Michael Brune (born 24 August 1971) became the youngest
executive director
Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization.
The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...
of the
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
at 38, an American environmental organization founded by preservationist
John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
,
UC professor of botany
Willis Linn Jepson
Willis Linn Jepson (August 19, 1867 – November 7, 1946) was an early California botanist, conservationist, and writer.
Career
Born at Little Oak Ranch near Vacaville, California, Jepson became interested in botany as a boy and explor ...
, and attorney
Warren Olney in 1892. He was hired by the 15 member board of directors to his position in January 2010, after
Carl Pope was fired.
Prior to the Sierra Club, Brune was the executive director of the
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gras ...
for seven years. He also worked as an organizer for
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to ...
.
In 1999, while working at the
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gras ...
, Brune ran a successful campaign to get
Home Depot
The Home Depot, Inc., is an American multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the largest home improvement r ...
stores to stop purchasing and selling wood from
old-growth forest
An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...
s.
''Time'' magazine listed this as its top environmental story of that year.
Brune is a regular contributor to the ''
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'', a
progressive
Progressive may refer to:
Politics
* Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform
** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context
* Progressive realism, an American foreign policy pa ...
website founded by
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (née Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou, el, Αριάδνη-Άννα Στασινοπούλου ; born July 15, 1950) is a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of ''The ...
, as well as
Daily Kos
Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party and Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal American politics. The site includes glossaries and other content. It is ...
.
In 2008 he published a book called ''Coming Clean -- Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal''.
In 2014 Brune was confirmed as the
Hillary Institute of International Leadership's Hillary Laureate in recognition of his work on
climate change issues. He was then awarded, jointly with
Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996, and based in Oakland, California, it works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. It partners with indigenous and environmental organiza ...
's
Atossa Soltani, the four yearly Hillary Step prize.
In August 2021 the Sierra Club announced that Brune was resigning as executive director, effective as of the end of the year.
References
External links
Michael Brune's blog at Huffington PostBio of Michael Brune at the Sierra Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brune, Michael
Sierra Club executive directors
Living people
American environmentalists
American non-fiction environmental writers
1971 births