Advisors
Jeff Cordulack
Jeff is a Connecticut native whose career has focused on wildlife conservation, watershed protection, organic farming, and a other subjects related to sustainability. He earned a B.S. in Natural Resources Management and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University in 1995. He has since traveled widely throughout the U.S., Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Southern and Eastern Africa. Currently Jeff owns and manages Organic Ways & Means, one of the first all-electric and 100% organic landscaping companies in the Northeast U.S. Started in 2019, his company has converted hundreds of acres to zero-emission yard care while also trying to inspire local landscapers to do the same. Jeff readily shares all he knows about growing organically with anyone he meets. Jeff has taught tens of thousands of people how to protect nature through simple, everyday actions. Previous professional roles include ecology instructor for SoundWaters; Executive Director of The Northeast Organic Farming Association and NOFA’s Organic Land Care Program; and Communications and Education Director for National Audubon Society in Greenwich, CT. When not on the road sharing organic know-how, Jeff can be found sailing on Long Island Sound, skiing in the backcountry or tending his family's hot chili gardens.
Chuck Elkins
Chuck worked for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency for 25 years where at various times he directed each of the nationwide programs on air pollution, pesticides, toxic chemicals, radiation, noise, and stratospheric ozone. He then worked for 20 years as an environmental consultant focused on trying to persuade agencies like EPA to make sound policy decisions. He is the founder and director of the EPA Alumni Association. He has lived in Wesley Heights D.C. for over 36 years and is the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for 3D01. Working with Quiet Clean D.C., he was instrumental in the passage of Washington D.C.’s bold and successful prohibition on the use and sale of gas-powered leaf blowers.
James Fallows
A longtime writer, Jim has authored hundreds of articles as staff correspondent for The Atlantic and has contributed to The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and many other magazines. His dozen books include the national best-seller Our Towns (co-authored with his wife Deborah Fallows) which became the basis for an HBO feature documentary. Jim and Deborah founded the Our Towns Civic Foundation to connect local-level innovators around the country. He posts frequently on his “Breaking the News” site on Substack. He grew up in San Bernardino County in Southern California, studied American history and literature at Harvard and economics at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. During the first two years of the Jimmy Carter administration he was the chief White House speechwriter. He and Deborah have spent many years on assignments in China, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, and parts of Europe. They now live in Washington DC, where they were active in the Quiet Clean DC movement that led to the District’s ban on gas-powered leaf blowers.
Lucy Weinstein, MD, MPH
Lucy is Assistant Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, NY. She is also a pediatrician and Chair of the Environmental Health Committee, NY Chapter 2 of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). She is Assistant Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook, and past president of the Nassau Pediatric Society. Her interest in environmental health led her to co-found Huntington CALM with Bonnie Sager and help draft the Medical Society of the State of New York’s resolution on gas leaf blowers. Lucy has been a staunch supporter of eliminating gas leaf blowers due to the myriad health issues they pose to the public and those who operate them. Dr. Weinstein earned her MD from Boston University’s School of Medicine and her Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University. Her pediatric training was at Case-Western Reserve University Hospitals in Cleveland, and her Preventive Medicine residency was at SUNY/Stony Brook.
Patti Wood
Patti is founder and executive director of Grassroots Environmental Education, an award-winning non-for-profit environmental health organization whose mission is to inform the public about the health risks of common environmental exposures and to empower individuals to act as catalysts for change in their own communities. She is also a visiting scholar at Adelphi University, lecturing on environmental health issues in the College of Nursing and Public Health. She has served as a consultant to the New York State Department of Health (Environmental Health Division) and was a member of the New York State Governor’s Advisory Council on Sustainability and Green Procurement. She was instrumental in writing and helping pass groundbreaking legislation on pesticides in New York State and New York City and has created numerous award-winning programs such as The ChildSafe School, TechSafe Schools, The BabySafe Project, and Helping to Heal. She also developed environmental education programs for elementary and middle school children including “I’ll Have the Plastic Fish Special, Please!” and “Welcome to Plastic Beach.” She has received national, state and local recognition for her work, including a U.S. EPA Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award. She is also the author of the book Helping to Heal and co-producer of the film “Our Children at Risk.” Ms. Wood and her husband Doug, are co-hosts of the nationally syndicated radio show, Green Street.