Pam Richart, Secretary
Pam Richart is a trained land use and environmental planner who co-directs the non-profit Eco-Justice Collaborative (EJC) in Champaign, Illinois. Established in 2007, EJC promotes climate solutions that integrate environmental, economic, and social justice. Prior to EJC, Richart was a principal and co-owner of Planning Resources Inc., an environmental and land use planning firm in Chicago's western suburbs. In that role, she directed and conducted analyses for public transportation projects across the Midwest, developing public involvement programs to build consensus on complex proposals.

In the mid-1990’s, a series of trips to Latin America helped transform Pam’s way of thinking about socio-economic and environmental crises both at home and globally. She subsequently served on the board of Jubilee Economics, a faith-based organization that contextualizes the healing and restoration of our one earth with the ancient practices of the biblical jubilee, and was founding board member of Chicago Fair Trade.  In 2000, Pam and Lan decided to infuse eco-justice into their work, and began the process of transitioning both leadership and ownership of PRI. This enabled them to start Eco-Justice Collaborative, with its mission that advocates ecological sustainability and just distribution of resources.

Pam served on the leadership team of the Downstate Caucus of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC) untll 2020, where equity, inclusiveness, diversity and wealth building is key to developing energy and climate policy.  In January 2021, Pam organized the Natural Climate Solutions Working Group of the ICJC  The focus of the work is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating or restoring carbon sinks through health soils and land conservation, and to improve community resilience through access to land, local food production and markets.