Our staff operate within a Staff Collective, non-hierarchical model. This means we have no executive director or inherent hierarchy within staff, and we use a process of collective decision-making and collaboration that engages norms for proactive communication and healthy, respectful conflict.
Anissa Pemberton
Anissa Pemberton (they/them) returns to 350PDX after serving two years at the Coalition of Communities of Color as the Environmental Partnerships Manager (formerly the Portland Clean Energy Fund Coalition Coordinator). As a passionate climate justice organizer, they are excited to serve as the Grants and Operations Manager. Previously, they served at 350PDX as the Coalition Manager from 2018 - 2020. They are pursuing a graduate degree in marriage and family therapy, and are passionate about increasing work life balance in the climate justice movement and integrating healing justice practices. In their free time, you can find Anissa building community through dinner parties, urban hiking with friends, gardening with their partner, and cuddling with their dog, Roxie.
Brenna Bell
Raised on Muckleshoot Prairie in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, a land of both towering trees and expansive clearcuts, Brenna started advocating for forests in 1997. Her journey of advocacy took her up to tree sits, into lumber mills, across timber sales, though law school, to meetings, rallies, webinars and more . . . all with a focus of shifting forest management away from commodity production and towards ecological restoration. Along the way, she fell in love with dead trees, forest fires, and learned that Pacific NW forests are some of the best carbon sequestering ecosystems in the world. And learned that snow packs and glaciers are rapidly melting and, if we don’t change forest management, Oregon might start running out of summer water.
The more she learned about forests and climate change, the more Brenna‘s work shifted to focus on that intersection. In 2020, while staff attorney for Bark, Brenna helped launch the Pacific NW Forest Climate Alliance, bringing together over 60 groups across the NW to share resources and take action improving forest management to build climate resiliency and mitigate climate change. She’s thrilled to build capacity for 350PDX‘s Forest Defense Team as the Forest Climate Manager, and looks forward to changing both laws and culture to value Oregon’s forests for more than profit.
Along with loving forests, Brenna also loves long bike commutes, raising dairy goats, talking about death, figuring out how to share life with her intentional community, and being a mom to two awesome kids who are scared about climate change.
Cherice Bock
As the policy manager, Cherice Bock (she/her) leads city and state level advocacy, organizing to support policies that lead toward climate justice. Her career thus far has straddled the academy and the nonprofit world. With an MS and PhD in environmental studies and several years of experience in advocacy and organizing in Oregon, she brings both a commitment to relational organizing and a willingness to dive into policy details.
Cherice became committed to working on environmental and climate issues when the connections between colonialism, resource extraction, labor exploitation, and other systems of injustice became clear to her as she worked on peace and justice issues. A Quaker, social justice and peace activism has been part of her experience and tradition, and she recognized her own culpability and the connection between colonization and environmental issues when visiting the West Bank. Since then, Cherice dedicated her career to working toward justice while grounding this work in the soil, the water, and the interconnected relationships between all members of the earth community. Her commitment to a just transition includes advocating for policies that will be equitable, interrupt unjust systems, and create a flourishing society including all people and species. She does this work in part to help create a livable future for her two children.
Chris Palmer
Chris is originally from the UK and moved to Portland in early 2018. He volunteered with the Portland Clean Energy Fund campaign before joining 350PDX as a staff member.
Chris is our Volunteer Manager, which involves bringing new volunteers into the movement, training and building volunteer leaders, helping implement our JEDI plan so our movement is equitable and accessible, and helping all our teams be effective movement building machines.
Previously Chris helped run a Scottish nonprofit, 2050 Climate Group, that supports millennials to take action on climate change. He also worked as a sustainability advisor to small businesses and ran a startup to encourage businesses to fly less.
Outside of work he helped set up the local hub of the Sunrise Movement, and enjoys playing music on his loop pedal.
Dineen O’Rourke
Dineen dedicated her life to fighting for climate justice in her senior year of high school when Superstorm Sandy hit her community on Eastern Long Island and the looming threat of climate change suddenly became very urgent and personal. Since then, she‘s worked on local and regional campaigns that have defeated major fracked gas pipelines and other fossil fuel projects, as well as on national and international levels, working to elevate the voices of and solutions from young people at United Nations climate conferences. Since moving to Portland in 2017, Dineen has worked for the Oregon Sierra Club, as a Field Organizer on the Portland Clean Energy Fund campaign, and helped to start the Sunrise PDX hub.
Dineen is also a practicing birth and postpartum doula, and is deeply passionate about reproductive justice and birth justice, and making holistic birth support more accessible to all. She loves seeing live music, baking cakes, singing, spending time with her dog, and being outside. You can reach her at dineen@350pdx.org.
Julia Fritz-Endres
Julia began her work in climate justice organizing while studying climate science and policy at Macalester College. She spent four years mobilizing people to take action in the Stop Line 3 movement, such as by being part of the planning teams for actions like the Treaty People Gathering, where thousands participated in civil disobedience.
While in Minnesota, Julia volunteered with MN350, worked as a Pipeline Resistance Coordinator for MN Interfaith Power & Light, as a canvasser for the 2020 General Election, and organized with the Sunrise Movement Twin Cities hub. Julia believes we must follow frontline leadership to dismantle all systems of oppression and build new systems that are healing and regenerative. At 350PDX, she coordinates email blasts, newsletters, social media, web content, and press relations.
After work, you can find Julia going on runs in the woods, writing poetry, and hanging out with her cats, Turkey and Goose. You can reach her at julia@350pdx.org
Interested in joining the board? See more info here.
Ahmed Gaya
Ahmed Gaya has spent the past 15 years running campaigns for climate and social justice in the United States, Canada and Europe. In that time he helped found organizations like 350 Seattle and the Prison Ecology Project, built the largest and most diverse coalition in Washington State History with the Climate Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy, and popularized the concept of the Green New Deal as the National Field Director for the Sunrise Movement. The child of an immigrant family from Pakistan, Ahmed explores the intersection of climate and immigrant experience as the Senior Strategist for Climate and Migration with the National Partnership for New Americans.
Allyse Heartwell
Allyse was born and raised in Hawaii. Before landing in Portland in 2018, she spent over a decade in California, working at the intersection of climate organizing, sustainable agriculture, and local sustainable economies. She spent nearly six years at 350.org, the international organization with which 350PDX is affiliated, including two years on the leadership team as the organization’s Digital Director. In 2017, she quit her job to renegotiate her relationship with work and activism, and spent almost a year traveling around the world on trains, buses, and boats. Now she works as an independent consultant, putting her expertise in strategic digital campaigning and communications to work for mission-driven nonprofits in the climate and environmental space. In addition to climate justice, sustainable food & farming, and overland travel, she spends a lot of time thinking about how to make her dog happy and get to cool outdoorsy stuff by bike.
Evie Vermeer
Evie was born and raised in Minneapolis. Growing up canoeing, skiing and playing hockey on the northern lakes inspired his passion for environmental conservation.
Before moving to Portland in 2016, Evie graduated from Whitman College with a degree in Economics-Environmental Studies.
In 2020, he left his job in forestry finance to focus on conservation and environmental justice work in Oregon and to pursue a graduate degree.
Evie is a master‘s candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, where he participates in the program’s Sustainable Forestry Fellowship program.
Evie is a member of 350PDX’s finance committee and forest defense team. In his spare time, he conducts research for a local nonprofit, tends to his many plants, and enjoys skiing, biking and hiking.
Devyn Powell
Devyn grew up in the Portland area, and moved back in 2020 after a long detour on the east coast. She is very glad to be home. She works as an energy policy analyst at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where her research is focused on incorporating equity and environmental justice goals into clean energy policy, and is also a volunteer organizer with 350PDX’s Fossil Fuel Resistance team. Devyn has previously worked on clean energy policy analysis at Evergreen Action and Solar United Neighbors, and as a digital campaigner and strategist at 350.org and the Power Shift Network.
She has also earned a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Tufts University. When she’s not trapped in front of a computer screen, Devyn is usually somewhere in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her dog, Lyra.
Mikaela Todd
Mikaela was born and raised in Southern California. She grew up hiking, camping, and experiencing local wildlife through Girl Scouts, developing an appreciation of nature from an early age. As a teenager, she made the decision to forever abstain from factory-farmed meat - reading and learning about food politics sparked a lifelong passion for environmental justice and equity.
Mikaela graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in literature and politics in 2013, and soon after moved to the Portland metro area, where she fell in love with kayaking, backpacking, and exploring the natural beauty of Oregon. She worked in hotel operations management for several years before earning her MBA from Portland State University in 2021. While at PSU, Mikaela led the business school’s B Impact program, advising local businesses on how to reach their sustainability goals and become certified B corporations.
Mikaela currently works as a senior accountant at Geffen Mesher, where she is an active member of the firm’s DEI committee. She is a foster parent, has three pets with her spouse, and values giving back to her community. She is excited to use her financial skills to aid the environmental justice movement through her work with 350 PDX.
Giving Options
- Become a sustaining or one-time donor
Follow us on social media!
Contact
Mailing address: 3625 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR 97227
Office Phone: (503) 281-1485
General Inquiries: info@350pdx.org