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Friends of Ballona Wetlands Selects
Environmental Activist-Educators as Co-Executive Directors Richard Beban and Lisa Fimiani to Head Wetlands Preservation and Restoration Group PLAYA DEL REY, Calif. –
July 13, 2009 – Friends of Ballona Wetlands, the pre-eminent wetlands
preservation and restoration group in Los Angeles, announced today that
it has chosen environmental activist-educators Richard Beban of Playa
del Rey and Lisa Fimiani of Culver City to head day-to-day operations
as co-executive directors. Beban,
who has a 40-year history in the environmental movement, and Fimiani,
who has worked at Ballona Wetlands for 20 years, were selected after a
months-long search, according to Jacob Lipa, president of the
non-profit organization's board of directors. "We
were looking for a new executive director who could cover a lot of
bases, from public education, to fundraising, to day-to-day
administration, and whose core passion was our mission of saving and
restoring this irreplaceable local resource," said Lipa. "When the
Board realized we had two top candidates who both loved the wetlands
and whose skills were complementary, we asked if they'd share the job,
and they agreed." Friends
of Ballona Wetlands has worked to restore and preserve the area for 31
years, first suing Howard Hughes’ Summa Corporation to save the entire
area from being developed. Since then, the group has worked to educate
the public about the value and necessity of the remaining wetlands. The
organization helps to monitor the restoration of the threatened
ecosystem, which is now managed by the California Department of Fish
and Game as the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. Beban
has been a California environmental activist since he was in college in
1969, when he fought to save Corte Madera Creek in Marin County from
plans by the Army Corps of Engineers to turn the creek and its
tributary streams into a concrete ditch. "We lost that battle, but we
convinced the Army Corps to begin considering the aesthetic value of a
natural landscape in their cost-benefit ratio," said Beban, who has
also been a screen and TV writer whose credits include Barney Miller and who has two poetry books published by Red Hen Press. Beban
has worked, often on a pro-bono basis, for such groups as Friends of
the Earth, Marin Alternative (with now-Sen. Barbara Boxer), Friends of
the Everglades, Coalition for Clean Air, and TreePeople. He also
served the boards of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California, the media workers group Media Alliance, PEN West, and the
Board of Visitors of Antioch University, Los Angeles. He
received his B.A. and MFA degrees from Antioch University in Los
Angeles, and has worked for local environmental policy and public
relations firms, serving such clients as TreePeople, the City of Los
Angeles Stormwater Management Division and waste recycling programs,
the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, CALSTART, Southern California
Edison, and the Clinton administration, as well as local environmental
justice organizations. Beban
and his wife, the writer Kaaren Kitchell, hosted the 2003 Ecopoetry
Celebration at Playa Vista, bringing major national and local poets, to
"poetically 'consecrate' the freshwater marsh at the wetlands," he
recalled. "When I see the variety of species now inhabiting the
freshwater marsh, or using the freshwater marsh on their migratory
path, I know the Friends have been on the right track for years, and I
trust their integrity and stewardship to complete the task of making
sure the saltwater marsh is equally viable habitat. Wetlands work is
truly thinking globally and acting locally. I'm delighted to join them
and to be a part of that restoration effort." Fimiani
has been associated with the Ballona Wetlands for more than 20 years
and has been actively involved with Friends of Ballona Wetlands for
more than a decade. “I was hooked the first time I pulled non-native ice plant from the dunes. To see it now, covered in native lupine, you would never know what the dunes once looked like. It is all due to volunteers’ successful restoration efforts led by the Friends.” Her
contributions to Friends of the Ballona Wetlands include starting the
Migration Celebration event; speaking on behalf of the Friends at Fish
and Game Commission hearings; organizing Christmas Bird Counts and
Great Backyard Bird Count programs in the Wetlands; and serving as a
docent at the Freshwater Marsh since 2003. In 2005,
Fimiani became a member of the group’s board of directors, representing
the organization at community events and volunteering more of her time
for Wetlands issues, such as “It’s Our LA! Keep It Clean”, the City’s
first plastic bag recycling campaign launched in 2007. “I’ve been fascinated with birds since I was a child,” says Fimiani. “Birds are the barometer of an ecosystem, and if you see a huge decrease you know something’s up. That is one of the reasons I am so passionate about Ballona, inspiring volunteers' to help save this natural resource.” A
native of Buffalo, N.Y., Fimiani worked at Paramount Pictures for 18
years, most recently as vice president of sales administration and
program lineups, before forming her own native-plant-design consulting
firm. “My new business gives me an opportunity to combine two of my passions, attracting birds to native plant gardens. Our restoration effort in the Ballona Wetlands is a great model to follow.” A
member of the National Audubon Society since living in Buffalo, Fimiani
stepped down from the Audubon California board and joined the Los
Angeles Audubon Society chapter as board treasurer.
Founded
in 1978, Friends of Ballona Wetlands is a non-profit organization that
protects and restores the area with the help of more than 65,000
volunteers. Its mission is to champion the restoration
and protection of the Wetlands, and to involve and educate the public
as advocates and stewards. Each year, the Friends host thousands of
visitors for interpretive wetlands tours and hands-on dunes restoration. For more information, visit http://www.ballonafriends.org
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