OCI Staff
Steve Kretzmann, Executive Director
email: steve [at] priceofoil.org
Steve Kretzmann has worked on energy issues and the global oil industry for more than twenty years. He has worked with communities and organizations around the world concerned with the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the oil industry. His dedication to this struggle began in earnest after working with the late Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni of Nigeria. He has campaigned to keep Florida’s coast free from oil & gas drilling, keep bike lanes open in New York City, engage reluctant corporations in dialogue about human and environmental rights, expose the oil industry’s involvement in drafting Iraq’s new oil law and, end destructive public finance by institutions such as the World Bank. He has also represented various organizations in Washington DC and at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Montreal Protocol.
Steve has authored numerous articles and reports and is a regular commentator on issues of corporate accountability, climate change, the global oil industry, and environmental and human rights. He founded Oil Change International in 2005 in order to educate about the true impacts of fossil fuels and to conduct research, education, and organizing to hasten the transition to clean energy.
Elizabeth Bast, Managing Director
email: ebast [at] priceofoil.org
Elizabeth Bast is the Managing Director at Oil Change International, where she is responsible for organizational development and administration. She has ten years of experience in the environmental field, with five years of international environmental campaigning and program management. Prior to working at Oil Change, Elizabeth served as International Program Director at Friends of the Earth U.S., where she led the organization’s international climate campaign. Elizabeth has also worked at Worldwatch Institute and the Environmental Policy Center, and holds a Master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University. She has written articles and reports on a variety of international climate and energy policy issues, including the UN climate negotiations, the need for adaptation to climate change and access to clean energy, and the World Bank’s energy policy and practices.
Traci Romine, International Finance Campaign Director
email: traci [at] priceofoil.org
Traci Romine’s career in environmental policy advocacy began in 1987 when she joined Greenpeace USA. She worked as team leader for Greenpeace International’s ocean ecology campaign, and served two terms as an elected NGO representative of the International Review Panel of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Traci was a member of the Greenpeace delegation to the Convention on Biodiversity and the UN Conference on Straddling Stocks and Highly Migratory Species, helping to build an international coalition of environmental and fishing interests to achieve a legally binding protocol on high seas fishing in 1996. She moved to Brazil to pursue her environmental career in 1994. From her base in Sao Paulo and later in Brasilia, Traci worked on two of the World Social Forums and served as Campaign Director for Greenpeace Brazil until 2003. In 2005, Traci joined the National Audubon Society as its Florida Climate Campaign Director.
The itch to return to Brazil and international political campaigning and organizing was so strong that she jumped at the opportunity to join Oil Change International. Based in Brasilia, Traci’s focus at Oil Change is building support and coalitions in southern countries to campaign for a phase out of fossil fuel subsidies and mechanisms to fund a global transition to clean energy. Traci is fluent in English and Portuguese, with a working knowledge of Spanish. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and sociology from California State University.
Lorne Stockman, Research Director
email: lorne [at] priceofoil.org
Lorne Stockman has worked on oil campaigns as campaigner, campaign coordinator, researcher and author for over ten years. For the past three years, he has worked as a consultant with Greenpeace UK, Platform and Oil Change International as researcher and author of numerous reports and briefings studying investor risk in tar sands and other marginal oil sources. He has extensive research and campaign experience, including analysis and publications on climate change and energy, political economy of oil, transitions in energy markets, energy security, and financial risk; human rights, social justice and environment & development; and political economy of development and trade issues. Lorne is the author of The Next Gulf: London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria with Andrew Rowell and James Marriott. Lorne holds a Master’s Degree from King’s College London.
Andrew Rowell
Contributing Editor, The Price of Oil
email: andy [at] priceofoil.org
When not blogging for Oil Change, Andy is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in environmental issues. He has written about the oil industry and climate change for twenty years and his books include: The Next Gulf: London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria, 2005, and Green Backlash – Global Subversion of the Environment Government, 1996. He is based in southwestern England.
Andy is also a director of the non-profit company Public Interest Investigations that runs SpinWatch.
Board of Directors
Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club
Thomas Cavanagh, Technical Director, Project Bandaloop and Financial & Technical Manager, Amazon Watch
Cole Frates, Co-Founder, Renewable Resources Group & EndOil
Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director, Oil Change International
Katherine Redford, Esq., Co-Founder and US Office Director of EarthRights International (ERI)
Maria Athena Ronquillo-Ballesteros, Senior Associate, Institutions and Governance Program, World Resources Institute
John Sellers, Founder, Agit-Pop