Who We Are

The founders of Ocean Champions are longtime ocean advocates David Wilmot, Ph.D., and Jack K. Sterne, Esq., who are also the lead authors of a groundbreaking new foundation-sponsored report, Turning the Tide: Charting a Course to Improve the Effectiveness of Public Advocacy for the Oceans. Their in-depth effectiveness study reveals that the ocean conservation community has focused on policy rather than politics, and at a cost. Electoral politics is a fundamental aspect of our nation’s political process and the keystone to policy success, yet the ocean conservation community is not a factor in the electoral arena. The report’s primary conclusion is that the ocean conservation community needs to “participate fully in the political process” to be more effective. Full participation means working directly to elect good candidates and defeat bad ones.

David Wilmot, Co-Founder and President

David Wilmot is a passionate ocean enthusiast who brings over twenty years of experience in ocean science, environmental policy, non-profit governance and fundraising, and political advocacy to Ocean Champions. David received his MS and BS from the University of Georgia where he also Co-Founded Students for Environmental Awareness. David traveled to the west coast to study the recently discovered deep-sea hydrothermal vents and received his PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. David continued his environmental work while at Scripps (worked with 2 fellow graduate students to ban Styrofoam on campus and local beaches) and it became clear his passion was advocacy. A National Sea Grant Marine Policy Fellowship at the National Research Council’s Ocean Studies Board helped David better understand ocean policy and the workings of Washington, DC. Next came the jump to advocacy with service as the Executive Director of the Ocean Wildlife Campaign (OWC) where for eight years he worked to build this coalition of six national and international organizations into the leading voice for the conservation of large ocean fishes. David has authored or co-authored numerous ocean science and conservation articles. David lives with his wife and two boys in the Santa Cruz area where they spend lots of time on and in the ocean. When he is not enjoying the ocean, or remodeling his house, David trains in the martial arts and has earned the rank of black belt in Shorinji-Ryu Karate-Do.

Mike Dunmyer, Executive Director

Mike Dunmyer is the Executive Director of Ocean Champions. Before joining Ocean Champions, Mike created, developed and led strategy, finance, marketing and operations organizations as a Vice President in the Fortune 500 world. From 2006 - 2009, Mike also served on the Ocean Champions Board of Directors. During that time he led a successful strategic planning and implementation effort and also managed the Board’s Executive Committee. Mike has an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a BA in Economics from Washington and Lee University. Mike has a great love for the ocean that comes from growing up in California, Hawaii, and the Delaware shore. He is a surfer and a grassroots activist for the Surfrider Foundation’s Capitol Chapter, and the Vice Chair of the National Aquarium Conservation Center’s Board of Directors. Mike, his wife and their two daughters live in Arlington, Virginia, but make frequent soul enriching journeys to Dewey Beach, Delaware.

Jack K. Sterne, Co-Founder and General Counsel

Jack Sterne is an environmental lawyer and strategic consultant with a two-decade record of success across a wide range of environmental and energy issues. He has been actively involved in shaping and implementing ocean policy and legislation for the last decade, and has led multiple projects that crafted consensus among environmental organizations, renewable energy companies, and utilities on appropriate national policy for ocean renewable energy development. He has provided strategic planning, coalition management, and policy and litigation counsel to a wide variety of environmental and energy clients, including the Offshore Wind Development Coalition, Environmental Defense Fund, Lazar Foundation, Oak Foundation, Ormat Technologies, Ocean Conservancy, Pacific Energy Ventures, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Sierra Club, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Wilderness Society. Jack was an official advisor on ocean issues for the transition team of President Obama. He is a frequent speaker at various energy, environment and legal conferences around the country, and has served on numerous non-profit boards. Jack is an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, teaching Ocean and Coastal Law. He has a B.A. from the University of Virginia, and a J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School.

Dr. Wilmot and Mr. Sterne are the lead authors of a groundbreaking new foundation-sponsored report, Turning the Tide: Charting a Course to Improve the Effectiveness of Public Advocacy for the Oceans (2003). The report identifies the “hallmarks of success” of noteworthy public advocacy organizations and uses these hallmarks to make important recommendations about improving the effectiveness of ocean conservation efforts in the United States.

Chris Laughlin, Executive Assistant/Program Manager

Chris is a passionate ocean enthusiast, enjoying the ocean environment near Arcata, California before moving to Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz. Prior to joining Ocean Champions, Chris' professional background included event coordination, startup business management, and conservation work in Yosemite National Park. Chris also conducted original research on the wildlife of managed timberlands of Northwest California. Chris' educational background includes a Business Management Study exchange program at Lincoln University in Canterbury, New Zealand and a B.A. from Humboldt State University in Recreation Administration with an emphasis in Business Administration. Her activities are central to the daily operations of Ocean Champions. During her spare time, Chris loves to surf, SCUBA dive, stand up paddle, rock climb and adventure travel.

Board of Directors

Samantha Campbell, Chairman of the Board

Samantha Campbell is the President of The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, which was founded by her father in 1999 and is headquartered in Annapolis, MD.  Her grants portfolio centers around marine conservation issues, although she strives to find projects with innovative approaches to a variety of environmental challenges, and she has a passion for effective communication.  Stimulating interest and involvement in ocean conservation and approaching problems with a practical and straightforward style are some of Samantha's commitments to her work as a grantmaker.  Ms. Campbell has a BFA in Advertising Design from Syracuse University.

Rob Moir, Founding Chairman

Dr. Moir, Executive Director of the Ocean River Institute, is an educator, scientist and activist with a proven history of institutional management and marine policy success.  Dr. Moir has been a leader of citizen science and efforts to clean up Salem Sound and Boston Harbor, as president of the advocacy organizations Salem Sound Harbor Monitors, Salem Sound 2000 and later Save the Harbor/Save the Bary (Boston), and through his appointment by the Secretary of Interior to the Boston Harbor Islands Partnership.  He was formerly Curator of Natural History at the Peabody Essex Museum, Curator of Education at the New England Aquarium and Executive Director of the Discovery Museums in Acton, Massachusetts.  Dr. Moir was awarded a Switzer Environmental Fellowship from the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation and the James Centorino Award for Distinguished Performance in Marine Education, by the National Marine Educators Association, which he also served as president.  He was Sea Education Association's first assistant scientist to work consecutive voyages of the R.V. Westward in 1979 and 1980, a major gifts officer for his alma mater, Hampshire College and serves today on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, the Cambridge School of Weston.  Dr. Moir has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies and a Masters of Science and Teaching from Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, New Hampshire, and certicate of studies from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. Dr. Moir played an important and significant role in the founding of Ocean Champions, he has been with the organization since its inception in 2003.

David H. Festa, Boardmember

Mr. Festa is Vice President of West Coast operations, as well as the national Land, Water and Wildlife Program at Environmental Defense Fund, where he oversees a team of 100 EDF employees - including scientists, economists and lawyers - to create transofrmational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. David joined EDF in 2003 to lead the Oceans Program. He took over as West Coast Vice President in 2007 and EDF added responsibility for the Land, Water and Wildlife work in 2010. In late 2008 and early 2009, David served on the Obama transition team for the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he worked during the Clinton administration as Director of Policy and Strategic Planning. He was an active member of the Secretary's team on trade and the environment, ocean resource management, and electronic commerce. He won honors for leading agency efforts to help Central America rebuild after Hurrican Mitch, one of the most powerful hurricanes on record. David's 25+-year career includes working as a journalist for The Economist, where he covered business, technology and science, and was nominated for the Glaxo Award for Science Journalism. He has been a management consultant, analyst for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, and Deputy Director of the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington, DC. He has assisted local governments in developing energy policies and formulating growth management plans. David has worked with national governments, the United Nations and multilateral development banks, including working with the World Bank on climate change strategies and modernizing environmental management in the former Soviet Union. He has helped businesses understand emerging energy and environmental issues and develop responses to them. David has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from the University of Virginia, where he earned a Jefferson Academic Achievement Scholarship, was an Echols Scholar (the University’s top honors program) and graduated with distinction.

Kim Haddow, Boardmember

Ms. Haddow is the Director of Communications for the Sierra Club. From 1995 to 2005, she was president of Haddow Communications, Inc., a strategic planning, communications, and consulting and advertising firm specializing in branding, targeting, and promoting the work of non-profit organizations. Prior to starting her firm in 1995, Ms. Haddow spent eight years at Greer, Margolis, Mitchell & Burns in Washington, D.C., where she provided media strategy and produced advertising for twenty-two statewide candidate and initiative campaigns, ranging from the Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Douglas Wilder to codification of Roe v. Wade in Washington State. She is a graduate of Washington College in Maryland and Loyola University of the South’s Institute of Politics.

David H. Klipstein, Boardmember

David H. Klipstein, currently Executive VP and Founder of Reaction Design, has over 45 years of chemical pollution control and energy industry experience in planning and directing, technology development and commercialization of new process design tools for those markets. Dr Klipstein received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University then worked as a process engineer at American Cyanamid for three years before enrolling in MIT to receive Master’s and ScD degrees with a minor in economics. Following graduation, Dr. Klipstein spent 10 years with Union Carbide working in coatings and new products marketing before yielding to his environmental interest by joining pollution control supplier, Research Cottrell. There, he headed research and long range planning for two years before taking charge of their division responsible for supplying pollution control systems for coal power plants. In 1985, Dr. Klipstein left Research Cottrell to participate in founding and growing two start-up companies, Biosym Technologies and Reaction Design. Their purpose has been to focus on developing and marketing computer-based simulation software to decrease the development cost and time to market of advanced pollution control for transportation fuels, engines and power turbines. Concurrent with this Dr. Klipstein has been active as a board member of Earth Justice. There his primary focus has been on helping to establish and grow their International Division who now leads EJ’s activities in Arctic Ocean sustainability and global warming. Complimentary to that, Dr. Klipstein has helped to connect Earth Justice to Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO) by facilitating a series of annual lectures by Steve Roady, Earth Justice’s principal ocean-focused lawyer, for SIO’s MS and PhD programs on ocean policy (CMBC).

Michael Sutton, Boardmember

Mr. Sutton serves as Vice President and Director of the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Previously, Mr. Sutton headed the Marine Fisheries Program at the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the largest private funder of wildlife conservation in North America, for five years. He also spent ten years with World Wildlife Fund, founding and directing WWF’s Endangered Seas Campaign, a worldwide effort to promote the conservation of marine fisheries and ecosystems. While at WWF, he co-founded both the Marine Stewardship Council, a business/environment partnership, and the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a coalition working to protect and conserve marine species in the United States. Sutton has a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University and a degree in international and natural resources law from George Washington University.

Beth Sullivan, Boardmember

As Executive Director of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund for seven years, Ms. Sullivan managed its massive and rapid growth from an organization of 5 staff with a budget of $800,000 in 1996 to one of 40 staff with a $12 million budget by 2001. For the ten years preceding her tenure at LCV Education Fund, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the Campaign Design Group, a Washington, D.C. political consulting firm that designed the winning campaigns for two long-shot candidates in 1992: Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Senator Patty Murray of Washington State. In addition to her work at the Campaign Design Group, Ms. Sullivan has staffed numerous campaigns, having helped elect 4 members of Congress, 75 state legislators, four mayors, and six city council members. She is currently an independent campaign consultant. Ms. Sullivan holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Dickinson College and a MURP from George Washington University.

Jeff Davis, Boardmember

Jeff Davis has had a lifelong interest in the ocean and expresses it in many ways, from sailing in the San Francisco Bay area to scuba diving (with his wife Carol) in the Monterey Bay. Jeff has volunteered for the Monterey Bay Aquarium for 10 years and is a conservationist at heart. He believes that natural resources should not be wasted and that we have a responsibility to act as stewards of the earth, leaving things better than they were found. Jeff and Carol split their time between the central coast of California and Coos Bay, Oregon.

Consultants

Patrick Collins

A native of Minnesota, Patrick Collins has worked in the U.S. House and Senate, and served as a political appointee in the Clinton Administration. He now serves as an advocate on behalf of the oceans for both Ocean Champions and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

He enjoys ice-fishing sustainably, and each year hosts the Ultimate PC Support Group Experience and Croquet Tournament in Minnesota, an event that has been attended by U.S. Senators, various important, high-level government officials, and lots of just regular folks.