Staff

Executive Director, Kathleen Logan Smith: Kathleen joined the Coalition as Executive Director in August 2006. Her professional background is in journalism, communications, community organizing, development, and management of nonprofit organizations. She long has been an environmental activist and organizer. She began canvassing in college working with embattled communities and rural residents fighting polluters on issues like toxic waste, medical waste, Superfund, factory farms, and nuclear fuel facilities. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University and moved to St. Louis in 1995. As an organizer with the Medical Waste Incinerator Group, she helped to build a grassroots, community-based organization. This effort resulted in passage of a St. Louis City ordinance that ended medical waste incineration in St. Louis. Kathleen helped found Health & Environmental Justice-St. Louis (HEJ), an organization working to end childhood lead poisoning in St. Louis and she continues to serve on HEJ's board.


Staff Attorney, Caroline Ishida: Caroline joined us in 2008 from the St. Louis office of the Missouri Attorney General where she handled family and administrative law cases for the state. She has a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She is an alumnus of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic at Washington University where she worked on environmental cases for Clinic clients.


Energy Policy Coordinator, Erin Noble: Erin joined the Coalition in 2005 as Director of Outreach and Development. In 2007, she was named the Energy Policy and Outreach Coordinator. Erin graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in public policy. Prior to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Erin worked for the Fund for Public Interest Research. She also worked as the fundraising chairman for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life on Duke’s campus.


Clean Water Coordinator, Lorin Crandall: A St. Louis navitve, Lorin graduated from Metro High School in 2000 and attended UMKC where he attained a bachelors degree in Urban Planning & Design in 2004. Before joining MCE as an AmeriCorps staff person, Lorin worked as an urban planner at a local landscape architecture firm where he developed an understanding sustainable design. During his time as an AmerCorps staff person for MCE and the River des Peres Watershed Coalition he worked on a range of projects including habitat restoration and clean ups of the River des Peres, starting a Rain Barrel fundraiser and creating GIS maps looking at water pollution and stream protections across the state.


Outreach Coordinator, Brian DeSmet


Office Administrator, Laura Illy