Board & Staff
Board of Directors
David Hunter, Chair
David Hunter is an Assistant Professor at American University's Washington College of Law, where he is director of the Program on International and Comparative Environmental Law. His work covers a broad range of global environment and development issues, including expanding the accountability of multinational corporations and international financial institutions. Mr. Hunter was previously the Executive Director of the Center for International Environmental Law. He is the author of numerous articles on international environmental law and is co-author of International Environmental Law and Policy, the leading law school textbook on international environmental law.
Dina Rasor, Treasurer
Dina Rasor is a partner in the Bauman and Rasor Group which does investigative and consulting work on lawsuits including health care fraud and military procurement fraud. Ms. Rasor founded POGO's predecessor organization, the Project on Military Procurement, in 1981 and directed it for ten years. In that capacity, Ms. Rasor researched and publicized many of the major defense scandals of the 1980s such as the infamous $7,600 coffee brewer and the $670 armrest in the C-5 cargo plane, as well as the ineffectiveness of major weapons systems and other procurement fraud. She also worked as an investigative journalist for newspapers and television shows such as ABC's PrimeTime. Ms. Rasor authored The Pentagon Underground, co-authored the whistleblower's manual Courage without Martyrdom: A Survival Guide for Whistleblowers, and edited the book, More Bucks, Less Bang: How the Pentagon Buys Ineffective Weapons.
Ryan Alexander
Ryan Alexander is President of Taxpayers for Common Sense. Prior to joining TCS, Ms. Alexander at various times served as Executive Director of the Common Cause Education Fund, the research and education affiliate of Common Cause; a consultant to foundations and advocacy organizations; a program officer for the Rockefeller Family Fund; and a litigating attorney for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund in West Virginia. In 2001, she co-founded the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, which she continues to chair. Ms. Alexander received a B.A. from Wesleyan University, a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and was awarded a NAPIL Equal Justice Fellowship.
Henry Banta
Hank Banta is an attorney with Lobel, Novins & Lamont where he primarily practices federal energy law. Previously, he served as Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly. Mr. Banta also worked at the Federal Trade Commission where he was staff attorney and attorney-advisor to the Chairman of the Commission. Prior to that he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Mr. Banta received both his B.S. and law degree from Georgetown University.
Lisa Baumgartner Bonds
Lisa Baumgartner Bonds is Vice President for External Affairs of Lutheran World Relief. She is a communication expert who has worked with many of the nation's leading public interest groups. Prior to joining LWR, Dr. Bonds served as Communications Director for the National Breast Cancer Coalition. Prior to that she was Vice President for Communications at one of the World Wildlife Fund, and as Senior Vice President for the public affairs firm, M&R Strategic Services. Prior to her work at M&R, Dr. Bonds directed a communication consultancy that assisted foundations, philanthropists, and non-profit organizations. Previous experience includes serving as press secretary for Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and seven years as a Professor of Speech-communication at American University; St. Olaf College; and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bonds completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in speech-communication and history at the University of Minnesota.
David Burnham
David Burnham is the co-director of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). With The New York Times from 1968 to 1986, Mr. Burnham wrote numerous prize winning investigative pieces including those depicted in "Serpico," and "Silkwood." He has been inducted into the Freedom Forum's National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame, and honored with the Polk Award, the Patterson Fellowship, and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, among others. He is the author of several books including Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice, and A Law Unto Itself: Power, Politics and the IRS.
Michael Cavallo
Michael Cavallo has endowed and is President of the Cavallo Foundation which recognizes whistleblowers for moral courage in business and government. Mr. Cavallo formerly served as one of three Commissioners of the Disabled Persons Protection Commission of Massachusetts, which investigates allegations of abuse of persons with mental and physical disabilities. He has also worked for Continental Grain; CPC International; and GCC Beverages, a division of General Cinema. Mr. Cavallo is on the Board of Directors of the Fund for Constitutional Government, the Janelia Foundation, the Government Accountability Project, and the EPIIC Program of Tufts University. Mr. Cavallo has an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a B.A. in history from New York University.
Charles Hamel
Charles Hamel is a retired international management consultant. He served as Administrative Assistant to Connecticut U.S. Senator Thomas J. Dodd and as Executive Assistant to Alaska U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. While engaged as an independent tanker and oil broker with oil lease interests on the North Slope of Alaska, Mr. Hamel discovered environmental, health, and safety violations by Alyeska Pipeline and its oil company owners. Mr. Hamel, acting as a conduit for concerned whistleblowers including Alyeska employees, became a source of information for Congress, State and Federal regulatory agencies and the media. Alyeska Pipeline and its owner companies, ARCO, BP, Exxon, Mobil, Unocal, Phillips and Amerada Hess, engaged the Wackenhut Corporation in mounting a massive undercover surveillance operation of Mr. Hamel. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin, during 1993 U.S. District Court proceedings, described the details of Alyeska's spy operation on Mr. Hamel as "horrendous" and "reminiscent of Nazi Germany." Judge Sporkin further observed "no one should be subjected to the kind of treatment the Hamels were."
Janine Jaquet
Janine Jaquet has been a newspaper and magazine reporter, and an Emmy-winning producer of television news, public affairs and documentary programming. S he has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University and NYU, and after several years as a contributor to The Nation magazine, she went on staff at its non-profit sister organization, The Nation Institute. She is currently Vice President for Development at the New-York Historical Society.
Morton Mintz
Morton Mintz has been a reporter since 1946, first in St. Louis and then at The Washington Post from 1958 to 1988. Mr. Mintz has received numerous awards and honors including the Columbia Journalism Award; the Playboy Foundation's Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for Lifetime Achievement; the Worth Bingham, Heywood Broun, Raymond Clapper, and George Polk Memorial Awards; and twice, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild award for Public Service.
A major focus of Mr. Mintz while at The Washington Post was grave corporate crime and misconduct. He conducted investigations into numerous issues including thalidomide, the sedative/tranquilizer that caused several thousand children worldwide to be born without arms or legs; the disastrous Dalkon Shield and Cu-7 IUDs; the tobacco industry; the tailing of Ralph Nader by a private eye retained by General Motors; a cholesterol-lowering drug MER/29 that afflicted thousands of users with cataracts and other maladies; and Oraflex, a dangerous anti-arthritis drug withdrawn by the manufacturer only a few months after sales began. He has written and co-authored several books including At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield and America, Inc.: Who Owns and Operates the United States.
Anne Zill
Anne Zill is the Director of the Center for Ethics in Action at the University of New England. She is also the President of the Fund for Constitutional Government and an advisor to the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust. Some of the other programs and organizations she has founded, developed, and/or led include: Women's Campaign Fund; Women's Campaign Research Fund; The Karen Silkwood Fund; Women for Meaningful Summits; Women's Foreign Policy Campaign; and PROLEAD, a fund to promote democracy and women's leadership at the Inter-American Development Bank. Ms. Zill curates art exhibitions, which have included "The Progress of the World's Women" for the United Nations in 2000.
STAFF
Danielle Brian, Executive Director
Keith Rutter, Director of Operations
Scott Amey, General Counsel
Marthena Cowart, Director of Communications
Beth Daley, Director of Investigations
Chris Pabon, Director of Development
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Danielle Downing, Editor
Ingrid Drake, Investigator
Abby Evans, Development Associate
Ned Feder, M.D., Staff Scientist
Neil Gordon, Investigator
Beverley C. Lumpkin, Investigator
Pam Rutter, Web Manager
Michael Smallberg, Web Outreach Associate
Mandy Smithberger, Investigator
Peter Stockton, Senior Investigator
Jake Wiens, Investigator
More about staff
