Ed Gonzalez, PPRC Executive Director
Ed has 20 years of experience working in the environmental and health fields, managing programs/projects in the states of Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, California, and now Washington. Ed holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Texas at El Paso. While working as Program Manager at University of Texas at El Paso, Ed’s project work included: wetland restoration; providing access to potable water and health care for impoverished families in Juarez, Mexico; the introduction of green building concepts to local builders; and the management of the Southwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center.
Ed has also served as the Program Director of the Western Sustainability and Pollution Prevention Network (WSPPN), a cooperative alliance of pollution prevention (P2) programs throughout EPA Region 9, which is based out of the University of Nevada, Reno. His professional areas of interest include:
- Green Building
- Environmental Justice
- Green Urban Planning
- Organic Farming
Outside of work, Ed enjoys a variety of outdoor activities which include, fishing, camping, hiking, and cooking delicious southwestern dishes. He also enjoys listening to music and spending time with his family.
Clayton Brown, Western States Alliance Program Manager
Clayton is an award-winning clean water industry professional with over 21 years of pollution control and water treatment experience and helped start the Regional Preferred Pumper Program. He was the SC Manager at CWS for 30 years, and retired in October, 2017. His current role is board chair for the Pacific Northwest Source Control Training Association. He demonstrates innovative leadership, team building and coaching skills with the ability to motivate staff incorporating holistic and collaborative communication. Clayton has proven program and project management skills with demonstrated capacity to drive projects to successful completion. He is responsible for numerous process improvements resulting in significant resource and capital savings and is active in several industry associations.
Clayton has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Portland State University, and a Masters in Business Administration from George Fox University. Clayton lives with his wife, Tricia, in Newberg, Oregon. They enjoy spending time with their grandchildren at their little off-the-grid cabin near Lake Cushman, Washington.
Ken Grimm, Industry Outreach Manager
Ken has spent the past 26 years developing expertise in pollution prevention in both the public and private sectors. He developed the training curriculum and provided fats, oils and grease (FOG) training to 56 communities and municipal/county programs throughout the Northwest. Part of initial team developing the Western States Alliance, a program dedicated to FOG, pretreatment and other wastewater issues in the greater northwest region of the United States. Project manager and part of development and training team involved in the P2 Results Data System, a web-based system designed to collect quantifiable results of pollution prevention efforts nationwide and present aggregated totals for each region of the country. Part of several efforts to assist the Washington State Department of Ecology to make P2 Plans more effective and more responsive to the needs of the business community. Ken is responsible for outreach programs at PPRC, serving nation-wide as a paint spray efficiency instructor to auto body shops, industrial and aerospace facilities.
Outside of work Ken enjoys a variety of activities with friends and family, including fishing, camping, hiking, backpacking, cooking and motorcycle riding. He builds computers as a hobby and currently has 50+ systems in the homes of friends, relatives and neighbors.
Krysta Thornton, Communications Manager
Krysta Thornton has nearly 10 years of experience working in a communications capacity for diverse public health and environmental nonprofit organizations around the country. She has a passion for transparent environmental health communication that is accessible to everyone regardless of educational background. She has a strong background in content strategy, information architecture, health promotion and advocacy.
Krysta holds a Masters of Communication in Digital Media from the University of Washington, Seattle.
John Harland, Program Manager
John joined WSA as an Intel Encore Fellow from March 2014 to June 2015 He recently retired from Intel where he was manager of Design for the Environment programs in new manufacturing technology development – to set and ensure new semiconductor manufacturing processes meet environmental performance targets and don’t cause environmental problems when transferred to high volume manufacturing factories. Previously at Intel, he developed the Pollution Prevention elements for the Pollution Prevention in Permitting Project (P4) – a collaboration, facilitated by PPRC, between USEPA, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Intel to develop permits that promote pollution prevention, and has had responsibility for environmental compliance at manufacturing facilities and environmental design of new factories
He has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Edinburgh, UK, and a MSe degree in Environmental Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. John and his wife, Janet, have two daughters and enjoy travel, bicycle riding and getting into the great outdoors