Our People

Becca Pollard, Interim Executive Director

Becca Pollard (she/they) was hired as Interim Executive Director in 2024 after serving on Buckeye Environmental Network’s board for almost seven years. Becca grew up in the Olentangy watershed in Central Ohio and returned in 2016 after spending a little over a decade in Oregon. Becca was moved to action when the Bureau of Land Management opened up the Wayne National Forest in Southeast Ohio for fracking and has since worked on numerous forest, energy, and transportation campaigns. She has a background in Organizing, Communications, and Operations and a passion for social and environmental justice. Becca believes effective environmental work must be rooted in the relationships we build and nourish with the communities and places we love. Becca currently lives in the Alum Creek watershed with her daughter.

Anton Krieger, Organizer of Oil and Gas Waste

Anton Krieger (He/Him) has been with Buckeye Environmental Network since 2021. Anton offers support to communities who are fighting contamination against oil and gas waste brine in all of Ohio’s 88 counties. Before Anton worked at BEN, he worked on electoral campaigns and was an adjunct professor teaching public speaking, newswriting, and multimedia communications at Notre Dame College and John Carroll University. Anton enjoys birding, brewing beer and wine, and is trying to see all of America’s national parks!

Kat Finneran M.S., Co-Chair, Board Treasurer and Governance Committee Chair

Kat (she/they) is a PhD Candidate in Geography at The Ohio State University. They got their bachelor’s in environmental policy & decision making, and their master’s in natural resource management. Their doctoral research examines how energy regimes shape the intersections between environment and disability, particularly within Rust Belt Appalachia. Kat grew up in Findlay, Ohio – an oil community defined by the ways in which this complex substance systemically entangles itself in our lives through everyday material and discursive encounters. From the carbon trapped in our atmosphere, to the politicians captured by fossil capital, to the petro-plastics nested in our blood, our fossil fueled present continues to reshape us in every conceivable way. As it reshapes, it also buries damaged bodies, polluted ecosystems, extractive histories, and alternative futures. Kat’s work largely deals with digging up these graves and considering the impact of how the violence surrounding them have become so profoundly decontextualized.

Silverio Caggiano, Board Member, Personnel Committee Chair

Silverio is a retired Battalion Chief from the Youngstown  Fire Department  having served for 39 years. He is a Hazardous Materials Specialist, Paramedic and HazMat & Fire Instructor. Silverio sat on the State of Ohio’s HazMat/WMD Technical Advisory Committee and was a regional coordinator for eighteen years helping build and or bolster HazMat/WMD teams, develop rules and regulations, quantifying and qualifying equipment and training and coordinating response with local, state, federal and military agencies. Silverio now works as a consultant / advisor / subject matter expert for other organizations and recently advised the law firms that sued Norfolk Southern for the East Palestine derailment. Silverio testified to the Pennsylvania Forty Third Grand Jury on oil and gas drilling concerns. Silverio’s expert opinions can be found in multiple oil and gas related reports, documentaries and in publications like Rolling Stone and most recently in Justin Nobles book Petroleum 238.

Paul Malonzo, Board Secretary

Before settling in Columbus, Paul graduated from San Jose State University with a B.S. in Environmental Studies with a concentration in energy science. Their focus in energy sciences is centered around green building design and sustainable planning in urban environments. While Paul is eager to be more involved in Ohio energy, they have assisted Forestry Educators Inc. the last 10 years in onboarding early career experience and forestry education with high schools across California. Environmental education is a larger passion of intentional care for communities, advocating for LGBTQ+ and Asian and Pacific Islander representation as they engage in resource management and restoration efforts. Paul’s excitement for conversations in social impact and representation is hopeful to a wider integration of communities in sustainability efforts.

Julie Boetger, Board Co-Chair

Julie was born and raised in Ohio but lives in Ashtabula, very close to Lake Erie and a large industrial park. She enjoys spending time with her two children and three grandchildren. 

She loves working with grassroots environmental justice groups, and some of these include: Ashtabula County Water Watch, Sustainable Ashtabula, the Ohio Brine Task Force, and CCOAL.

Rojika Sharma, Board Member

Rojika is an ethnographer, community organizer, and a recent graduate who earned her
master’s degree in Geography from Ohio State University. She is a former refugee and is
passionate about advocating for refugees and immigrants. Her work centers issues centering themes of displacement, belonging, environmental concerns, and digital media. In her free time Rojika enjoys exploring nature and making critical memes.

 

 

 

 

 

David Wheeler, Board Member

David Wheeler is an artist, curator, and an organizer of a wide variety of community engagement programming, working in conjunction with multiple organizations in Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. David works for the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County, lives in Warren, Ohio, and serves on the Board of Directors for Honeycomb Arts and Wellness Collective, and Loop Youngstown. He takes pride in being an active and engaged member of the community, and is passionate about the future, health, and safety of a toddler who is dear to him. He joined the Buckeye Environmental Board in 2024.