printStaff & Board
ABOUT US
Crude Accountability is a consensus-driven organization that is committed to environmental and social justice and to the protection of the Caspian Sea. Crude Accountability was created to implement social change, and is committed to the principles of transparency, community-based activity, and a grassroots approach to social and environmental change. In addition to treating partners and colleagues with respect, Crude Accountability strives to be progressive, equitable and socially conscious in its internal operations and in the actions of its staff and board.
Crude Accountability Staff and Consultants
Michelle Kinman is co-founder and Deputy Director of Crude Accountability. As such, Michelle is closely involved in both the programmatic and organizational development of the organization. In Crude Accountability’s first few years, Michelle led the international campaign to ensure greater public participation in the decision-making process surrounding the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea, and conducted extensive research on oil spill prevention and response measures to be adapted to the Caspian region. More recently, Michelle has turned her attention to shedding light on the need for greater corporate responsibility by the petroleum industry, researching and writing about oil and gas companies active in Turkmenistan and about Chevron’s activities in Kazakhstan. She is also the lead web and communications officer for Crude Accountability. Michelle was formerly Caspian and Natural Resources Program Officer at ISAR, where she worked on programs from 1997-2003. Michelle has a BA in Russian Language and Literature and International Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and currently is pursuing a graduate certificate in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver. Michelle is involved in local environmental issues in the Los Angeles area, where she resides.
Sergey Solyanik is a consultant for Crude Accountability. Sergey has been an active participant in Kazakhstan’s environmental movement since 1990. For nearly twenty years he worked at the Ecological Society Green Salvation, one of the oldest and most respected public environmental organizations in the country. Sergey has a degree in electrical engineering and a Masters in Environmental Politics from Keele University in the UK, which he earned under a Chevening Scholarship granted by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2001, Sergey participated in the US government sponsored “Contemporary Issues Program,” through which he conducted research on the interactions between American non-governmental organizations and transnational corporations. Sergey’s interests include protecting the human right to a healthy environment, and monitoring and influencing the activities of transnational corporations and international financial institutions operating in Kazakhstan and throughout Central Asia. Sergey speaks Russian and English.
Kate Watters is co-founder and Executive Director of Crude Accountability. She manages the organization’s programmatic and organizational development as well as working as Crude Accountability’s lead campaigner. She has led a wide variety of trainings and workshops for environmental activists throughout the former Soviet Union, including air monitoring, human rights awareness and popular epidemiology. She has also trained local activists to understand compliance and accountability mechanisms at the World Bank. Kate has been working with environmental activists in the former Soviet Union (FSU) since the early 1990s, has traveled extensively throughout the region and speaks fluent Russian. She has published numerous articles on civil society and the environmental movement in Central Asia and the Caspian region. Kate has an MA in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University, and a BA in Russian literature from UMASS-Amherst.
Crude Accountability Board of Directors
Timur Berkeliev is a co-founder of Crude Accountability. Over the past twenty years, he has concentrated on environmental pollution control and the sustainable use of nature resources through positions at various international organizations, international NGOs, and as co-chair of the Ashgabad-based Catena Ecology Club. Timur holds a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, and was awarded a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at Cornell University in 2002 focused on natural resource management. Timur was previously the Project Coordinator in Turkmenistan for the Caspian Environment Programme’s Sustainable Development of Caspian Coastal Communities Programme, and he now serves as an environmental monitoring expert for the TACIS/CEP program to create a regional monitoring system in the Caspian. Timur is a fluent English speaker.
Leanne A. Grossman is a non-fiction writer who has been active in efforts to secure domestic and international social and environmental justice for four decades. She is an advisor to TimetoGetSmarter.com, which advocates a green economic recovery. Leanne has met and worked with women’s rights groups on every continent. She is an advisor to Girl Child Network Worldwide, which offers a unique girls’ empowerment program to communities worldwide. Leanne is a former board member of Global Greengrants Fund. She served as Communications Director of the Global Fund for Women until 2008 and as Deputy Director of ISAR until 1996. Leanne earned a BA at UC Berkeley and an MA in international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She resides in Oakland, California.
Doug Norlen is Policy Director for Pacific Environment. Serving on staff since 1995, Doug specializes in the reform of multilateral trade and finance institutions and bilateral export credit agencies (ECAs). Based in Oakland, CA, Doug was instrumental in successful efforts to reform the environmental policies or the US ECAs, including new policies announced in 1997 by President Clinton at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session, covering billions of dollars of investment worldwide.
Doug is a leader in the international NGO campaign to reform all export credit agencies, now collectively among the largest source of public financial support for private sector investments in oil, gas, mining, large dams and other industrial sectors in the developing world. In 2000, Doug was appointed by US Secretary of Commerce William Daley and US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky to be the first environmental representative to the US Trade Representative's Industry Sector Advisory Committee (ISAC) for paper products.
Prior to coming to Pacific Environment, Doug had over a decade of grassroots forest conservation experience, including successful wilderness protection campaigns in the Pacific Northwest and efforts to protect Siberian forests following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He holds a Masters of Arts in International Studies, with specialization in international environmental and forestry policy, from University of Oregon.
Linda Price King was the Executive Director of the Environmental Health Network (EHN) for over 18 years. EHN, an international/national nonprofit organization, provided environmental health advocacy for chemically injured workers, communities and individuals by providing technical, legal, medical, and organizing assistance through community-based programs. EHN was the first grassroots environmental health organization to develop community-based environmental health initiatives that trained community leaders to investigate and collect environmental and health data. EHN also developed mapping programs where communities all over the world collected environmental, geological, hydrogeological, weather and pollution data and placed the information on community maps. Both the health data and environmental data maps helped communities unravel years of environmental and health problems. EHN then assisted communities in using this data as an organizing tool to solve their problems. EHN developed and implemented these innovative training workshops for communities both in the United States and in Eastern Europe. EHN's programs provided opportunities for Linda to speak nationally/internationally on human health and toxins.
Linda has published or written several reports and books: "Chemical Injury and Courts: A Litigation Guide for Clients and their Attorneys", "Inconclusive by Design: Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Federal Health Research", "Job Damaged People: How to Understand the Worker Compensation System and Change It", and many magazine articles. She is in the process of completing a book on the history of the grassroots environmental and health movements in the United States over the last 60 years. The book will highlight the events and women who were in the forefront of the movement.
EHN closed its doors in December of 2004. She now teaches Government, Eastern Civilization/Geography, and Environmental Science at Chesapeake Bay Academy in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She is also a certified mediator with the State of Virginia in the Juvenile and Domestic Courts system. Linda has her BA in Social Studies with an emphasis in Peace Studies, and an MA in History and Culture with an emphasis in International Law and Human Rights from Union Institute and University.
Linda has been an advisor or board member of Crude Accountability since it conception. Her committment to Crude stems from the unwavering mission of the organization, and its proven effectiveness in the field. No other group is addressing the issues of human rights and health in connection to oil and gas in Central Asia like Crude.
Neil Tangri works on the waste and climate change campaign for GAIA, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance. A founding member of GAIA and formerly with Essential Action, he has also worked as a community organizer; as a media advocate, training grassroots activists in press relations; as a researcher, documenting urban environmental problems and their causes in India; and as a tall ship sailor. Neil speaks English, Spanish and Hindi. He is based in Berkeley, CA.
Mark Warford is an award-winning photographer and creative director working in the realm of still and motion imagery. As a driving force in visual media production for organizations such as Greenpeace USA, Getty Images and Agence France-Presse, he has produced and coordinated successful media coverage of such global events as French nuclear testing in Moruroa; the Shell-owned Brent Spar occupation in the North Sea; Japanese whaling actions in the Southern ocean; oil spills in Russia's Komi Republic, La Coruna and the Shetland Isles; the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2000 US Presidential election. In 2008, Mark launched the ‘extraordinary media’ collective, MW Inc. and co-founded LoverEarth Inc. with legendary producer and Eurythmics co-founder David A. Stewart. Based in Hollywood, LoverEarth is a for-profit company dedicated to redefining the entertainment industry’s role in cause-related initiatives. Mark serves as Chair of Crude Accountability's Board of Directors.
Photo: Crude Founders from left to right: Aleksey Knizhnikov, Michelle Kinman, Timur Berkeliev, Kate Watters, Megan Lee, Enver Safar-zade (Giorgi Tsintsadze not pictured)