Leslie Carothers

Leslie Carothers "became President of the Environmental Law Institute in 2003. ELI is an independent, non-partisan environmental research and policy research center providing publications, education programs and policy recommendations for environmental leaders in all sectors.

"Ms. Carothers has been a professional environmentalist for 35 years, working in both the public and private sectors. Before her election as President, she served for 11 years as Vice President, Environment, Health, and Safety at United Technologies Corporation, a diversified manufacturing company. She also served as Commissioner of Environment for the State of Connecticut and as Senior Counsel for PPG Industries, Inc. She began her environmental career at the U.S. EPA in Washington, soon after the agency was formed and served for 12 years in policy and management positions at headquarters and in the New England regional office.

"She holds degrees from Smith College, Harvard Law School (LLB) and George Washington Universty Law School (LLM). In 1991, she taught environmental regulation as an adjunct lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry of Environmental Studies. She has served on the boards of several environmental organizations, currently including the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

"She credits her interest in protection of the environment to her years as a Girl Scout and her belief, with many others in the sixties, that it was time to get serious about making and enforcing laws to safeguard the health of our air and water and the productivity and beauty of our landscape. She likes working with people on complex multidisciplinary problems, and thinks the environmental profession is full of unusually able and committed people in all sectors."

• Advisory Panel, Water Policy Institute