Board of Directors

Ambassador Victor H. Ashe

President (Knoxville, TN)
Ambassador Victor Ashe, a native of Knoxville, TN, graduated from Yale University with a BA in history in 1967 and received his law degree from the University of Tennessee, College of Law in 1974. He joined the TCWN Board of Directors in October 2009.

Ambassador Ashe was a member of Senator Howard Baker's congressional staff. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1968 where he remained for six years before serving another nine years in the Tennessee Senate. During that time he made notable contributions in advancing state environmental legislation, including the creation of the Tennessee's Natural Areas Preservation Act, Scenic Rivers Act and Scenic Routes Act. He was President of the US Conference of Mayors in 1994-1995. Ambassador Ashe began his position as Mayor of Knoxville in 1988 and continued for 16 years. During his span as Mayor, Ashe added almost 1,000 acres of parkland to the city and extended 30 miles to Knoxville greenways.

He backed the effort to make KUB comply with the Federal Clean Water Act to prevent sewage from entering Knoxville's streams and the Tennessee River. Also, the Ambassador strongly supports efforts for KUB to be more moderate in its tree cutting practices and is sensitive to rate payers's concerns. Ashe was appointed as the Ambassador to Poland in 2004 by President George W. Bush. Upon his return to Knoxville, Ambassador Ashe was appointed by President Obama to the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees Voice of America. Ambassador Ashe serves on the boards of American Rivers Association and the National Recreation and Parks Association.

Katie Larue

Secretary (Chattanooga, TN)
A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Katie moved to Chattanooga for work in 1991 and considers Tennessee her beloved adopted home state. Katie is a graduate of Loyola and Tulane Universities in New Orleans and has earned a Master's of Social Work.

Katie's concern for water developed during her early years in Louisiana, as she witnessed saltwater encroachment into marshes and bayous due to channeling and oil exploration; and now, the effect of drought, pollution, diversion and damming of free flowing Tennessee rivers. Katie has been a whitewater boater since 1993 and is an active member of the Tennessee Valley Canoe Club (TVCC), Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association (TSRA), American Canoeing Association and American Waters. She served on the board of TVCC, where she organized instructional schools. She has also been a volunteer instructor of kayaking for TVCC and TSRA. She is a certified by ACA as whitewater instructor and organizes and participates in river cleanups.

Natalia Berestovskya

Treasurer (Knoxville)
Natalia Berestovskaya is a Certified Public Accountant at Latimore, Black, Morgan & Cain providing tax and advisory services to consolidated corporations, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships and individuals in Knoxville Tennessee.

Ms. Berestovskaya has a Masters of Accountancy from the University of Tennessee, 2005 and holds a Bachelor's of Business Administration and Mathematics from the William Jennings Bryan College in Dayton, TN.

She has volunteered at Omsk Charitable Organization for the Protection of Stray Animals in Omsk, Russia where she solicited funding from international animal protection groups, translated their website into English and organized the provision of free food from a food factory.

Dr. Richard Weinstein

(Knoxville, TN)
Rick studied botany for his BS at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York . After two years fighting forest fires in Oregon he returned to graduate school and received an MS in nutrition from Boston University . He then worked as a community nutritionist for the Boston area Head Start program.

After an inspirational trekking tour to the high arctic, he completed his Ph.D. at Cambridge University investigating the role of fungi in Antarctic ecosystems. He has been on three research expeditions to Antarctica , two of which were "deep field" projects involving several months of camping in remote areas. This included an expedition to conduct microbiological studies in the La Gorce mountains, the farthest south area of exposed land on Earth at 86-87 degrees South. It was here that Rick discovered (among other things) the farthest south lichen on record.

Rick now teaches general and cell biology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and has also taught courses in environmental issues, astrobiology and nutrition.

In 2007, Rick was one of a select group chosen by former Vice President Al Gore to spread the message about the threat of and solutions to global warming. Participation in this initiative (known as "The Climate Project") involves giving local talks using Gore's computer-based slide show, which became the basis of his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth."

A competitive middle distance runner before knee problems set in, Rick has now transferred some of that energy into writing and recording music.

Albert Iannacone

Albert (Al) Iannacone is an environmental epidemiologist with the Knox County Health Department in Knoxville, where he investigates the connections between environmental concerns and public health and educates the public on these issues, with the goal of healthy people living sustainably in a healthy environment. He is the primary author of the 2007 Knox County Environmental Health Status Report, available at: http://www.knoxcounty.org/health/pdfs/env_health_status_report_2007.pdf

Prior to joining the health department, his career in the environmental field had an EPA, rather than a CDC, focus. He earned a M.S. in chemistry from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1983, then was a chemist for the Kansas City Water and Pollution Control Department, and then a group leader at a private firm providing wastewater treatment services to industrial clients. He was later a senior scientist for two EPA contractors, providing chemistry and risk assessment support for environmental cleanups, including at DOD and DOE sites. Immediately prior to joining the health department, he was a private consultant in the environmental chemistry field.

For several years in the 1980’s while living in Kansas City, Al served on the board of directors of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a Midwestern environmental group. Al’s wife Penny is a local veterinarian. They have two sons, one attending UT and the other in graduate school at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Henry Spratt

Henry G. Spratt, Jr., Ph.D., Microbial Ecology, Biogeochemistry
Professor - Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403
(423) 425-4383, Fax (423) 425-2285, henry-spratt@utc.edu

Dr. Spratt is a tenured professor in the Biological and Environmental Sciences Department at UTC. He holds BS and MS degrees from Georgia Tech (1977 and 1980 - Applied Biology), and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (1985 - Microbiology). He was a postdoctoral associate at Rutgers University (1985 - 1988), and an assistant professor of Biology at Southeast Missouri State University (1988 - 1994). He joined the faculty at UTC in 1994. His teaching interests lie in the fields of microbiology, environmental biology and undergraduate education. He plays an active role in support of public education in the Chattanooga area, serving on the Hamilton County Coalition for Mathematics and Science Excellence, helping to organize and present a three-part Math and Science Summit held in Chattanooga during Winter 2003.

He actively supports local environmental organizations, serving on the Board of Directors for the Tennessee River Gorge Trust for 12 of the past 15 years, advising the Lula Lake Land Trust, serving on the Water Quality Team of the North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy, and having served as the Conservation Chair of the local Sierra Club group. Dr. Spratt is active in research, with numerous publications, and grants (since 1987, 37 grants from Federal, State, and University sources, some with collaborators, totaling $1,550,571). Trained as a biogeochemist, he has conducted studies on carbon cycling in soils of temperate forests, and of temperate and tropical wetlands, with one long-term study (10 years) in Missouri Ozark forests.

Recently Dr. Spratt has conducted research on the use of bacterial batteries in the degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organic matter associated with raw sewage. The involvement of students in Dr. Spratt’s research is critical. He has been involved with two projects focusing on introducing high school students to university research, serving as mentor to over 25 high school students since 1995. He has served as major professor for 13 graduates from UTC’s Masters of Science in Environmental Science program since the program was initiated in August 1997.

Currently, focusing on a bioremediation and a microbial battery project, there are two students working in his lab. Dr. Spratt also does consulting work related to the development of novel organic energy sources.

Bios

Tennessee Clean Water Network

BREAKING NEWS

LOCAL LEGISLATORS

PRESS RELEASES