FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 2, 2014
Michigan Sierra Club Leader Earns Top Award
State Director Anne Woiwode Receives National Honor
LANSING—Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter today announced that Anne Woiwode, Michigan’s senior environmental leader, received the Virginia Ferguson Award, a top honor given by national Sierra Club, the organization she has served continuously for more than three decades.
Named after the 122-year-old club’s first staff person, the Virginia Ferguson Award goes annually to a Sierra Club employee who has shown exemplary service and performance and was presented to Woiwode at the club’s national headquarters in San Francisco
“Anne’s leadership, integrity and commitment to Michigan has inspired me and countless others over the years. There is no environmental leader in our state with more wisdom, integrity and a deeper knowledge of environmental policy than Anne Woiwode,” said David Holtz, Michigan Sierra Club Chapter Chair. “All of us are extremely grateful for Anne’s continued contributions to making Michigan a better place and she is deeply deserving of this honor.”
Woiwode has been Michigan state director of Sierra Club since 1985. She has been a leader on fighting widespread pollution in Michigan from large animal factories and helped lead a successful effort in 2008 to pass Michigan’s first clean energy legislation. Woiwode’s passion for protecting forest ecosystems led her to drive a campaign in 1987 that established 90,000 acres of wilderness under the Michigan Wilderness Act.
Woiwode’s leadership on clean energy is especially noteworthy.
“Anne Woiwode has led many environmental battles in Michigan but probably none more precedent setting than her fight to move Michigan toward a clean energy future,” said Jan O’Connell, Michigan Chapter Development Director & Clean Energy Campaign Organizer.
In 2008, said O’Connell, Michigan was faced with an onslaught of eight newly proposed coal-fired power plants. Under Woiwode’s leadership dozens of groups across the state were organized to oppose the plants. None have been built, largely due to Woiwode’s strategic skills and a the robust campaign implemented by Sierra Club and its allies.
##
Sierra Club is a volunteer-led organization with 160,000 members and supporters in Michigan.
