After a six-month, nationwide search, Leslie Carothers was unanimously voted President of the Environmental Law Institute® by the organization’s Board of Directors at its June meeting, Chairman-elect Kenneth Berlin announced. She will take over daily direction of ELI operations as head of its 50-person staff on August 1, replacing J. William Futrell, who is retiring after 23 years.
The Search Committee considered more than 50 highly qualified candidates and ultimately settled on a respected figure whom they had known for more than a decade. After serving on the ELI Board for more 12 years, Carothers had been elected Chairwoman in 2002. She will be stepping aside in August as she assumes the chief executive’s role."ELI has a diverse constituency unrivaled by any other environmental organization and a mandate to match that," said Berlin. "We are therefore very fortunate to have a president who has worked and excelled in, or worked closely with, the sectors that ELI brings together — industry, government, law firms, and public interest organizations.
"Leslie’s task is to lead the staff in engaging this constituency, with the goal of advancing environmental protection through a consensus-based process, emphasizing ELI’s own, world-class research, publications, and educational programs."
Futrell added that "Leslie is an outstanding choice to lead ELI. She has a strong track record of public service and corporate leadership and a lifelong commitment to the Institute’s core values of environmental protection through law, policy, and management."
Carothers recently retired from United Technologies Corporation in Hartford, Connecticut, a diversified manufacturer of products for the aerospace and building systems markets. At UTC, she was Vice President for Environment, Health and Safety, establishing and managing its programs worldwide. UTC Chairman and CEO George David hailed Carothers’s work for the company, saying, "She has been the inspiration and instrument for accomplishments of which we are justly proud."
While at UTC, she served for four years as Chair of the Connecticut Audubon Society, an environmental education and advocacy organization. The President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Eileen Claussen, called Carothers "an exceptional leader with strong principles and compelling vision. ELI will be well served."
Carothers previously served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, which has pollution control responsibilities and is in charge of parks, recreation, and wildlife and conservation programs. Her regulatory experience also includes 12 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she started in the air pollution program at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., and rose to the position of Enforcement Director and then Deputy Regional Administrator of U.S. EPA’s New England Region in Boston.
In the Clinton Administration, she served on the Defense Science Board’s Environmental Security Task Force, which advised the Department of Defense on improving its environmental programs. She has been an Adjunct Lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and was Senior Environmental Counsel for PPG Industries in Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of Smith College and Harvard Law School and holds a master’s degree in environmental law from George Washington University.
"I am honored to be elected President of the Environmental Law Institute," Carothers said. "Under Bill Futrell’s remarkable leadership, ELI has built a reputation for unmatched quality in its publications and educational programs and for objective, creative, and non-partisan research in environmental law, policy, and management.
"I like the fact that ELI’s primary constituency is people from all sectors who have chosen to work in the environmental field. Their perspectives are different. Their common ground is the conviction that environmental protection is important.