MCE 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 that exposed systemic failures to end childhood lead poisoning in St. Louis.

Deputy Director, Dresden Farrand: Dresden joined the Coalition in 2011 as Director of Membership and Advocacy. In 2007, she graduated with her Masters from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Public Affairs with a concentration in public and nonprofit management. Prior to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Dresden worked for UN in Geneva, Switzerland on food security issues in least developed countries.

Clean Water Program Director, 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.

Wetlands & Floodplain Director, Brad Walker: Prior to his work in the conservation and environmental sector, Brad worked for over 20 years in the construction industry, primarily performing construction management for large wastewater treatment plants in the western US.  Beginning in 1998 Brad spent two years in Jamaica working for the US Peace Corps.  He worked for 2-1/2 years with American Farm Land Trust in northern Illinois organizing county-level farmland protection programs and then moved to river-related advocacy.  He was the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Restoration Coordinator for Prairie Rivers Network in Illinois from 2006 until 2008 and the Izaak Walton League of America’s UMR Coordinator until May 2011.  Brad has a B.S in Civil Engineering and a M.A. in Geography.

Safe Energy  Director, Ed Smith: Ed Smith is the MCE Safe Energy Director. He spearheads our efforts to educate consumers about the dangers of nuclear power and to defend the no-CWIP (Construction Work in Progress) law that has made it illegal for the last 35 years for investor-owned utilities, like Ameren Missouri, Empire Electric and KC P&L, to charge customers upfront for the planning and construction of power plants until they are operational.

Director of Finance, Laura Illy: A St. Louis native, Laura joined the Coalition in December 2009.  She graduated from St. Louis University with Bachelors Degrees in Biology, Psychology, & Business Administration, and received her MAcc (Masters in Accounting) from Lindenwood University in 2005.  She resides in O’Fallon, Missouri with her husband and two young children.

Web Designer Consultant, Rakhee Sawant: Rakhee completed her B.S in Chemistry from University of Mumbai and also completed her Diploma in Information Technology. She has experience working as a instructor in a computer training institute. Prior to consulting for MCE, she worked on a quality rating contract assignment for Google. Rakhee trains staff, maintains and enhances the MOENVIRON website with latest information, news, videos, images, animation, new forms, programming Javasript/PHP, etc, using new applications and tools to make the website user-friendly and effective in communicating the mission of the organization.