WELL People
Lauren T. Klein Hayes
Lauren T. Klein Hayes has been a social change activist for many years. She has consulted with environmental non-profits on their boards and as staff. Most recently, she was Director of “Don't Be Fueled! Mothers for Clean and Safe Vehicles,” a campaign to increase awareness of vehicle fuel economy and emissions, and is an Executive Committee member of WELL Network. She has served on numerous boards including International Rivers Network, River of Words, and Nina Wise's "Motion," Institute for Deep Ecology, The Community Service Club at Marin Country Day School. She was a founder of The Stegner Environmental Center of the S.F. Main Library, Pesticide Education Group and UnReasonable Women for the Earth, of which 'CodePink' is a project. In 1987 Ms. Klein Hayes co-founded the San Francisco Volunteer Council of NRDC, serving as President for four years. Additionally, she served as Chair and member of the Social Justice Committee of the Threshold Foundation for 7 years. She is a founding partner of the TUVA Foundation, a rainforest preserve in Costa Rica. Prior to moving back to her native Bay Area in 1985, she was an Art Director and Production Manager for several publishing houses in New York and Boston. Ms. Klein Hayes holds a Masters degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from CIIS in San Francisco and is a graduate of Scripps College in Philosophy and French, completing her high school years at the International School in Brussels, Belgium. She is a mother of two and a breast cancer survivor.
Strategy Staff
Sarah Diefendorf
Sarah Diefendorf is Executive Director of the Environmental Finance Center for Region IX, which works closely with USEPA to promote cleaner business. Her efforts in this position include coordinating county and state Green Business Programs throughout the four-state region. Prior to this position, Ms. Diefendorf was a senior associate for the Alameda Center for Environmental Technologies, where she helped establish an environmental business incubator, and she worked as an environmental planning consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2000, she founded the Women's Environmental Network, which now has nearly 1000 members. Ms. Diefendorf is an Expert Witness for the USEPA National Environmental Finance Advisory Board, and she is a member of the steering committee for the Western Regional Pollution Prevention Network. Ms. Diefendorf also serves on the national board as 2nd Vice President of the League of Women Voters and is an international trainer in grassroots democracy. Sarah received her Master's degree in Environmental Geography and is currently writing the final chapters of her Ph.D., both through Cambridge University.
Jill Kauffman Johnson
Jill Kauffman Johnson is a Principal at California Environmental Associates with policy and operations experience in environmental strategic planning and hazardous materials issues. She assists clients with organizational launch and development and has helped spawn more than five environmental organizations in the past 15 years. Ms. Kauffman Johnson was the founding Executive Director of the Chemical Strategies Partnership, which she created with the assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1996. She led the effort to initiate the membership-based, CMS Forum, which was launched in 2000 with the support of several CMS providers. Prior to joining CEA, Ms. Kauffman Johnson was the founding Director of the Pacific Coast Regional Office of the Center for Marine Conservation. She also served as a market analyst for recycled plastic at the US Environmental Protection Agency. She has published several reports and papers on issues of reducing marine pollution and markets for recycled products. Ms. Kauffman Johnson holds an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard University and a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University.
Peggy Lauer
Peggy Lauer is the director of the WELL Network. She coordinated the first WELL speaker events while she was the Executive Director of the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, and she continues as an advisor to the foundation for the Environment Program. For 11 years, she was the vice president of the Resource Renewal Institute (RRI), where she oversaw programs and staff in the Bay Area and New York, and managed policy tours and outreach between RRI and the practitioners of the Netherlands and New Zealand green plans. In 1998, she was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Auckland. She launched the Public Trust Alliance in 2002, which is now a project of RRI.
Ms. Lauer is a former journalist and editor. She has a BA in English Literature from Merrimack College, and has completed graduate work in environmental studies and urban planning. She lives in Vista, in San Diego County, and is a volunteer member of the Environmental Working Group at The San Diego Foundation.
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