Richard D. Lageson, Chairman is an attorney with Spencer Fane LLP in their St. Louis office. He graduated from Washington University School of Law in 1975 and has been actively engaged in the practice of law since then. He was associated early in his career with Lewis C. Green as an attorney at Green, Hennings & Henry, and participated with Mr. Green in numerous actions and causes involving protection and promotion of the environment. He is familiar with complex litigation matters and procedures, and strategies employed in litigation. He has served as a member of the Great Rivers for several years, and has also been a member of the Boards of other not-for-profit organizations serving the interests of our area.
David Bohm is an experienced litigator, primarily representing clients in employment, trademark, contract litigation, and alternative dispute resolution. He has extensive government relations and administrative law experience, and has litigated claims and advised clients concerning hazardous waste transportation and remediation. Prior to joining Danna McKitrick in 1992, Mr. Bohm served as an Associate St. Louis City Counselor for over six years. He represented the City in a variety of disputes and transactions, drafted state and local legislation, and provided legal counsel concerning the City’s environmental compliance and enforcement efforts. He helped establish, and was legal advisor to, the St. Louis City Local Emergency Planning Committee, created pursuant to the Federal Emergency Planning and Right to Know Act. Since joining the Danna McKitrick, Mr. Bohm has drafted several bills which have subsequently been enacted as state statutes including the Missouri Religious Freedom Restoration Act and a law permitting social service agencies to act as guardians for disabled individuals. Mr. Bohm received the Albert “Red” Villa Human Rights Award from the St. Louis Civil Rights Commission in 1992 and the Jurisprudence Award from the Anti-Defamation League in 1994.
Garrett R. Broshuis is an attorney at Korein Tillery in St. Louis. He received his J.D. from Saint Louis University, where he graduated valedictorian and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Journal. He obtained his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is also an adjunct professor of sports law at Saint Louis University Law School. Garrett’s law practice focuses on complex litigation. He represents dozens of former minor league baseball players in a wage-and-hour action challenging the pay scheme for minor leaguers. For this work he has been featured on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and numerous other news outlets throughout the country. Before law school, Garrett played six years in baseball’s minor leagues for the San Francisco Giants. While at the University of Missouri, Garrett also earned both All-American and Academic All-American honors for NCAA Division-I baseball. For four years, he wrote a regular column for two sports magazines, The Sporting News and Baseball America. In his free time, Garrett enjoys visiting Missouri’s state parks with his wife and two young children, and hopes that those parks are as beautiful for future generations as they are today.
Charles Bryson is currently the Policy Catalyst for Trailnet, the St. Louis regional nonprofit advocating for Safe Streets for All. His duties are to advocate with local and state elected and appointed officials and the general public on policies and practices that increase safety of walkers, cyclists, and vehicles on sidewalks and streets. Charles has served in various aspects of human service; from a Case Worker and Case Manager at various programs for persons who were homeless in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Springfield Il., to Director of the Urban League Head Start Program in Springfield Il and Executive Director of Harrison Youth Center in Peoria, Il. Charles had a 25-year career in State and City governments, including Area Representative for Missouri Housing Development Commission, Neighborhood Development Executive, Senior Policy Advisor, Director of Department of Public Safety, and Director of the Civil Rights Enforcement Agency for the City of St. Louis.
Kay Drey has been studying the hazards of nuclear power and radioactive waste since 1974 and has been working toward the shutdown of nuclear power plants and related uraniu fuel cycle facilities. Prior to that her primary work was in the field of civil rights. In addition to being a Board member of Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, Ms. Drey is a Board member of Beyond Nuclear (Takoma Park, MD.), and a member of the Advisory Council of The Green Center, a public outdoor education and cultural arts gathering place in University City, MO. Ms. Drey received a B.A. degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 1954. She has received a number of awards for her work. Among them are: Elijah P. Lovejoy Award (with her husband, Leo — 2002); St. Louis Woman of Achievement (1993); Ethical Humanist of the Year (St. Louis Ethical Society, with Leo — 1983); St. Louis Argus (Distinguished Citizen — (1976); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VII (Environmental Quality — (1979); St. Louis Council on Environmental Health and Safety (1981); American Jewish Congress, St. Louis (Democracy in Action — 1976); United Nations Assn., St. Louis (with Leo — 1995).
Kathleen “Katy” Green – Henry grew up floating Missouri’s streams and rivers, gaining a deep appreciation for the outdoors. Her parents were active in environmental causes and Kathleen assisted them by stuffing envelopes and baking lemon bars for fundraisers. After graduating from Washington University Law School, Kathleen worked as a Public Defender doing criminal appeals. This work prepared her for the uphill battles environmental plaintiffs face in the justice system. In 2002, Kathleen helped found Great Rivers, and served as its President for 15 years. In her role of President, Kathleen built Great Rivers from a fledgling organization to the nationally recognized center it is today, and concurrently worked on zoning matters, park protection, environmental justice issues, climate change and public health, and water quality issues. Today she resides in Madison, WI with her husband David.
Melissa Greenstein was born and raised in New York, and recieved both her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Mathematics Education at SUNY schools. She met her husband in high school, and after teaching 3 years in NY, and four very warm summers, they moved first to Florida, and then Whidbey Island, Washington, where she taught another 3+ years, and eventually Atsugi, Japan, all with the Navy. Whidbey Island, and all of Washington state, will always be a special place, with the stunning mountains, bald eagles that flew over the house, and the endless fields and bluffs overlooking the water where she walked the dog after teaching. Her two best accomplishments are her daughters, and being a mom taught her advocacy, donating in as many ways as you can, and that sometimes, the best thing to do is get out of the way. After the Navy, her husband’s jobs took them from Massachusetts, to Virginia, back to Washington state, and finally here to St Louis, Missouri in 2013. Here, for the first time, they were able to buy a piece of land bigger than a postage stamp, and enjoy the outdoors all the time, right at home! Melissa has two businesses, a small craft business and an extensive tutoring business for Math and ACT/SAT prep. She most recently was the Democratic nominee for MO State Rep District 101. She currently works with AccessMO on outreach, as well as National Women’s Political Caucus at the state and local levels on endorsements and is the Chair of the State Ambassador program. Melissa cares passionately about many issues, but kids and dogs always make the top of the list….and you know what kids and dogs need? Safe environments in which to live, grow and learn.
Cynthia Holmes, a graduate of Washington University School of Law, is engaged in the general practice of law in St. Louis and has litigated matters in both state and federal courts. She has served as Board Member of the St. Louis Bar Foundation, and on the Board of Governors of Bar Association of Metropolis St. Louis, chairing BAMSL’s Bench Bar Conference, Speaker’s Bureau and Trial Practice Institute, and has received its Award of Merit and Award of Achievement. Ms. Holmes has served as a condemnation commissioner by appointment of the St. Louis County Circuit Court, and has served on the Clayton Missouri Futures Committee. Past national board service includes Americans United for Separation of Church and State (serving as Vice President) and Baptist Joint Committee for religions liberty in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the cabinet of the Interfaith Partnership (and is a past chair), and serves on the Steering Committee of the Jobs with Justice,Worker’s Rights Board. She has been an instructor with St. Louis Community College and has testified on issues before Missouri Legislative committees and presented programs for the Jewish Community Relations Council, Anti-Defamation League, NCJW, Cooperating School Districts and on KWMU radio and Fox 2 television.
Steve Mahfood has a 45 year track record as an innovator and leader in the environmental, energy and natural resource fields. After graduating from Rutgers University College of Environmental Science he worked in the US for a few years in the environmental planning and public health fields before beginning work for many years in North Africa and the Middle East for Project Hope and CARE/UN. He returned to the US where Steve held a number of environmental leadership roles including developing in 1991 the first Statewide Study in the nation assessing The Impacts of Ozone Depletion and Climate Change on Missourians. Steve was appointed for 8 years by successive governors as Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. During his tenure Steve championed diversity, integrity, excellence and transparency in the Department. He also represented Missouri and the US in a number of prominent roles including as a Presidential Appointment, chairing the NAFTA-US Governmental Environmental Advisory Commission (GAC), the Anthony Commission on Environmental Infrastructure Finance and the EPA’s Environmental Financial Advisory Board (EFAB) under 3 Presidents for 13 years. In addition, he received the “United States Presidential Environmental Achievement Award” from President GHW Bush in 1989. His Departments work was also featured in a “60 Minutes” episode highlighting leadership in negotiating a corporate buy out of the houses of Missouri citizens whose children were being exposed to lead contamination and smelter emissions. After leaving the Missouri DNR he established a dynamic small company, Mahfood Associates LLC and partnered with an innovative team developing carbon market strategies for privately owned forest lands. He also worked as Governmental Affairs Advisor to the Missouri Chapter of the Nature Conservancy for over 12 years and quietly assisted many other influential organizations on environmental, carbon management and climate change issues. In addition, in 2016 he Co-chaired the Committee to Renew the Missouri Parks and Soils Sales Tax which passed by 80%. He currently serves on the boards of numerous non-profits.
Dhruv Mitroo holds a PhD in Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, with research expertise in atmospheric / aerosol science. He currently serves as a Postdoctoral researcher at the Veterans Research & Education Foundation of St. Louis, where he works to elucidate the fundamental chemical pathways that generate toxic aerosols and the routes by which they are detrimental to human health. By joining GRELC’s board, Dhruv hopes to advocate for Missouri’s air quality and to help give a voice to those communities most often discriminated against with federal or state-level air quality regulation. Before joining the Governing Board of Directors, he served on Great Rivers’ Young Professionals Board.
Henry Robertson worked at Great Rivers from 2005-2021 as energy and climate lawyer. He came to St. Louis for law school at Wash. U. and stayed. He floated Missouri’s great canoe streams and finally got involved with the local environmental movement. With Great Rivers he worked mostly at the Public Service Commission (PSC), the state agency that regulates utilities, where he pushed Ameren, Evergy, and Liberty-Empire to commit to renewable energy and energy efficiency for their customers. He had a sideline in parks protection and helped St. Louis City and County and Olivette pass charter amendments to put developments in parks to public vote. He remains active on the climate front.
Sandy Rothschild came to St. Louis from a small town in New York in 1963 to attend Washington University, where he received a Liberal Arts degree in 1967 and an MBA in 1971. He managed his friend Steve Vossmeyer’s successful campaign for state representative in 1972 and was active in organizing other political and issue races for the next several years, with a high success rate (over 80%). In 1976 the St. Louis Home Builders Associate hired him to start their government affairs department. His work to eliminate inequitable assessment practices in St. Louis County led to new homeowners receiving reductions at the Board of Equalization, making new homes more affordable to approximately 25,000 homeowners, and winning Mr. Rothschild a consumer protection award from the National Association of Homebuilders. He next worked with homebuilder J. David Cassilly to strategize a lawsuit which the Missouri Supreme Court used to force the first statewide reassessment (Cassilly v. Riney). That decision led to property tax reform and a constitutional amendment. Mr. Rothschild went on to form Sandy Rothschild & Associates, Inc. in 1985. Over the next ten years, the firm won five unanimous cases in the Missouri Supreme Court, most significantly a change in the residential property definition, widening it to include all apartments and nursing homes. Mr. Rothschild holds the title of Missouri Growth Association (MGA) Executive Vice President Emeritus. MGA is a group of commercial property owners, managers, and developers that helped successfully oppose an MSD rate increase. That case was argued by the late Lewis Green, who then worked with Mr. Rothschild to organize a class-action lawsuit that resulted in the return of more than $30M of overcharges to MSD’s ratepayers (Ring et al. v. MSD). Since retiring, Mr. Rothschild has volunteered in various capacities at Washington University, including as a member of the Eliot Society and the Alumni Board of Governors. One of his proudest achievements is his service on behalf of the Parkview subdivision, where he served as an Agent (and at sometimes President) on the subdivision’s governing body, the Parkview Agents. His years of work to maintain green space and get an assessment increase passed resulted in a park being named in his honor (Rothschild Park). Mr. Rothschild and his wife Sue reside in Richmond Heights.
Ben Senturia has proven himself an outstanding leader within the environmental community. He is the former Executive Director of the St. Louis Committee for Environmental Information and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. In addition, he was on the national staff of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and an organizational development trainer with the DC-based Institute for Conservation Leadership. He was a founding member of the national Clean Election Campaign, co-founder of Missouri Votes Conservation, and was president of St. Louis-based Center for Active Citizenship. Today Mr. Senturia is retired and spends his time volunteering with Great Rivers, the University City Action Network, and working on a variety of environmental and social justice causes.
Wallis Warren’s passion for and commitment to conservation was piqued by spending endless hours in the outdoors horseback riding, fly fishing, hiking, canoeing and gardening. The Nature Conservancy was her first introduction to partnered conservation and has set the standard she uses in her conservation work. Involvement in conservation organizations such as Trout Unlimited and Ozark Fly Fishers took her to Jefferson City to advocate for water quality issues in Missouri and to Washington DC to advocate for LCWF (land and water conservation funding). Sustainable agriculture on her farm is a passion lending itself to her conservation work. Her philosophy is best stated by Wendell Berry, ‘I stand for what I stand on’… Wallis was appointed to the Clean Water Commission for the State of Missouri and served six years. She served as a Director for the Conservation Federation of Missouri for 15 years and Resource Committee Chair for the ‘Environment, Energy, Ecology, Climate Change committee. Wallis is also a Charter member of the Gateway chapter of Trout Unlimited, and served as Conservation Director for six years, and as Conservation and Communication Director for Ozark Fly Fishers for thirteen years and is currently serving as a Trustee for the Missouri Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Wallis owns an insurance agency located in Eureka MO since 1996. She has developed business and management skills through identifying and meeting the needs of the public, training and managing employees while meeting the operational needs of the business.
Rebecca Weaver (she/her/hers) Born in southern California, raised in rural Ohio, and now a St. Louis resident of seven years, Rebecca grew up exploring creeks, prairies and woodlands. Over the course of her life, she’s developed a passion for wildlife, water quality, and unstructured play in the great outdoors. Prior to moving to St. Louis, Rebecca served as a Protected Species Observer, performing passive acoustic monitoring for marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico and completed her master’s degree in Conservation Biology and Ecology from Miami University’s Global Field Program. She holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance, and was named a FOCUS St. Louis Emerging Leader in 2018. From 2017-2022, Rebecca served as the Cities Program Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Missouri, where she led the development of the Healthy Cities Program, working alongside local communities to grow equitable, nature-based solutions that aim to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for both people and nature in the St. Louis region. Rebecca’s previously held positions include the City of St. Louis Urban Ecology Coordinator, Co-founder and Coordinator for Green City Coalition, and she was appointed to Mayor Tishaura Jones’ Stimulus Advisory Board in 2021. She currently serves as the Director of River City Outdoors — a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing equitable access to outdoor recreation in the St. Louis region. Rebecca is passionate about and dedicated to community-based conservation, environmental and social justice, and organizing for regenerative, community-driven solutions and policy change. In her free time you’ll probably find her hiking, climbing, gardening, birding, paddling, or enjoying the local music and arts scene.
Lauren Wood is a litigation attorney at Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C. in St. Louis. She graduated from Saint Louis University School of Law in 2005 where she was an editor of the Saint Louis University Public Law Review. Since law school, Lauren has litigated cases in state and federal courts of Missouri and Illinois. A life-long Missourian, Lauren has developed a deep respect for our natural environment and our responsibility to care for it and for each other.
James J. Wilson is a partner in the law firm of Berg, Borgmann, Wilson, & Wolk. Mr. Wilson also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at St. Louis University from 1994 to 2001. From 1982 to 1993, he was the City Counselor of the City of St. Louis. Mr. Wilson is a member of Missouri Bar and Federal Bar, and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Missouri Supreme Court, and the appellate courts of Missouri. He is the author of a treatise on Land Use in Russia and Federated Republics. In May 2002, he was a University Lecturer in the Ukraine for Global Volunteers–an affiliate of the United Nations.
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Tom (Yusha) Sager (Director Emeritus) retired from the Board of Directors in March 2018, and was awarded an emeritus title for his many years of service to Great Rivers. He has been an advocate for peace, justice and the environment for over half a century. Since his retirement from the computer science department at University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) he has worked extensively as a volunteer. He is secretary-treasurer of Citizens for the Preservation of Buehler Park (CPBP) http://buehlerpark.org. Buehler Park was almost sold to commercial interests by the City of Rolla. But, Great Rivers, representing CPBP and eight citizens including Mr. Sager, won an injunction against the City of Rolla in a landmark decision, in which for the first time since 1910, the courts ruled that citizens have standing to sue to maintain the use of public property. Since then, Mr. Sager and others have been busy planting trees and beautifying the park. Mr. Sager is part of a small group which maintains weekly vigils for Peace in front of the Rolla Post Office and has worked extensively with the Veterans for Peace Iraq War Project providing potable water to communities in Iraq for over 15 years. He likes to read to young children and maintains a website at htttp://tomsager.org.