Earth Day Network Names New Board Members

Washington, D.C. – Earth Day Network, the global organizer of Earth Day, today announced the addition of Lydia Camarillo and Dr. Dorceta Taylor to its distinguished Board of Directors. 

“Lydia and Dorceta’s wealth of experience and knowledge will help bring Earth Day Network to new heights. We are thrilled to have them come aboard,” said Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network.

Lydia Camarillo is the President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP) and William C. Velasquez Institute. Under the leadership of Lydia and previous SVREP President Antonio González, Latino participation in the democratic process has almost tripled, from 5.4 million Latinos registered to vote in 1994 to 15.5 million in 2016. In 1999, President Clinton and Vice President Gore appointed Lydia to serve as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the 2000 Democratic National Convention. At the convention, the presumptive nominee garnered the third-largest political bounce at 24 points in the last 70 years. Lydia was responsible for a $55 million budget, a staff of 350 members, a team of 1,000 production professionals, and more than 10,000 volunteers. She also worked on the Gore Campaign as an official surrogate after her assignment as CEO of the Convention. Before joining SVREP, she was the National Leadership Director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) from 1989 to 1994.

Lydia serves as the Chair of the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force as well as the Texas Senate Latino Caucus and Mexican American Legislative Caucus Civic Engagement Taskforce. She is also on the board of directors for MPMC (MALDEF Building) and TX-ACLU. Lydia has served on numerous boards and commissions including the National Board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Personnel and Nominations Committee, State Farm Advisory Committee, California Prop 40 Committee, Executive Committee for Girls Scouts of America, San Antonio Planned Parenthood Board, Los Angeles Based City Project, an environmental justice law firm, Monterey County United Way Allocations Committee, Immigrant Rights Coalition for the Central Coast, Santa Cruz County Affirmative Action Commission, Salinas Affirmative Action Committee and the CA Task Force on Hispanics and the Civil Service.

Dr. Dorceta Taylor is currently the James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. She is also the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the school. Dr. Taylor is a leading expert in the field of institutional diversity and workforce dynamics in the environmental sector. Her research interests also include urban agriculture, food access, and food insecurity. 

Dr. Taylor published a study in 2014 titled, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations, and Government Agencies” that analyzed racial and gender diversity in the environmental field that ultimately pushed organizations to commit to larger diversity goals. She has also published several books including The Environment and the People in American Cities (Duke University Press), Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility (NYU Press) and Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection: Social Inequality and the Rise of the American Conservation Movement (Duke University Press).

About Earth Day

Earth Day Network’s mission is to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement worldwide. Growing out of the first Earth Day (1970), Earth Day Network is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 50,000 partners in nearly 192 countries to build environmental democracy. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world. Learn more at earthday.org.