Staff and Board
Joe Sehee, Executive DirectorJoe Sehee is the founder/executive director of the Green Burial Council. He has worked in the green burial field since 2002 and the deathcare industry since 1999. A senior fellow with Environmental Leadership Program Fellow and a PERC "enviropreneur," Joe also consults land trusts, park service agencies, and private landowners interested in developing burial grounds as a strategy for protecting natural areas.
Donna Larsen, Outreach/Education Coordinator, Eastern Region
Michelle Jones, Outreach/Education Coordinator, Western Region
Ernest Cook, Director
Ernest Cook is Senior Vice President and Director, National Programs for the Trust for Public Land. Co-author of the forthcoming Conservation Finance Handbook, Cook also serves as President of The Conservation Campaign, a national lobbying and political action organization that serves the land conservation and historic preservation community as an advocate for new government funding for parks and open space protection.
William R. Jordan III, PhD, Director
William Jordan is Director of the New Academy of Nature and Culture, and Co-Editor of Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to Ecological Research. He is also the founder of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Widely credited as the person who coined the term restoration ecology, Dr. Jordan is also the author of several books including "The Sunflower Forest."
Stephanie Gripne, PhD, Director
Stephanie Gripne is a land conservation program manager for the Colorado Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Formerly a Boone and Crockett Wildlife Conservation Fellow at the University of Montana, Stephanie focuses on the area of conservation finance by working to increase sustainable long-term sources of private and public funding for biodiversity conservation.
DaCosta Mason, JD, Director
DaCosta Mason, JD, is the National Coordinator for Consumer Issues in the Department of State Affairs of AARP where he directs the development and implementation of state legislative and regulatory strategies to accomplish AARP's public policy goals on consumer issues. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
Rob Rosenheck, Director
Rob Rosenheck is a filmmaker, photographer, and author whose projects have involved him with the Center for Environmental Health, and the Tribal Association for Solid Waste Management Emergency Response. Rosenheck is also a Senior Fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program.
William "Billy" Campbell, MD is the founder of Ramsey Creek; the first exclusively green cemetery in the United States. Widely regarded as the leading authority on burial and ecological restoration, Campbell is also president of Memorial Ecosystems, Inc., a for-profit firm that develops and operates green burial grounds.
Stephen Christy is principal of Stephen Christy, LLC, specializing in land planning, landscape architecture, and historic landscape restoration. He has been affiliated with the Lake Forest Open Lands Association for two decades, serving much of that time as its Executive Director.
Erin Heskett is the Midwest Director of the Land Trust Alliance. His diverse experience ranges from the Peace Corps in Senegal to environmental initiatives with the US EPA. For the past five years, Erin served as the Senior Program Officer of the Wildlife and Habitat Protection Department (WHP) at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
Kim Sorvig is a landscape architect, design critic, and
environmental author. He has over 28 years of experience creating,
teaching, and writing about interpretive and sustainable places.
Internationally known for his work as Contributing Editor of Landscape
Architecture magazine and as co-author of
Sustainable Landscape Construction.