Leadership
Our President: Erich Pica
Friends of the Earth Action President Erich Pica is a nationally recognized environmental and progressive leader, and an economics expert on energy subsidies. Erich has worked to reform U.S. tax and budget policy to reduce pollution and increase clean energy. His core belief that the solution to the climate crisis rests at the intersection of justice and the environment has shaped Friends of the Earth Action’s strategy and mission. Under Erich’s tenure, Friends of the Earth Action’s supporter base has grown to more than two million people.
Erich serves as the chair of the board of the Partnership Project and Partnership Project Action Fund. He is a former Democracy Initiative board member, a former board member of the Safe Energy Communication Council and former chair of the Green Group.
Prior to becoming Friends of the Earth Action’s president in 2009, Erich served as the organization’s director of domestic programs, where he led campaigns to bring emerging technologies like nanotechnology and synthetic biology under greater public and regulatory control and to reform how the federal government manages and invests in our transportation system.
Our Board
Arturo Garcia-Costas
Chair
Arturo Garcia-Costas brings nearly 30 years of experience as an environmental professional and activist to Friends of the Earth Action, including working for both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. He serves as the Senior Program Officer for the Local, National, and International Environment at The New York Community Trust, where he manages a program focused on climate change, environmental health, and biodiversity conservation. He has worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Congressman Jerry Nadler. In the early 2000s, Arturo also managed a United Nations Development Programme initiative to help developing nations implement the 1994 Earth Summit treaties. Arturo earned a B.A. from the City University of New York, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an M.S. in Urban Policy and Leadership from Hunter College.
Eva Hernandez
Eva has worked in the environmental movement for over two decades at the local, national and international levels. Most recently, Eva served as the Managing Director of the Sierra Club where she worked for over a decade. Currently, Eva works with The Management Center – helping social justice leaders across the US build and run equitable, sustainable, and results driven organizations.
In addition to Friends of the Earth US, Eva serves on the Boards of GAVA (Go Austin/Vamos Austin) and Mothers out Front. She believes in the power of people and communities and strives to put her core values of justice and integrity into practice every day. To recharge, Eva reconnects with nature & community in the Texas Hill Country or in a swimming hole near Austin, TX, where she’s based with her family.
Bethany Maki
Bethany is a skilled nonprofit strategist and team facilitator with a passion for working at intersections – where people-powered movements create systemic change, where understanding incites activation, and where people, process and technology working in supported harmony bring progressive power-building strategies to life. As a grant maker, consultant and in-house at some of the country’s most impactful nonprofit organizations, she has spent 23 years partnering with nonprofit groups to grow in scale and self-determination through independent revenue generation. Bethany currently serves as the Executive Director of Progressive Multiplier Fund and Action Fund and CEO of Multiplier Effect, whose collective purpose is helping progressive movement groups achieve sustainability and scalability by strengthening their catalytic revenue generation capacities and diversifying their financial capital.
Chloe Maxmin
Hailing from rural Maine, Chloe is the Co-Founder of Dirtroad Organizing alongside her best friend, Canyon Woodward. She also runs Begin Again Farm with her partner, Bill Pluecker, growing organic vegetables for her community. Chloe received an honors degree from Harvard College, where she co-founded Divest Harvard. Chloe served in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018 and the Maine State Senate in 2020. She was the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine Senate. Chloe is also the Co-Founder/Advisor at JustME for JustUS–a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice–and the co-author (with Canyon) of Dirt Road Revival.
Nick Sifuentes
Nick serves as Director for the Summit Foundation’s Sustainable Cities program, which works to ensure our cities reduce carbon emissions and pollution through radical climate action, with an aim of full carbon neutrality by 2050. The Sustainable Cities program provides grants to organizations in the U.S. that challenge the structures that inhibit climate progress, with a particular grantmaking focus on grassroots, policy, and environmental justice organizations. He also serves as the co-chair of New York Philanthropy’s Environmental Funders Table and the Equitable Transportation Fund and sits on the boards of the Spring Street Climate Fund and Spring Street Action.
Prior to joining Summit, Nick was the Campaign Director for the Northeastern U.S. for the Energy Foundation, where he led grantmaking and strategy with grantees throughout the region. Before his career in philanthropy, Nick was an advocate: he was the Executive Director of the U.S-based nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign and, before that, the Deputy Director of the Riders Alliance. In those roles, he was one of the leaders in the fight to win congestion pricing in New York and has won campaigns focused on funding billions of dollars in transit and transportation improvements in the greater New York City region. While at Tri-State, Nick served on several government advisory councils in New York and New Jersey.
Nick was also the Sierra Club’s Northeastern Communications Director and a Senior Associate at BerlinRosen, where he advised advocacy organizations on strategy and communications. He began his career working in economic justice at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, where he led campaigns for workers’ rights in the transportation, construction, and hotel industries. Nick’s opinion pieces and other writing have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, New Jersey Star Ledger, and other outlets, and he has appeared in print, radio, and television hundreds of times as an expert on transportation policy. He is a native of the L.A. region and often cites growing up in the county with the worst air quality in the U.S. as a powerful motivator for the work he does. Nick is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles and now resides in New York City, where he spends his free time working on a forthcoming book from Island Press about how advocates won congestion pricing.
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
Treasurer
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin is an environmentalist focused on equity, access, and community. She develops capacity building initiatives and creates multimedia campaigns to dismantle privilege and increase opportunities for vulnerable populations to access healthy air, clean energy, and a toxic-free economy at the local, regional, and national level.
Toles O’Laughlin is a multi-hyphenate leader serving as co worker, resource and connector. She is the President and CEO of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, which represents over 200 foundations globally that hold approximately $200 billion in assets and grant more than $1.8 billion annually to environmental causes. She consistently drives mission critical work and organizational investments to build a multiracial, multi-generational climate movement that is ready to hold leaders accountable to the long view of justice. Previously, Toles O’Laughlin was North America Director at 350.org and 350 Action.