President of the Apollo Alliance, Jerome Ringo
More on Jerome Ringo
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Jerome Ringo
Entrepreneur
BIO
Jerome Ringo is currently President of the Apollo Alliance. He comes to the helm of the Apollo Alliance as a dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal advocate of clean energy. He has first hand experience of the challenges we face after working for more than 20 years in Louisiana's petrochemical industry. More than half of that time was spent as an active union member working with his fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. Louisiana's petrochemical industry focuses on the production of gasoline, rocket fuel, and plastics - many of which contain cancer causing chemicals. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry's pollution on local communities - primarily poor, minority communities - Ringo began organizing community environmental justice groups.
"The American people know our dependence on foreign oil is dangerous. It's time for our policymakers to make a true commitment to energy independence for the United States. The research and development of these new technologies will create good jobs at a time when traditional factories are closing down across the country," Jerome Ringo said. "Our leaders need the vision, investment and political will to make energy independence a reality."
Jerome Ringo's experience organizing environmental and labor communities and his drive to further diversify the environmental movement bridges many of Apollo's partners to create a broad based coalition to provide real solutions for our energy crisis. In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, Jerome became the Chair of the Board. In so doing, he also became the first African-American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome Ringo was the United States' only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan. In addition to being present during Kyoto Treaty Negotiations, Ringo represented the National Wildlife Federation at the United Nations' conference on sustainable development in 1999.
While recognizing that the environmental movement needs the involvement of all, Jerome Ringo has agreed to serve as the new president of the Apollo Alliance, whose member organizations represent more than 17 million people across the country. The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, environmental, national security, civil rights and business leaders fighting to make America independent from foreign energy in 10 years.
The Apollo Alliance is a broad coalition that has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and 22 international labor unions, the major national environmental organizations, more than 50 businesses, and the support of more than 100 organizations in the nation's states and cities. The Alliance is pursuing a crash program for clean energy that will create three million new, clean energy jobs and reduce our oil imports by the amount we import from the Middle East. Apollo Alliance seeks to reinvest in the competitiveness of American industry, rebuild our cities, create good jobs for working families, and ensures good stewardship of both the economy and our natural environment.
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