Leda Huta, Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition, has 20 years of environmental experience, managing grassroots, national, and international projects. At Endangered Species Coalition, she leads staff across the country in protecting imperiled wildlife, from the charismatic gray wolf and grizzly bear to less visible species, such as California tiger salamanders. Previous to her role at the Endangered Species Coalition, Leda was the Acting Executive Director for Finding Species, an organization that uses photography to advance wildlife and wild lands conservation. Through this work, she had the good fortune to spend time in incredible habitats, such as the Ecuadorian Amazon. Leda's work at Resource Conservation Alliance protected forests using a “markets” strategy, working with university presses to shift to eco-friendly papers. Leda has worked on energy efficiency, renewable energy, environment and health, and green business issues. She has served on environmental and women’s issue NGO boards. Leda is a cofounder of EcoWomen, a yoga teacher, and a mom. Leda speaks Ukrainian and Spanish and has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in environmental science and environment and resource management from the University of Toronto.

Kierán Suckling is a founder and the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. He has led the Center from its beginnings in 1989 as a local New Mexico environmental group, to its current position as a national legal powerhouse battling to protect endangered species, wild places, and a safe, stable climate. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy, Mr. Suckling has published numerous essays on the link between the loss of biological and cultural diversity and the essential relationship between environmentalism, the arts, the rights of marginalized communities, conservation of species and the Endangered Species Act. He has infused the traditionally staid legal arena with remarkable creative energy, leading the New Yorker to dub the Center “the most important radical environmental group in the country” and Suckling a “trickster, philosopher, publicity hound, master strategist, and unapologetic pain in the ass.” The LA Weekly calls the Center “pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the most effective conservation organization in the country,” and says of Suckling: “Rimbaud reinvented poetry. Kierán Suckling would do the same with environmentalism.” In 2011, Men’s Journal called him “the radical conscience of the environmental movement.”

Gilly Lyons began her tenure with Save Our Wild Salmon (SOS) as Washington, DC Representative in October 2003. After five years in our nation's capitol, she returned to Portland, OR and served as SOS' Senior Policy Analyst. Prior to joining the SOS staff, Gilly spent six years as grassroots coordinator for the Oregon Natural Desert Association (an SOS Coalition member) in Bend and Portland, OR, and two years as legislative advocate for the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign in Washington, DC. Despite all those years as a terrestrial activist, she has been enchanted by Columbia Basin salmon since working on the Oregon Clean Stream Initiative in 1996. Gilly, who hails from New York City, holds a masters of science in environmental studies from the University of Montana. She's not much of an angler, but keeps intending to take lessons. Gilly lives in Portland with her beau, Alan, and her trusty co-pilot Gracie.