Lee Ketelsen, New England Co-Director
Lee has been working for Clean Water Action since 1988. She oversees the projects and campaigns in the New England states and works out of the Boston office. Her first community organizing job was in an African-American neighborhood on the west-side of Chicago, where she built a powerful neighborhood organization which won precedent setting victories for the area. She then worked for Massachusetts Fair Share, a multi-issue citizen organization, as Metro-North director and Toxics Campaign Director. Lee graduated from Princeton University in 1977 as a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Cindy Luppi, New England Co-Director
Cindy has worked with Clean Water Action since 1994, helping to coordinate a number of coalitions and community-based efforts to reduce pollution and promote a cleaner, more sustainable economy.  In addition to acting as regional co-director, she supervises Clean Water's program in Connecticut.  Among other clean energy and climate initiatives, she coordinated the Northeast Clean Power Campaign which successfully pressed for clean-up of the region's biggest industrial polluters, the oldest and most polluting coal and oil-fired power plants in New England. She represents Clean Water Action on the Green Justice Coalition which is dedicated to stimulating green jobs creation in growth sectors such as energy efficiency and providing pathways out of poverty in low income communities of color in Massachusetts. She is currently helping to staff SAFER, a multi-state network of diverse environmental health coalitions pressing for new state and national chemical policies that will prevent harm to our health.  She also acts as a senior strategist and steering committee member for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national effort dedicated to replacing toxic chemicals in personal care products with safer alternatives. Prior to her work at Clean Water, Cindy coordinated the Cree Speaking Tour for Massachusetts Save James Bay and was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic.

Jeff Knudsen, Administrative Director
Jeff has worked in the non-profit sector and government service for over the past 25 years.  He joined Clean Water Action in April of 2000.  He is responsible for the general administration, finance, grant tracking and program budgeting for the New England offices.  He also coordinates the MA election activities and is the chair of the state PAC.  He is a long-time activist with various civil liberties, choice, socialist and LGBT groups.  Jeff and his husband, Michael reside in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston.

Elizabeth Saunders, Legislative Director
Elizabeth joined the Clean Water Action team in January of 2001 as a Campaign Organizer working with the New England Zero Mercury Campaign and (shortly thereafter) the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow a statewide coalition to prevent harm to our health from toxics.  She led Clean Water Action’s efforts to pass the Massachusetts Mercury Products Bill which culminated in a victory in 2006.  Currently Elizabeth coordinates the legislative campaign of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, acting as a lobbyist, media liason, coalition coordinator, and grassroots organizer.  Elizabeth has a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University.  She has called Massachusetts home for her entire life and currently lives in a co-operative house in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.

Becky Smith, Water Coordinator
A Mississippi native, Becky has traveled the country with Clean Water Action beginning in Texas in 2001, then opening Clean Water Action's operations in South Dakota, and now working here in Massachusetts since the spring of 2005. In her role as Massachusetts Water Coordinator, Becky has helped to establish the Massachusetts Campaign to Protect Drinking Water, leads the Boston Lead-Free Drinking Water Initiative, and serves on two advisory committee positions to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Becky earned her B.A. in Political Science and English Literature from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia. When not swimming in the latest swimming-hole discovery or creating in the kitchen, she keeps busy chasing this guy, Mr. Guthry: 

  Alex Papali, Green Justice Campaign Organizer
Originally from southern India, Alex Papali has lived in the Boston area since 1984, and been organizing locally for several years. His areas of focus have varied widely- from prison issues to youth development to immigrant rights to low-income tenant organizing- with the goal of developing a broad consciousness about structural causes of inequity and injustice. At CWA, Alex is an organizer for the Green Justice Campaign, a statewide coalition effort between more than 40 community, environmental and labor groups working to build a just green economy. He holds a Master's from the University of Life, and lives with his wife in Jamaica Plain, from where they plot their next adventure off the grid.

Vanessa Green, Diesel Campaign Organizer
Vanessa recently returned from living in the DC area, but grew up in and around Boston. She attended Northeastern University before going to The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden to do a collaborative Masters degree in Social & Political Ethics. Before her recent travels and Masters program, she was a Canvasser and Canvass Director with Clean Water Action for 3 years. Vanessa is familiar with Massachusetts communities and issues, and now helps coordinate Clean Water Action Diesel Campaign at federal, state & local levels. She enjoys making complex political issues accessible to others and helping them turn their beliefs into concrete action! In her spare time, she likes to practice and teach Iyengar-style yoga to anyone in need of reducing tension and increasing awareness in body & mind.