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Board

William Farr

Bill retired from Farr Oosterhouse & Krissoff in 2009, but still maintains a small, private practice in Grand Rapids. He is a former President of the Grand Rapids Bar Association, a Fellow of the American Bar Association Foundation, a Fellow of the Michigan State Bar Foundation, and a Master of the American Inns of Court. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for the past several years, and received the Michael S. Barnes Award in 2007 for Pro Bono Service. In 2010, Bill received the Donald Worsfold award from the Grand Rapids Bar Association for service to the community and the profession.


Politically, he has served as Chair of the Kent County Republican Party and the 3rd District Republican Party, as a delegate to a Republican National Convention, at which he was one of two persons from Michigan who served on the Platform Committee, and he was the Republican candidate for Attorney General of Michigan in 1970.


He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Pere Marquette Watershed Council, and has been a member of the Mayor’s Environmental Advisory Council. Also, he has served on several church, community, and business boards over the years, and continues to do so today.
 
Andy Hoffman
Andy is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, a position that holds joint appointments at the School of Natural Resources & Environment and the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.  He is also Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise.  Andy’s research focuses on corporate strategies that address environmental and social issues.  His disciplinary background lies in the areas of organizational behavior, institutional change, negotiations and change management.
 
Andy has published nine books and over ninety articles. Prior to academics, Andy worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency, Metcalf & Eddy, the Amoco Corporation, and T&T Construction and Design, Inc. In 2004, he was a Senior Fellow with the Meridian Institute.
Andy includes among his many teaching interests competitive environmental strategy, strategies for sustainable development, organizational behavior, negotiations, green construction, and organizational change

 

 
Elizabeth Lykins, President
Elizabeth is an attorney with Welch Law and works exclusively in the area of labor and employment law. Her work includes assisting management with issues related to hiring and firing, wage and hour compliance, as well as all aspects of employment law with various government agencies on the local, state and federal levels. She has extensive experience practicing in front of the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and the state/federal Departments of Labor. Elizabeth is also a trained mediator.

In 1995, Elizabeth received her law degree from Ohio State University, where she served as a top editor for the Law Journal. She graduated from Penn State University with a history/business degree with honors and magna cum laude in 1992. After law school, she practiced labor and employment law with Greenebaum Doll & McDonald, PLLC, a large firm located in Louisville, Kentucky. She then returned home to Grand Rapids, Michigan and joined Miller, Johnson, Snell & Cummiskey, PLC, where she continued her labor and employment law practice.

Elizabeth is very involved in Grand Rapids' vibrant non-profit community. She is a graduate of the Leadership Grand Rapids program and is the immediate past chair of the Board of Directors for Home Repair Services, an organization dedicated to assisting low income homeowners. She is the past Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Home & Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids, where she served as a Board Member for three years and is a long-time chairperson of the Human Resources Task Force. Elizabeth is a past board member for Camp Henry as well as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Hugh Michael Beahan Foundation (which serves St. Andrew's school students), and Social Venture Philanthropy (a Grand Rapids Community Foundation fundraising group). She is also active at Westminster Presbyterian Church and with the West Michigan Center for Arts & Technology (WMCAT) (an organization that engages youth through the arts to keep them in school).

Christine Manninen, Secretary

Christine Manninen is the Communications and Web Programming Director at the Great Lakes Commission, which includes managing the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN) and leveraging new web technologies to integrate and interpret Great Lakes data. In 2003, she was a Principal Investigator on establishment of the Great Lakes Observing System, one of 11 regional associations of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System. Over the last decade, Christine has been a consultant to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on building a Water Resources Web Portal for the Americas and participated in UNESCO-led trips to Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and France. As a Smithsonian guest lecturer, Christine presented a suite of educational programs on the cruise ship Clelia II in summer 2010. Christine is past president of the Isle Royale and Keweenaw Parks Association. She is also active in the International Water Resources Association, American Water Resources Association, International Water Web Consortium, International Association for Great Lakes Research, and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Prior to joining the Commission, she worked in corporate communications at Consumers Energy, one of the nation's largest combination utilities. Christine has a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Michigan Technological University and a master's degree in environmental journalism from Michigan State University. She is a 2011 inductee to the Michigan Technological University Presidential Council of Alumnae.

 
Rob Sisson, Treasurer

Rob is president of ConservAmerica, a national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection dedicated to restoring the GOP’s great conservation legacy to the party.

Prior to joining ConservAmerica, Sisson spent 22 years in the financial services industry in west Michigan, primarily as a commercial banker. In the year 2000, the United States Small Business Administration named him Michigan’s Small Business Advocate of the Year. He served two terms as mayor of the City of Sturgis. Prior to leaving office in 2007, Sisson had turned the city into a national model for conservation practices. Rob is a 1982 graduate of Albion College with a degree in Economics and Management. He has published two books, Financing the Small Business and The Legend of Chief White Pigeon and The Old Sauk Trail. He is married to Theresa, a pharmaceutical research professional. They have twin fifteen-year-old sons, Nathaniel and Benjamin.
 

Emma White, Vice President