Staff Members

Executive Director, Heather Brouillet Navarro: Heather joined the Coalition in 2013. She brings her lifelong passion for the environment and a commitment to community and justice to the Coalition. Growing up in Illinois she looked forward to trail rides and hikes along the Kankakee River, which quickly led to stream clean-ups and petition drives. She moved to St. Louis and pursued these interests at Washington University, where she earned a B.A. in environmental studies in 2001 and a law degree in 2008. While there, she worked as a student and later as a student attorney in the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Before coming to the Coalition, she spent over three years practicing as a civil rights lawyer at a private firm in St. Louis. She was an inaugural fellow of the St. Louis New Leaders Council and has volunteered and served on the boards of several organizations, including The Green Center, the Clean Air Partnership, and the Central West End Association. She enjoys camping with her family and looks forward to introducing her kids to the joys of trail riding.

Director of Environmental Policy, Kathleen Logan Smith: Kathleen joined the Coalition as Director of Environmental Policy in 2013 after serving as Executive Director in August 2006. Her professional background is in journalism, communications, community organizing, development, and management of nonprofit organizations. She long has been an environmental activist and organizer. She began canvassing in college working with embattled communities and rural residents fighting polluters on issues like toxic waste, medical waste, Superfund, factory farms, and nuclear fuel facilities. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University and moved to St. Louis in 1995. As an organizer with the Medical Waste Incinerator Group, she helped to build a grassroots, community-based organization. This effort resulted in passage of a St. Louis City ordinance that ended medical waste incineration in St. Louis. Kathleen helped found Health & Environmental Justice-St. Louis (HEJ), an organization that exposed systemic failures to end childhood lead poisoning in St. Louis.

Director of Finance, Laura Illy: A St. Louis native, Laura joined the Coalition in December 2009. She graduated from St. Louis University with Bachelors Degrees in Biology, Psychology, & Business Administration, and received her MAcc (Masters in Accounting) from Lindenwood University in 2005. She resides in O’Fallon, Missouri with her husband and two young children.

Clean Water Program Director, Lorin Crandall: A St. Louis navitve, Lorin graduated from Metro High School in 2000 and attended UMKC where he attained a bachelors degree in Urban Planning & Design in 2004. Before joining MCE as an AmeriCorps staff person, Lorin worked as an urban planner at a local landscape architecture firm where he developed an understanding sustainable design. During his time as an AmerCorps staff person for MCE and the River des Peres Watershed Coalition he worked on a range of projects including habitat restoration and clean ups of the River des Peres, starting a Rain Barrel fundraiser and creating GIS maps looking at water pollution and stream protections across the state.

Rivers & Sustainability Director, Brad Walker: Prior to his work in the conservation and environmental sector, Brad worked for over 20 years in the construction industry, primarily performing construction management for large wastewater treatment plants in the western US. Beginning in 1998 Brad spent two years in Jamaica working for the US Peace Corps. He worked for 2-1/2 years with American Farm Land Trust in northern Illinois organizing county-level farmland protection programs and then moved to river-related advocacy. He was the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Restoration Coordinator for Prairie Rivers Network in Illinois from 2006 until 2008 and the Izaak Walton League of America’s UMR Coordinator until May 2011. Brad has a B.S in Civil Engineering and a M.A. in Geography.

Safe Energy Director, Ed Smith: Ed Smith is the MCE Safe Energy Director. He spearheads our efforts to educate consumers about the dangers of nuclear power and to defend the no-CWIP (Construction Work in Progress) law that has made it illegal for the last 35 years for investor-owned utilities, like Ameren Missouri, Empire Electric and KC P&L, to charge customers upfront for the planning and construction of power plants until they are operational.