Our Role

ecoRI News is a nonprofit journalistic initiative devoted to educating the public about the causes, consequences and solutions to local environmental/social justice concerns. We are a professionally staffed, Web-based news agency focused on environmental/social justice news and issues that impact Rhode Island.

ecoRI's mission is to investigate and report on stories and issues that will catalyze positive environmental change. We also want to introduce you to those who advocate for the protection of Rhode Island’s waters, open space and natural resources, and to those who promote a sustainable economy.

Funding
ecoRI Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with the IRS and a recognized nonprofit with the state of Rhode Island. We depend on the support of individuals, foundations and businesses that recognize the importance of environmental/social justice news delivered from an independent perspective.

STAFF

Frank Carini
Executive Director
Contact him at frank@ecoRI.org or by calling 401-678-0206
Frank has two decades of journalism experience, and has spent time as both a reporter and an editor. He has managed news reporters, photographers, copy editors and sports writers. He has won several newspaper association awards for column writing, reporting, headline writing and page layout. He has worked at a variety of publications, from a large, metropolitan daily to a small daily newspaper to several weekly papers. As the sports editor for The Cincinnati Post, he managed a department that had an annual budget of $1 million-plus and employed 15 full-time employees. The Providence resident also spent three-plus years as the city editor for The Newport Daily News, before leaving the mainstream media to launch ecoRI Inc. in September 2009.

Joanna Detz
Director of Development
Contact her at jo@ecoRI.org or by calling 617-785-7369 
Joanna is a graphic designer with an interest in social-justice journalism that stems back to the first time she read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” a book that also, incidentally, set her on the path to a beef-free lifestyle. After a brief foray into journalism, which included a stint at CNN’s Washington bureau during the 1996 presidential election, she became jaded to the mainstream media and turned, instead, to a career in graphic design, from which vantage, she remains jaded to mainstream media. A print designer for more than 10 years now, she still has mixed feelings about Helvetica and is always looking for ways to curb paper use in her profession by choosing recycled paper. She lives and breathes in Providence, on a street called Hope.

Tim Faulkner
Executive Editor
Contact him at tim@ecoRI.org or by calling 401-330-6276
Tim worked as a community newspaper reporter in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts for five years. For three years, he was a staff writer for the Taunton Daily Gazette, most recently covering the police and courts beat. He spent 10 years in the financial services sector before returning to graduate school, where he earned a degree in writing and publishing. He grew up in Barrington, where he lives his wife and two young daughters. Tim is ecoRI's go-to staffer regarding renewable-energy issues.

Dave Fisher
Managing Editor
Contact him at dave@ecoRI.org or by calling 401-338-1137
Dave has spent the better part of his adult life in the hospitality industry. As a chef, waiter and manager in restaurants that ranged from “award winning” to “I tell my friends to stay away,” he has seen a seemingly impossible amount of waste produced during the past 15 years in a business that is, like everything else in our lives, heavily and increasingly petroleum dependent. This perspective on waste and food sustainability issues, and reading Douglas Adams, brought him to an understanding of “the interconnectedness of all things.” The Woonsocket resident enjoys long walks on oil-free beaches, food that isn’t laden with chemicals and a simple life in Rhode Island’s Forgotten City. Dave is ecoRI's go-to staffer regarding food and agricultural issues.

Kyle Hence
Reporter
Contact him at kyle@ecori.org
Kyle is an aspiring renaissance man with a grab bag of skills derived from experiences as a sailor, photographer, documentary filmmaker and citizen watchdog. He ran Newport’s adaptive sailing program Shake-A-Leg for several years. His 2006 documentary “9/11: Press for Truth” was distributed globally. A short stint at Rawstory.com gave him a taste of independent media and investigative journalism. Following his 2011 fellowship with the Social Venture Partners of Rhode Island, Kyle organized the Food & Farming Community Forum to promote local food and sustainability. He calls Newport home.

Kevin Proft
Green Team Manager
Contact him at kevin@ecori.org
Kevin began his career teaching history to inner-city, high-school students in Oakland, Calif. He has spent time living and traveling in Australia and New Zealand, where he was taken with the countries’ landscapes and reefs, but was disconcerted by how often these natural wonders are in danger of being overwhelmed by manmade incursions. He later lived and worked in San Francisco and couldn’t help having the environmentally friendly spirit of the city rub off on him. Now, he calls Providence home. Kevin is keenly interested in environmental issues, and wants to be a part of the solution to the problems of climate change and the loss of natural habitats that have resulted from human-propelled stressors happening around the globe. He enjoys being active in the community and hiking in the great outdoors.

INTERNS

John Otterbein
John is currently a senior at the University of Rhode Island. He is majoring in resource economics and management, and has a minor in writing. He will be reporting on environmental stories centered in the Kingston/Narragansett area.

Rowan Sharp
Rowan grew up on a small, rural island off the coast of Washington, and most recently lived in New Orleans. There, her exposure to Louisiana’s constant stream of environmental crises — from vinyl chloride manufacture to the BP spill — solidified her intent to write about the environment. She is now an unconventionally aged sophomore at Brown University concentrating in environmental studies.

CONTRIBUTORS

Charles Chaves
Charles has been teaching an ethics course at the University of Rhode Island since 2009 that focuses on sustainability and renewable energy issues. He received his Ph.D. in 2009 at Salve Regina University in humanities, concentrating in the ethics of energy usage and its multiple implications for humanity and the environment. As part of his doctoral investigations, Charles did sustainability and energy fieldwork research in Colorado, California, and British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. He believes it is imperative to reflect on the natural resources and sustainability needs of future generations.

Mike Clark
Mike, a resident of Providence, is an environmental consultant and writer.  His consulting experience, like his writing experience, is mainly related to water. A graduate of Brown University, Mike has provided water resources engineering, planning, and management services to local, state, federal, and commercial clients. In what little spare time he has, he writes about water issues and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Capital Good Fund, a local non-profit microfinance organization.

Greg Gerritt
The founder of the think tank ProsperityForRI.org, Greg has been involved in efforts to create a sustainable economy since the 1970s, when he began building solar buildings and creating organic homesteads. He currently is involved in urban agriculture efforts and the administration of the coalition of environmental organizations in Rhode Island. The Providence resident has been a leading advocate for making sure ecology is actually a component of efforts to create a sustainable state economy, and a critic of the idea of sustainable growth on this finite planet.

Rudi Hempe
The Narragansett resident is the master gardener projects coordinator for the University of Rhode Island. In 2011, Rudi became the first URI master gardener to accumulate 10,000 volunteer hours in the program.

Sarah Schumann
Sarah is a fisherwoman, writer and environmental activist. Her homemade fishing boat, the Nushagak, is named after a river in Alaska where she has spent the past three summers working at a salmon cannery. She has lived in Portsmouth, Warren and North and South Kingstown, and now calls Westerly home. After studying Marine Affairs at URI, she roamed the Americas talking with fishermen, and went on to earn a master's degree in environmental policy at the University of Oxford. Her favorite place in Rhode Island for a walk is the Great Swamp, and for a swim, the Kickemuit River.

Meredith Haas
As an outdoor and environmental enthusiast, Meredith offers perspective from her breadth of interests and experiences in the mountains and on the sea. After graduating from the University of Rhode Island with bachelor's of arts double major in journalism and biology, she ventured on a two-year hiatus in Wyoming, where she worked as the writer and editor for the National Outdoor Leadership School and for Wyoming Game and Fish as a nongame biologist. Since 2009, Meredith has been the research communications specialist at Rhode Island Sea Grant, working with local researchers and partners to communicate research efforts and findings that impact coastal and resource management.

Rachel Chiartas
After a five-year stint teaching English abroad in Costa Rica and Taiwan, my family and I landed ourselves in Providence. I was always passionate about the environment, but never actively pursued it as a career choice until after the birth of my first child. As a parent, I am extremely determined to live as sustainable as possible and to do my part in preserving the earth for my children and my children’s children. I am working for the Aperion Institute teaching environmentally based after-school programs, and I plan to begin a master’s program in environmental science. I love a good book, hiking with my family, practicing yoga and Saturday trips to the farmers’ market.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Kim Anderson
President of Ava Anderson Non-Toxic

Ted Clement
Executive director of the Aquidneck Land Trust 

Amanda McMullen
Meeting Street’s senior director of external relations

Rebekah Greenwald Speck
Executive director of the RiverzEdge Arts Project

David Stookey
Executive director of Savvy Families

Chip Young
Senior fellow at the University of Rhode Island Coastal Institute