Biographies of Plenary Speakers
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Tad McCall, Associate at MBO Partners, was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health from 1994-2001 (DASAF ESOH). His tenure marked a robust expansion of new thinking in the Air Force focused on ESOH as Force Multipliers, and understanding the strength of collaborating relationships with communities and others outside the Air Force and government. His tenure at the Air Force culminated a career that extended over 30 years, and included senior leadership positions in the Department of the Navy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). From 1986-2001 he worked closely with Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and Departments of Interior, Energy, Commerce, and Transportation, He has extensive experience in national policy dialogues, politico-military background, international law, and negotiations.
For the Secretaries of Defense and Navy, Mr. McCall was actively involved in every major piece of Federal environmental legislation affecting the DOD that was considered by Congress between 1986 and 1991, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Federal Facility Compliance Act, CERCLA, U.S. implementation of the Basel Convention, the Ocean Dumping Act and MARPOL {Maritime Pollution) Annexes, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the California Desert Protection Act, Wilderness legislation, and Offshore Oil drilling, among others. His proposed language protecting over flight and military activities was enacted by Congress in the California Desert Protection Act and was the first comprehensive protection of military activities in conjunction with enactment of wilderness legislation. The language became the template to balance military and environmental considerations in the creation of new wilderness areas.
Lenny Siegel, Executive Director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, is one of the environmental movement's leading experts on both military facility contamination and the vapor intrusion pathway. Mr. Siegel has been the Executive Director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO) since 1994 and also runs two Internet newsgroups for CPEO: the Military Environmental Forum and the Brownfields Internet Forum.
In the 1990s, he served on the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee, where he used his experience at Moffett Field to help design the system of community advisory boards at contaminated federal facilities. Since then, as a "usual suspect," he has served on numerous other state and federal advisory committees, including the National Dialogue on Military Munitions and the original Defense Science Board Task Force on Unexploded Ordnance. He has served on three work teams of the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (ITRC) and several National Research Council committees dealing with military environmental issues, and he remains active on the Moffett Field RAB.
In 1994, San Francisco State University hired Siegel as Executive Director of its California Economic Recovery and Environmental Restoration Project (CAREER/PRO), where he created the Military Environmental Forum Internet newsgroup (AKA "Lenny's Listserve") and later the Brownfields Internet Forum. In 1998, CAREER/PRO changed its name to the CPEO, and in 2005 it became a project of the Pacific Studies Center.
Dr. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Founder and President of AmericaSpeaks, has made her mark as an innovator in deliberative democracy, public administration, and organizational development. Under Carolyn's leadership, AmericaSpeaks has earned a national reputation as a leader in the field of deliberative democracy and democratic renewal. The organization has successfully applied its 21st Century Town Meeting® to a number of health care-related topics, including, state-wide health care reform in California and Maine, and the national childhood obesity epidemic.
Prior to founding AmericaSpeaks, Carolyn served as Consultant to the White House Chief of Staff from November 1993 through June 1994, as the Deputy Project Director for Management of the National Performance Review (NPR), Vice President Al Gore's reinventing government task force, and as Chief of Staff to Governor Richard F. Celeste of Ohio from 1986 to 1991. She also led her own successful organizational development and management consulting firm for 14 years. In this capacity, she worked with public and private sector organizations on four continents.