Berkeley, CA (Monday, August 27, 2018) – Bay Nature Institute is proud to announce the appointment of three new members to its board of directors: environmental attorney Catherine Engberg, citizen science leader Dr. Rebecca Johnson, and environmental media executive Pete May.
“I am pleased to welcome Catherine, Rebecca, and Pete aboard,” said Bruce Hartsough, Bay Nature’s board chair. “These impressive individuals embody the spirit of our mission, and we’re fortunate to have them as we continue to connect the people of the Bay Area to our natural world and motivate people to solve problems with nature in mind.”
“Catherine, Rebecca, and Pete will be great partners as Bay Nature continues to grow and increase its impact in the Bay Area as the only regional nonprofit nature magazine in the US,” said Regina Starr Ridley, Executive Director and Publisher of Bay Nature magazine.
Catherine Engberg is a partner with the San Francisco environmental law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP. She joined the firm in 2002 after completing a clerkship with the Honorable Barry Ted Moskowitz, US District Court Judge for the Southern District of California. Catherine also serves as City Attorney to the City of Half Moon Bay and routinely represents cities and community groups in administrative proceedings and CEQA litigation over major infrastructure and residential projects.
Catherine teaches land use law at Stanford Law School, where she received her law degree with distinction in 2001; and at Berkeley Law. She has published in the Stanford Law Review and the Stanford Environmental Law Journal on topics ranging from citizen initiatives to legal issues regarding the decommissioning of dams and has led CEQA, open government, and election law workshops sponsored by the Planning and Conservation League, Sierra Club, and Friends of Harbors Beaches and Parks. Prior to attending law school, she worked as an environmental engineer and is a licensed Professional Civil Engineer. Catherine is a member of the Bar of the State of California.
Dr. Rebecca Johnson co-directs citizen science at the California Academy of Sciences, where she designs and implements programs focused on place-based nature connection, documenting biodiversity, and using species observations to understand climate change and inform conservation. At Cal Academy, Rebecca supports and builds coalitions of naturalists, non-profits, government agencies, and policymakers working together to scale gathering and mobilizing biodiversity data.
Rebecca earned her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology for her research on the evolutionary history of nudibranchs (sea slugs). She is also a research associate in the museum’s Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, a research professor in San Francisco State University’s Department of Biology, the Co-Chair of the San Mateo County Marine Protected Area Collaborative and a founding member of the San Francisco Children and Nature Team. Rebecca, along with her Cal Academy co-director, Alison Young, was named the Bay Nature 2017 Local Hero for Environmental Education.
Pete May is President and Co-Founder of the GreenBiz Group, the Oakland-based publisher of GreenBiz.com, a leading website for business and sustainability; the convener of the GreenBiz Executive Network, a peer-to-peer learning group for corporate sustainability executives; and the producer of green business events such as VERGE and GreenBiz Forum. Pete has represented GreenBiz as an executive and speaker nationally, as well as at international events such as COP21 in Paris in 2015.
Prior to co-founding GreenBiz, Pete held several executive roles in business and technology media in the United States and Europe across fields as diverse as technology, telecommunications, power distribution, and entertainment. A third-generation Bay Area native and an Oakland resident for most of his life, Pete was previously on the board of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation, a nonprofit his father Lewis May helped create in 1980. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a BA in Economics and History, Pete’s hobby is open water swimming, having completed the Bridge to Bridge 10K swim, the Trans-Tahoe relay, and numerous Golden Gate and Alcatraz swims.
Bay Nature Institute, a 501(c)3 organization based in Berkeley, California, connects the people of the Bay Area to our natural world and motivates people to solve problems with nature in mind. For more information, please contact Executive Director / Publisher Regina Starr Ridley.
