Ben joined the EC as the Director of Strategic Initiatives, developing all EC programs outside of the beltway. Since 2013 Ben has continued to lead these efforts, now as the organization’s National Director. Ben has spent more than a decade working on environmental, human rights, and voter engagement efforts. His experience includes leadership roles as the Campaign Director for the Save Darfur Coalition, the Legislative Director for the Colorado Environmental Coalition, the Colorado State Director for the New Voters Project, and numerous public interest campaign efforts as the Western States Field Organizer for U.S.PIRG.
Prior to his experience at SAFE and the Electrification Coalition, Ben served in the role of Vice President at FieldWorks, a national political consulting firm. While at FieldWorks he led projects for a diverse group of corporate, non-profit, academic, and political clients. This included programs with SolarCity, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, and a recent joint pilot with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California at Berkeley – Haas School of Business – to test encouragement models for federally funded low income weatherization.
Before joining FieldWorks, Ben served as the lobbyist for the Colorado Environmental Coalition (CEC) a statewide group representing more than 100 environmental, public health, and religious organizations. As lobbyist Ben was responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of the conservation community agenda at the legislature. During Ben’s two years with CEC, the conservation community passed over 100 “pro-conservation” bills including several first-in-the-nation efforts.
Ben also directed successful field and fundraising programs for national campaigns on behalf of The Save Darfur Coalition, The Genocide Prevention Project, the Human Rights Campaign, Dream for Darfur and many other national organizations. Ben also led numerous large scale rallies, grassroots advocacy campaigns, volunteer activities, and visibility events involving as many as 100,000 people.
