Bob Jennings is a long term Sierra Club supporter, and former plaintiffs’ toxic tort litigator, who spent six years assisting a team of SC attorneys, staff, and key litigators from other environmental groups opposing the Wellington Development waste coal power plant in Greene County, Pennsylvania. After over nine years of opposition to this proposed plant, the formal Plan Approval finally was withdrawn in February of 2014. Bob regularly monitored the endless permitting back-and-forth around this ill-designed project and provided input to major filings and submissions, including one citizens’ suit. Bob served as invaluable local counsel alongside key litigators from the Sierra Club, Jim Hecker from Public Justice, Kentucky attorney Robert Ukeiley, Mark Wenzler from the National Parks Conservation Association, and Jon Mueller from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. As a result of these efforts, nearly three million tons of greenhouse gases annually - and a host of toxic air pollutants - will never enter the air in Pennsylvania. 

Larry Gibson worked tirelessly to open the worlds' eyes to the destruction being wrought on his beloved Appalachian mountains by coal strip mining. Whether traveling the country to share images of devastated mountains and valleys, or bringing visitors past "hell's gate" at his property on Kayford Mountain, West Virginia, to witness the blasted landscape first hand, Larry drove home the horrors of mountaintop removal mining and his conviction that the practice must end. Larry did not allow the constant threats and intimidation he faced to wear him down. His courage and steadfast determination remain a powerful inspiration to everyone who met him. And although Larry did not live to see the end of mountaintop removal mining, his work to spread the word about the terrible practice brought victory much nearer. Larry is missed, but the legacy of his work and passion carry on.

Growing up in Pound, Virginia, in a family supported by her father's coal mining wages, Jane Branham could not wait to get out of the coalfields and change the world. She lived all over the Southwest and worked as a traveling nurse, but plagued by dreams of her home, she returned to Wise County, Virginia. When she first saw mountaintop removal from the top of Fox Gap, she said to herself "right here is where I need to be changing the world."

A native to Pound, Virginia, a small town on the Virginia-Kentucky border, Mary Cromer received her JD from Washington & Lee University School of Law. After law school, Mary clerked for the Honorable Glen Conrad of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia and worked as an Associate Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. Since 2008, Mary has worked as a Staff Attorney for the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center (ACLC), a small non-profit law firm dedicated to protecting coalfield communities and the environment from destructive coal mining practices in Central Appalachia. Situated in the middle of the coalfields in Whitesburg, Kentucky, ACLC is uniquely positioned to work with both national environmental groups and local coal miners and their families on a range of often sensitive environmental and public health issues related to coal mining. Throughout her time with ACLC, Mary has litigated a variety of cases, from representing individuals and families who have lost their well water supplies because of nearby coal mining to fighting pollution from coal mining under national environmental laws.

Jane Feldman began her career as an enthusiastic and tenacious Sierra Club volunteer eight years ago, after she retired from her prior career as an Air Force officer. When Jane first became involved with the Sierra Club's Southern Nevada Group, she devoted her energies to protecting habitat and biodiversity in Nevada's sensitive desert ecosystems, which led her to serve as the Group's Conservation Chair and as the Toiyabe Chapter's Conservation Chair. She widened her focus to encompass community health and urban sprawl when a proposed highway widening project threatened the health and quality of life for residents in her Las Vegas community.

Two of the Sierra Club Law Program's most remarkable victories of 2006 could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of attorneys Rachel Hooper, Richard Taylor, and Dan Selmi.

These three attorneys each displayed a remarkable level of dedication, persistence, and perseverance in achieving outstanding victories in two Sierra Club lawsuits challenging an ill-conceived water privatization project in Stockton, California, and a massive development proposal that involved building an entire new town between Lake Tahoe and the town of Truckee, California.

Brandt Mannchen has been an active and dedicated Sierra Club volunteer for over thirty years. Brandt's distinguished history with the Club is marked both by his high level of commitment as well as an impressive breadth of involvement in Club committees and chapter activities. During his tenure, Brandt has served as the Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary of Houston group, he has been on the Executive Committee for both the Houston and Lone Star Chapters, and he has served on committees dealing with a range of issues, from wildlife and endangered species to offshore drilling. Brandt is proud to have worked to contest the first Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency off the Texas coast. In recent years, Brandt has been primarily involved in forestry issues, serving as the Forestry Chair for the Houston Group and the Big Thicket Chair for the Lone Star Chapter.

Chip Moore is attorney in private practice Jacksonville, Florida. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and University of South Carolina School of Law. After clerking for the Honorable Donald S. Russell on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Mr. Moore worked as a trial attorney at U. S. Department of Justice's Environmental Enforcement Section in Washington, D.C. for over five years, where he prosecuted civil environmental enforcement actions on behalf of government under all the major federal statutes, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA and RCRA.

Robert began his career working with environmental organizations before deciding to head off to law school. After he was armed with his degree, he started out briefly working on international environmental issues like whaling and dolphin protection treaties. He then started working on environmental issues in the U.S. as well as representing individuals who could not afford an attorney before transitioning into the realm of environmental practice. He has now been consistently working in coordination with the Sierra Club for the past seven years.

Mountaintop removal mining has been described as the "government-sanctioned bombing of Appalachia." However, across the region, growing numbers of local activists are standing up for their communities and demanding that this practice stop. Teri Blanton, Maria Gunnoe, Ann League, and Pete Ramey are four such activists, each working tirelessly to win this decidedly uphill battle.