About Us

Moving Forward Together

Clean Wisconsin strives to ensure a safe, healthy future for every Wisconsin community by fighting climate change and pollution.

With an active membership and advocacy base 20,000-strong, Clean Wisconsin’s dedicated staff of experts conducts sound science, engages in public policy, takes legal action, and fosters strong partnerships to advocate for laws and practices that ensure a healthy future for all Wisconsin communities.

For more than 50 years, since our founding as Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade in 1970, Clean Wisconsin has been working to protect all that makes our state special — breathable air, drinkable water, fishable, swimmable lakes and rivers, and thriving ecosystems.

 

To combat climate change and pollution in our air, water, and land, and ensure a healthy future for every Wisconsin community.

Together, with concerned individuals, committed partners, and policy-makers, we use scientific, legal, and policy expertise to combat climate change, reduce pollution, and ensure a healthy future for every Wisconsin community.

Clean Wisconsin is committed to equity and inclusion. Our mission to protect and preserve the clean water, air, and special places of our state is non-discriminatory.

Everyone, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, income, and religion, deserves the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a state which embraces a healthy environment as a part of a strong economy. Clean Wisconsin works to address environmental injustices, from issues such as climate change, access to clean drinking water, and air pollution and its health effects by elevating and empowering marginalized voices.

Clean Wisconsin is dedicated to addressing implicit biases through implementing equitable hiring practices and mindfully approaching our program work. We do not tolerate harassment, racism, discrimination, oppression, or retaliation. We are aware of the systemic racism and prejudices within our society, as well as the historic lack of inclusion in the environmental community. We are working to address the intersection of these biases, because we understand that the true heart of environmental work means advocating for those who have been historically marginalized and most disproportionately impacted by environmental harms, past, present, or future. Advancing equity is essential to our work.

A group of community members posing in front of a tent at a bicycle event at a children's park
our origins

Foundation Story

It was the 1970s and rivers were catching on fire. Wisconsin’s own Fox River was practically dead. In response, national environmental leaders like Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day, and the National Environmental Policy Act was passed.

It was in this context that a handful of foresightful Wisconsinites, led by Doug La Follette and Peter Anderson, recognized the need to have an organized effort to protect Wisconsin’s cherished yet vulnerable environment. Knowing that ensuring concrete protections for our air, water, and landscapes required an active voice within the Capitol, La Follette and Anderson formed our organization under the name Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade on that first Earth Day in 1970.

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Meet our Team

Tom Agger, Clean Buildings Manager

Jacob Ahrens-Balwit, Strategic Communications Manager

Amy Barrilleaux, Communications Director

Kaysee Beckstrom, Office Manager

Chelsea Chandler, Climate, Energy & Air Program Director

Tamar Cloyd

Tamar Cloyd, Grants Consultant

Ciaran Gallagher, Ph.D., Energy & Air Manager

Evan Feinauer, Staff Attorney

Erik Kanter, Government Relations Director

Ryan Kelly, Development Director

Brett Korte, Staff Attorney

Paul Mathewson, Ph.D., Science Program Director

Katie Nekola, General Counsel

Matt Ouren, Stakeholder Engagement Manager

Mark Redsten, President & CEO

Nancy Retana, Clean Wisconsin

Nancy Retana, Resilient Communities Program Director

Logan Rude, Digital & Social Media Content Specialist

Akshaya Sawant, Video Production Consultant

Ethan Taxman, Green Infrastructure Manager

David Tipson, Vice President

Jackson Walker, Membership and Outreach Manager

Sara Walling, Water and Agriculture Program Director

Katherine (Kata) Young, Natural Climate Solutions Manager

Reports

Each year, Clean Wisconsin produces an Annual Report highlighting our work from the prior year.
2021 Annual Report | 2020 Annual Report | Prior Annual Reports


Clean Wisconsin is a charitable organization exempt from taxation under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
2018 Clean Wisconsin 990 Financial Statement

2018 Clean Wisconsin Audited Financial Statement