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BOARD OF
DIRECTORS


Douglas Richards
President
email - bio

William H. Dent, Jr.
Vice President
email - bio

Chris Parel
Secretary
email -bio

Samuel Lee Hancock
email -bio

Donnie Shaw
email -bio

DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Mary Anne Rishebarger

email  - bio


William H. Dent, Jr.
email - bio

Douglas Richards
email - bio


STAFF


William H. Dent, Jr.
Executive Director
email - bio

Jésus Arriaga-Vazquez
Program Director Mexico, Monarch Sister Schools Program
email - bio

Mary Anne Rishebarger
Program Director US, Monarch Sister Schools Program
email  - bio

Molly O Hoopes
Monarch Sister Schools Program Baltimore


Flavio C. Pinheiro
Representative in Brazil
email - bio




 


ADVISORY
COUNCIL


Christopher Puttock
bio

Bertus Meins
 


Douglas Richards  email
Douglas W. Richards is Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Vice President-Investments at Raymond James in Washington, DC.  He previously oversaw the operations of the R&R Financial Group, a money management group within Morgan Stanley, providing global equity portfolio management to individuals and institutions.

Doug began his career in the financial service industry in 1977 with the firm of Thomson McKinnon Securities where he acted as a Financial Advisor to individual investors. In 1989 Prudential Financial acquired Thomson and Doug continued his financial advisory role there. In 1994 Doug joined Prudential's portfolio management program and began managing individual client accounts on a discretionary basis. Within this context, in 1999 Doug joined with Sheldon Ray to form an investment management group with the focus of value-oriented, total return, global equity investing. At Prudential, the group successfully applied its strategy to individual client portfolios through 2001. In November 2001, Doug and his group moved their operations to UBS Financial Services, Inc., applying their strategy to client accounts.

In addition to portfolio management and handling the group's operations, Doug is focused on generational wealth transfer issues for the group's clients. He has been instrumental in developing and establishing the group's balanced and fixed income portfolio strategies. He has also been responsible for overseeing the group's ongoing expansion through asset mergers and acquisitions.

Before accepting the chair as board president, Doug initially served on the Advisory Council of Natural Partners, to enlist the cooperation of governmental, corporate, and local interests in developing sustainable conservation projects. Doug has also provided assistance to the Caribbean Region offices of The Nature Conservancy on local conservation efforts to protect 2500 acres of land on the island of St. Croix.

Doug has been actively involved with the Boy Scouts; helping scouts at Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church, Arlington, VA organize efforts and raise funds, enabling scouts to travel to South Africa to conduct the troop's service project to rebuild a Scout camp in Cape Town. Through the church, he is also regularly involved with the volunteer program, Rebuilding Together, in their annual home renovation efforts. In his spare time, Doug is an avid cyclist and is a life-long member of the Sycamore Island Canoe Club on the Potomac River.

Doug has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington College in Maryland, and lives in Alexandria VA with his wife Debbie. His son is also an active volunteer for Natural Partners, and the tragic early passing of his daughter Natalie sparked a lasting engagement with the preservation of the iconic Monarch Butterfly.
 


William H. Dent, Jr. email
William H. Dent is a native of Washington, DC. After attending the University of Maryland, where he earned a Bachelor's in history, he served in the Peace Corps in Chile. Upon his return, he did graduate work at the University of Chicago, earning a Master's degree in education and an MBA in finance. With the support of the Ford Foundation, William moved to Brazil to serve as a consultant to BNDES, the National Development Bank of Brazil, where he assisted Roberto Lima Netto in founding SEBRAE, Brazil's Small Business Administration, today the country's most important 'business school' for aspiring entrepreneurs. 

From 1980 to 1989, William served as project manager at the Inter-American Development Bank putting together a number of innovative projects in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, involving investments in excess of $2 billion. During the 1990's, William was CEO of CD-ROM International, which provided bibliographic databases (e.g., Medline) and related IT services to some 200 institutions in Brazil. In early 2003, William founded Natural Partners and currently serves as its Executive Director. He was instrumental in developing the concepts for Natural Partners’ main programs: (1) Pró-Viveiros (Brazil), which provides management and technical training to operators of tree nurseries to help them expand and improve the diversity and quality of their production; and (2) the Monarch Sister Schools Program (U.S. and Mexico), which involves school children in the restoration of the habitat of the Monarch butterfly in both countries and facilitates a cultural exchange between sister schools.

Since several decades William has been active in the Washington DC Rotary Club where has served as Secretary of the Club and on the Club’s Board of Directors, chair of the Club’s Trees for the Capital program and on the Board of the Rotary Foundation of Washington, DC.
 


Chris Parel   email
Chris Parel is a native of Arlington, Virginia. He earned a BA at Amherst College in 1966 and an MA in Economics from Harvard. He was awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship to work on project analysis at BNDES, Brazil's national development bank. He subsequently worked in Brazil for McKinsey & Co. Management Consultants and for the Jari and Tucurui Projects in the Amazon region. He then moved to the Philippines with FMC Corporation's agricultural chemicals division as Business Planning Manager for the Asia operations.

Chris returned to the Washington area in 1983 to work at the World Bank where he served for 23 years.  Following retirement he has consulted widely at the Bank. He entered the Bank as an Investment Officer with the International Finance Corporation and then moved to the IBRD where he worked in Planning and Budgeting and the Venezuela and Brazil country operations as Country Officer and then as a Public Sector Management Specialist task managing projects primarily in Brazil.  While working in Brazil he developed a new performance based lending modality and following retirement has been deeply involved in assisting teams in Latin America, Asia and Africa develop similar operations most notably in Nigeria, Mozambique, India, the Philippines, Brazil and Argentina.

Jésus Arriaga-Vazquez
Jésus Arriaga-Vazquez is a native of Mexico and resides near the town of Zitácuaro, State of Michoacán. He completed his studies at the Universidad de Morelia. He has received extensive training from Reforestamos México, a nonprofit specialized in environmental education and reforestation projects. Jésus has served as Mexico coordinator for the Monarch Sister Schools Program since March 2011 and has shown outstanding leadership in working with local schools, other NGOs and government institutions.
 


Dr. Samuel Lee Hancock   email
President & Executive Director, EmeraldPlanet International Foundation, Creator & Host, The EmeraldPlanet TV

The EmeraldPlanet International Foundation (EPIF), a.k.a. EmeraldPlanet Board of Directors and Board of Advisors are composed of leading specialists, experts, practitioners, opinion-leaders, authors, researchers, and professors on innovative, sustainable, and resilient  ‘green’ environmental, economic, and community development topics, issues, practices, and projects around the globe. The activities of the EmeraldPlanet leadership include publishing, education, research, training, idea exchanges, competitions, and citizen engagement with numerous international bodies through its headquarters in Washington, D.C. USA.  The EmeraldPlanet works in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in collaboration with the PanAmerican-PanAfrican Association (Pa/Pa) and with the Council of Non-Governmental Organizations (CoNGO).  It is also a “Strategic Partner” with The World Bank Group Connect4Climate program.

Dr. Hancock has earned a doctorate in management with special concentrations in international economics and political science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia. He is a Certified Professional Manager [CM] through the Institute of Certified Professional Managers (located at James Madison University), Harrisonburg, Virginia.  Both are top ranked universities in their respective institutions of higher learning categories in the United States. 
 


Donnie Shaw   email
Born, raised and educated in Washington DC, Donnie received two Associate Degrees from Prince George's Community College in 1986, and in 1989 a BSBA degree in International Business and Marketing from American University. For the past 30+ years he has been working for the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington in various capacities, currently as the Director of Community Relations-DC. Donnie's background includes Aquatics, Health and Safety, Public Health, Environmentalism, Landscaping, Real Estate, Youth Sports and Programs, Public Service and Public Relations, Community Affairs, Marketing, Volunteering and Volunteer Boards. He currently serves as Board Chair of Woodridge Warriors Youth Organization in Washington, DC.

Donnie previously served as American Red Cross Trained Lifeguard Instructor, Member of National Association of  Black Scuba Divers (NABS),  Board Member of Community of Hope, Inc. (overseeing the launch of a Primary Care Center in Ward 8, providing housing, medical and dental care for transitional families), Elected member of Live Well DC Council, Member of 100 Fathers, DC, FAN Representative and Community, Advisory Member for Emergency Care Services for Children (EMSC),
Community Advisory Board Member for Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN)-DC,
Member of Rotary of Washington Foundation Board,
Member of DC Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council,
Board Member of People Animals Love (PAL),
Board Member of Save the Hood Foundation Hockey, and
Volunteer/Hockey Dad with Ft. DuPont Hockey
 

 Mary Anne Rishebarger  email  

After working and living in England and Switzerland in the mid 80's, Mary Anne moved to Baltimore, Maryland and raised 2 children with her husband, Mark.

She received an MBA from Loyola University in 2013 after her children graduated from High School. As an Entrepreneur, Mary Anne has run several successful companies including BTX, a Business-to-Business Barter Exchange and a Food Truck called Farm to Charm.  Most of her working career has been in Sales, Marketing, and Fundraising.

Mary Anne joined the Baltimore Rotary Club in 2001 and served as the 2nd female President in over 100 years.  She also served as Rotary Area Governor from 2011 – 2017.  She is a charter member and past President of the new Rotary Club of Baltimore Sunset. Mary Anne raised local funds and received matching Rotary Grants to build a gravity-powered water treatment plant in Atima, Honduras. The $90K final project was completed in one year, working with local NGO’s, Cornell University Engineers, and the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara, Honduras. It created 2 full time jobs for local residents. Mary Anne is a Paul Harris Fellow, a member of ESRAG: Environmental Sustainability Rotarian Action Group, and a member of the International Rotary Yacht Squadron of Chesapeake Bay.

She raised a yellow lab for Guiding Eyes for the Blind in 2020. Since managing the US MSSP she has facilitated the planting of over 30 native monarch pollinator gardens in Schools and communities in Maryland, Pennsylvania, & Texas.


Christopher Puttock  
 Chris has three decades experience in environmental conservation and restoration. He is particularly concerned with the maintenance of ecosystems to function naturally, sustainably, and in preventing demise of ecological services by human exploitation reaching past the tipping point where nature is not permanently damaged. In Hawaii Chris was the liaison for 12 government and 4 NGOs managing 100% of the marine areas and 87% of the land of the Hawaiian Islands. Chris arranged the annual environmental conservation conference with more than 1000 attendees. In Maryland Chris runs a native plant nursery producing plants to sustain the native flora and fauna of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Chris is a regular speaker at meetings of botanical and native plant societies, master gardeners, master naturalist and garden clubs.

Chris is an active Rotarian, Immediate Past Chair of Projects for ESRAG, has given many conservation presentations, including the past 100 years 99% demise of keystone species, and on climate change and its relationship to the six Areas of Focus. In 2014 Chris toured India with Kindness in Action, Inc., with the specific goal of finding environmental sustainability of Rotary’s humanitarian projects. Chris is Past President of the Rotary Club of College Park, Maryland (2016-2017).

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Flavio C. Pinheiro   email
Mr. Pinheiro is a resident of São Paulo, Brazil. He earned a BS in Molecular Sciences from the University of São Paulo, then a Master's degree in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University, writing his Master's thesis on corporate voluntary initiatives and environmental reporting, with a focus on the principles of the Business Charter for Sustainable Development of the International Chamber of Commerce.

From May 2000 to October 2001, Mr. Pinheiro worked for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in Washington DC and Boston on international and regional projects for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Now based in Sao Paulo, he continues to work for the U.S. EPA as a subcontractor to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in São Paulo, serving as coordinator of the Integrated Environmental Strategies project for the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, which evaluates technology and policy options for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution for this major metropolitan area. Flavio assisted William Dent with preparations to start Natural Partners work in Brazil and served as its representative from 2003 to 2006, when he assumed a management position at Econergy in São Paulo. Flavio continues as a valued advisor of the organization of Natural Partners.