Staff

Mike Belliveau
Executive Director

Mike Belliveau, public policy expert and social entrepreneur, is recognized nationally for promoting environmental public health and green chemistry. For thirty years, he has advanced innovative policies and strategic organizing to prevent harm and develop a sustainable economy. Through Mike’s leadership of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, the state of Maine has set the national pace for protecting human health from unnecessary dangerous chemicals.

Mike co-founded the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, which led the campaign that passed a landmark state law that requires safer chemicals in everyday products. He’s also a co-founder and policy coordinator of SAFER, the State Alliance for Federal Reform, a multi-state coalition working to overhaul chemical policy throughout the United States. At the Strategy Center, Mike launched a model economic development strategy through the Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine, a business-university-nonprofit consortium working to research, develop and commercialize production of bio-based plastics made from Maine potatoes. The manufacturing of this non-toxic, petroleum-free, and bio-compostable material will create good green jobs and boost the regional rural economy.

Previously, Mike led the most comprehensive mercury reduction campaign in the nation for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. In California, he directed Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), which he built into a powerful voice for urban environmental health and justice, and industrial pollution prevention. He was named by California Magazine as one of the people most likely to have a major impact on the state. He was appointed by then-Governor Jerry Brown to the California Hazardous Waste Management Council.

Mike grew up in New England and graduated from MIT with an environmental science degree. He lives with his family on Pushaw Lake in Maine on the edge of l’Acadie, the homeland to ten generations of his Acadian ancestors. When he’s not on the road, Mike loves to paddle or ski from his back door, or wander round the garden.

[Close]

Amanda Sears
Associate Director

Amanda Sears co-founded the Environmental Health Strategy Center in 2002. Amanda is the Development and Communications Director for the Center working to build support for the organization and our work. She also chairs the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, a broad based coalition working to phase out the use of unnecessary toxic chemicals in Maine, and beyond. 

Amanda is a past President of the Maine Public Health Association, a member of the Prevention Working Group of the Maine Cancer Consortium and one of Maine’s representatives to SAFER, a group of state based organizations working together to reshape federal chemical policies.

Prior to working with the Center Amanda organized Mainers to force the State’s biggest air polluter to clean up to modern standards with the Natural Resources Council of Maine, helped secure funding for protection of natural and cultural resources in NH with Citizens for NH Land and Community Heritage and the Northern Forest Alliance, and trained college students to be effective political advocates with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group.

Amanda and her husband Brad recently welcomed a new baby, Forrest, into their family. Meanwhile daughter, Chloe has already been making headlines as the littlest advocate for safer products. Check out her media debut here.

[Close]

Steven Taylor
Program Director

Steven Taylor is a long-time organizer and advocate with twenty years of experience in leadership development, campaign strategy, strategic planning, and organizing within the environmental, social justice and labor movements. He serves as the Strategy Center’s Campaign Manager leading our environmental health campaign and coordinating the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine.

Steve joined EHSC’s staff in January 2005. He previously coordinated national campaigns to hold the U.S. military accountable for the environmental and health damage caused by its activities. Steve has also served as organizing director for the Maine People’s Alliance, where he helped win reauthorization of Maine’s Toxics Use Reduction Act, and worked as an organizer for SOCM (Save Our Cumberland Mountains) in Appalachia, for public employee unions in Georgia and Louisiana and as a boycott organizer for the United Farm Workers.

Steve grew up in New Orleans, and graduated with honors from Oberlin College. He lives in Topsham, Maine with his wife Tracy and son Jasiah. He enjoys cooking, hiking, soccer, and cross country skiing.

[Close]

Jenny Rottmann
Managing Director

Jenny Rottmann is Managing Director at the Environmental Health Strategy Center, where she works to maintain the effectiveness of EHSC as a powerful and efficient organization.

Prior to joining the Strategy Center in 2009, Jenny was Organizing Director at the Maine People’s Alliance and Maine People’s Resource Center, Maine’s largest citizen action group and a key partner in the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, where she coordinated a team of seven community organizers working on a range of campaigns around the state. Prior to her role as Organizing Director, Jenny was a community organizer herself. She came home to Maine after working with the Center for Community Change in Washington DC, an organization which helps low-income people build powerful, effective organizations through which they can change their communities for the better, and the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows program of the Congressional Hunger Center.

Jenny has a masters degree in Public Policy and Management with a focus on financial management from the Muskie School of Public Service and a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College. A native of Blue Hill, Maine, she now lives in Portland with her husband, Andy.

[Close]

Andrew Files
Sustainable Bioplastics Coordinator

Andrew Files has worked as Coordinator of the Sustainable Bioplastics Cluster Enhancement Project since July 2008. Andrew provides leadership to our sustainable economics work and coordinates our relationships with the businesses, organizations and academics we work with on the bioplastics project.

Before coming to the Environmental Health Strategy Center in 2008, Andrew worked as an Associate Scientist in the School of Economics at the University of Maine, where he earned an M.S. degree in 1999 in Resources Economics and Policy with a concentration in Agricultural Economics. During his recent time at the University of Maine, Andrew took part in, and managed projects related to, sustainable agriculture research. These projects ranged from producing videos in which farmers describe sustainable agriculture from their perspectives to a large, three-state project focused on re-integrating crops and livestock. In his more distant past Andrew worked as a process engineer after graduating with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maine.

[Close]

Rachelle Curran
Development and Marketing Manager

Rachelle has a master’s degree in Environment and Community and an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science. Prior to joining EHSC Rachelle worked for a decade at several non-profit environmental and social change organizations, including Maine Audubon and the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group.

Since moving to Portland, Rachelle has spent much of her non-work time on the leadership team building the Portland Food Co-op. She currently sits on the Co-op’s Board.

Rachelle grew up in Gorham, Maine and spent many years exploring the west and east coast before choosing to live in Portland. She spends her free time adventuring in nature, in the warm months, sea kayaking and hiking, and in the snowy months, snowshoeing and cross country skiing.

[Close]

Emma Halas-O'Connor
Grassroots Organizer

As EHSC’s Grassroots Organizer, Emma Halas-O’Connor works to mobilize support in communities all over Maine to protect and advance environmental health protections for children. Emma first developed her interest in community organizing as an intern for the Maine League of Young Voters, where she worked on several issue campaigns in Lewiston and Portland. In the fall of 2009 she became a field organizer for Southern Maine with the National Education Association, and later spent a year as a labor organizer with the Maine Education Association, where she worked to increase membership and participation within staff unions in the University of Maine.

Emma graduated in 2009 with a B.A. in US History from Bates College, where she studied the local history of textile workers in Lewiston, Maine. Her studies also brought her to Ecuador, where she interned at a rural school as an English and literacy instructor and assisted local leaders in a socioeconomic survey of surrounding indigenous Kichwa communities. In addition to her work with EHSC, Emma is an active member of the Maine League of Young Voters where she sits on the Elections Committee. Emma grew up in downtown Boston but was always fond of her summers at Tanglewood 4-H Camp and Learning Center in Lincolnville, Maine. She has been Maine resident for the past 6 years and has enjoyed hiking, skiing, and exploring this great state ever since!

[Close]