Board of Directors

Charles Kleekamp, President
Charles 'Chuck' Kleekamp, moved to Cape Cod upon retiring from a 37-year career as a professional electrical engineer. He has devoted his time to environmental and health issues of concern on Cape Cod. Chuck has a bachelor's degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering and a master's degree in computer, control and instrumentation engineering, all from the University of Michigan. He has worked in the fields of industrial control systems and advanced communication and radar systems. Chuck is a founding director and Vice-President of Cape Clean Air, a citizen advocacy group whose mission is to engage the public and inform citizens about the health impacts of power plant emissions. He is also the Information Director of Clean Power Now. He has lectured widely on Cape Cod on wind power, its role in sustainable, pollution-free energy and its impact on the environment, economics, and health. Chuck has served on the Upper Cape Lung Cancer Advisory Committee and is a member of the Cape Cod Sustainability Indicators Council and author of the Air Quality Indicator. He participated as a stakeholder in the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative meetings regarding the Cape Wind project.

Charley Cummings, Vice President
Charley Cummings spent the last 3-years as a management consultant, leading projects for Fortune 500 clients in marketing, pricing, salesforce effectiveness and corporate strategy across a range of industry sectors, including energy, healthcare, industrials, and non-profit. Charley is a graduate of Brown University, where he earned a BA in public policy. Charley completed a dissertation comparing the regulatory and consents process for offshore wind in the UK with that of the US, while studying abroad at the London School of Economics. His previous experience includes designing the corporate social responsibility strategy of an all-natural & organic soup company, working for a Member of the House of Commons in the British Parliament, helping to manage a summer camp in Brewster, and various political campaigns. He is currently pursuing an MBA at Harvard Business School. He is involved with Clean Power Now because he believes that young people must be engaged in the effort to embrace sustainable and renewable energy sources, as they will inherit the ramifications of the political and economic choices we make today.

Ruth Bechtold-Imhof, Secretary
Ruth Bechtold-Imhof was born and raised in Switzerland. She has a degree in Analytical Chemistry. In 1979 while working at the University of Basel Switzerland her Professor offered her a summer position at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. She fell in love with Cape Cod and when a position opened up at the Dana Farber Cancer center in Boston she accepted and started her life abroad. She met her future husband Jack in Woods Hole as he was on a stop over while working on the Texas A&M research vessel the Gyre. Her marriage relocated her to Austin Texas where she worked at the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute of UT doing studies with micro fibrillar proteins. The Texan heat quickly brought the family back to live on beautiful Cape Cod. Ruth took on a position in Boston, this time at the Boston University Medical Center. After the birth of their son the daily trips to Boston were no longer practical. In 1999 she accepted a job at Housing Assistance Corporation, which started her off in a whole new career. For the past three years she has found a way to combine her personal concern for a cleaner planet with work as the manager of the energy department for Housing Assistance Corporation. This department receives federal and utility funds to administer programs that assist low-income families with heating and winterization installations for their homes. Through this important work our families are helped financially and Cape Cod benefits greatly from decreased carbon emissions. Ruth was just recently promoted to the department assistant director and she looks forward to an exciting future. Together with her job her new board membership with CPN will truly enable her to combine her passion for a cleaner environment with her belief that every human deserves a safe, decent and affordable home to live in. Ruth is also a board member of the Community Leadership Institute and volunteers at the Barnstable High School Drama Club as a sewing and cupcake momma .

Captain Richard Elrick, Treasurer
Dick Elrick is the Director of Planning and Development for the Community Action Committee of Cape Cod and the Islands, Inc. and has lived on the Cape for over 30 years. He has worked 20 years as a ferry boat captain on Nantucket Sound. Dick received his law degree from Western New England College in Springfield, where he was on the National Moot Court team. He is currently Vice President of the Cape and Islands Self-Reliance Corporation, as a well as a former 3-term Barnstable town councillor.

Steve Barrett, Director
Steve Barrett is a life-long Massachusetts resident who grew up in Gloucester and now lives in Concord. Professionally, Steve is the Director of Clean Energy for Burlington MA-based Harris Miller Miller & Hanson (HMMH). Steve is also a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accredited Professional and in that capacity works with developers on green strategies from water and energy efficiency systems to the use and reuse of environmentally-friendly products.

Dorte Griswold, Director
Dorte Griswold, a native of Denmark, spent most of her early life in Copenhagen, graduating from the School for Occupational Therapy at the University Of Copenhagen in 1962. During her high school years, Dorte spent 3 years in Boston area schools where she met her future husband, William (Bill) Griswold. Following a nine year courtship on three continents, Dorte and Bill married in 1963.

After moving to the states, Dorte worked as an Occupational Therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She retired from Occupational Therapy to raise her two children Erik and Anna. Once the children were older, Dorte had a rewarding career as a realtor for Coldwell Banker in Belmont.

As a native of Denmark, Dorte knows first-hand what a wind farm off our shores will look like. From the bluff behind Dorte's family summer home in western Denmark, there is a beautiful view of the offshore wind farm at Horns Rev. Dorte was dismayed when not-to-scale artist renderings of the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound began appearing in area local newspapers, so she and her husband Bill decided to arrange a trip through Clean Power Now for anyone interested in seeing offshore wind farms first-hand.

William E. Griswold, Director
William "Bill" Griswold, originally from Belmont, graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1959 and earned an M.B.A. at Boston University in 1970 while working full time. In 1960, he accepted a two year position in North Africa, teaching woodworking in a trade school for teenage boys. While there, he discovered his flair for languages, something which he still enjoys to this day.

Bill worked as a consultant to the public transportation industry. His clients included urban bus systems, intercity bus lines, ferry operators and commuter airlines. His focus was on the creation of operating schedules, a task which is now most often completed by computers. After 40 years in the industry, Bill retired to the Cape with his wife Dorte in 1998.

In January 2004, Bill and Dorte organized the first Clean Power Now trip to Denmark. Using Bill's contacts in the travel industry, and Dorte's contacts in Denmark, they guided a group of 25 people to see the offshore wind farm at Horns Rev, and to visit the Vestas wind turbine factory in Ringkobing. In May 2005, Bill and Dorte arranged a second trip for 35 people to visit Denmark. This time, the group was able to charter a boat to go out to the newly built Nysted offshore wind farm.

Christopher Stimpson, Director
Chris Stimpson is a native of Great Britain. After a 13-year career in the Royal Air Force he settled on Cape Cod in 1981. He has spent most of the time since in the advertising business, with a focus on high-tech. industries. Chris is the Executive Campaigner and Activist for the Solar Nation advocacy group (www.solar-nation.org). He performs secretarial duties for Clean Power Now, and lends his creative skills to the advertising and publicity efforts of the organization.

Laura Wasserman, Director
Laura Wasserman has lived on Nantucket for the better part of the past seventeen years and is the coordinator of the Nantucket chapter of Clean Power Now. Having watched Nantucket and the Cape grow exponentially over the years and seen the challenges that that has brought, Laura feels committed to bringing renewable energy to our backyard and afar to help mitigate the negative effects of this growth and our increasing consumption. As a local environmental and political activist, Laura also organizes a progressive speakers series on Nantucket in the summer, dedicated to bringing forward-thinking ideas and issues to the broader public. She is also a grant maker with a foundation that funds progressive organizations of the social change movement, furthering the causes of social justice, environmental preservation, democracy building, and peace.

Clean Power Now is an independent, 501(c) (3) charitable organization. We receive no funding of any kind from Cape Wind or its employees. We are a non-profit Massachusetts corporation and are funded primarily through foundations and donations.