Todd Campbell goes private in his clean air goals
East Bay Business Times - January 13, 2006
While living in Poland, Todd Campbell witnessed the damaging effects of coal pollution on the countryside. That experience convinced him to abandon his goal of becoming a lawyer and concentrate on environmental improvements instead. He has just been named director of public policy for Clean Energy, which provides natural gas.
Campbell attended graduate school at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the University of Southern California School of Public Policy simultaneously, flying coast-to-coast to complete his degrees in 1997. He worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council for more than a year, concentrating on Proposition 65 cases.
He moved to the Coalition for Clean Air, becoming the policy and science director, and successfully finished a set of lawsuits against polluting grocery chains that he had begun at the NRDC. In 2001, Campbell's work helped inspire Gov. Davis' $50 million campaign to purchase lower-emission school buses.
After eight years in the environmental community, Campbell, 35, decided to move to a private sector company that focused on the public good.
"Mobile-source emissions are becoming more critical as people come out to California," he said. "Historically the trend is toward growth in population, we really need to get (low emission) fuels like natural gas into the system."