for effective climate policies. Currently, I’m the Massachusetts Policy Advisor for Climate XChange, where I co-facilitate the state’s progressive carbon pricing coalition. I also author a popular weekly newsletter sharing insights into environment, energy, and climate policy in Massachusetts.
Politically, I’ve worked on 13+ local legislative races, including advising on climate & energy issues. Locally, I’m a Rotarian and longtime civic association board member.
Over the past years, I’ve worked closely with Sierra Club’s staff and volunteers. I humbly ask for the opportunity to advance our shared goals of fighting the climate crisis, achieving real environmental justice, and protecting our open spaces.
Yanisa Techagumthorn of Cambridge
The climate crisis is inherently tied to many issues, including racial justice, public health, and economic justice. I'm running for the Executive Committee to help shape Sierra Club's strategy and resources in fighting for a future where everyone can thrive. I bring experience as co-lead of the Sunrise Movement Boston Political Team, where I've led on endorsements, statehouse advocacy, and political education among movement members. I'm also a volunteer for the Asian American Resource Workshop, working to improve economic justice for pan-Asian communities. By day, I work as a transportation planner, focused on improving public transit around the country, which I see as a major tactic both to alleviate environmental emissions and to connect people to economic opportunities. I would be honored to be elected to the Executive Committee and to bring my experience as a young organizer and planner towards creating a more just future.
Cape Cod Group ExCom Candidates
Chris Powicki of Brewster
For the last 2 decades, I've worked with individuals and groups across the Cape & Islands to build awareness and adoption of clean energy, zero waste, and other economically and environmentally sound solutions. I've also learned that collaboration has its limits. Officials, agencies, and organizations must be held accountable when they support the status quo and resist rational responses to the climate emergency, institutional racism, and additional threats to the common good. In 2019-20, the Cape Cod Group (CCG) distinguished itself by helping convince Cape Cod Commission to sharpen its focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and by fostering youth activism, opposing bury-and-burn solid waste infrastructure, endorsing principled candidates and needed projects like Vineyard Wind, standing with the Mashpee Wampanoag, and promoting plastic bans and water bottle filling stations. With your support, I look forward to continuing to serve with other leading advocates on the CCG’s Executive Committee.
Keith Lewison of Sandwich
My involvement with Sierra Club is fueled by my passion for environmental justice, my love for nature, and my work as a teacher. I am proud to be a small part of the Club’s work and desire to educate others to follow Sierra Club’s mission. I have served two terms now on the Cape Cod Group Executive Committee and have worked to bring on board new executive committee members and expand our volunteer base. Together we have worked to strengthen local action on climate change mitigation, support youth environmental activists, support local waste reduction efforts, and protect local drinking water among other things. If reelected, I pledge to continue working collaboratively with my colleagues and fighting to protect local people and places.