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About Us

What We Do

Frontier Group is a think tank, producing ideas and research to promote a cleaner environment and a fairer and more democratic society. We are issue experts, writers and analysts who recognize that good ideas must be coupled with organizing, advocacy and effective communication if they are to make a difference. Through our affiliation with the Public Interest Network, we partner with organizations on the ground in states across the country and in Washington, D.C., to disseminate our work and improve public policy.

Since 1996, Frontier Group has produced more than 200 reports, white papers, fact sheets, op-eds and testimonies that document social problems and propose powerful solutions. Our work has helped pave the way for policy changes to expand America's use of renewable energy, reduce our contribution to global warming, and protect the public from dangerous chemicals, among other advances.

Who We Are

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Susan Rakov

Frontier Group Director Susan Rakov has spent the past two decades working to build the organizational and intellectual infrastructure of the public interest movement. A graduate of Harvard University, Susan worked during the 1980s to develop and oversee the national staff recruitment program and coordinated grant-seeking efforts of the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), U.S. PIRG. Later, she served as executive assistant to the Chair of the Public Interest Network, helping to build capacity, membership and political power for social change organizations across the nation.

In 1996, Susan became the founding director of Frontier Group. Initially launched to conduct research and policy analysis during the 1996 campaign for a cutting-edge California campaign finance reform initiative, Frontier Group was transformed under Susan's leadership into a multi-issue think tank providing research and policy development support to organizations throughout the Public Interest Network, including U.S. PIRG, Environment America and their respective state affiliates. Over the past decade, Susan has worked to expand Frontier Group's research staff and the range of issue areas the group addresses. Susan's current priorities include overseeing Frontier Group's operations, guiding the group's program and policy development work, and spearheading efforts to build alliances with like-minded research, policy and advocacy organizations. Susan is based in Santa Barbara, California, where she lives with her husband and two children.

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Tony Dutzik

Tony Dutzik is senior policy analyst with Frontier Group. His research has focused on climate and energy policy, transportation, privatization of government services, and state-based approaches to public policy challenges. His reports have received national media attention - gaining coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other major newspapers - and have helped lay the groundwork for reforms such as state adoption of enhanced emission standards for cars.

Prior to joining Frontier Group in 2001, Tony worked as an education reporter for the Eagle-Tribune newspaper of Lawrence, Mass. He also worked for six years as a political writer with the Fund for the Public Interest and for two years organizing college students with New Jersey PIRG at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. and Temple University in Philadelphia. Tony holds a Master's degree in print journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science degree in public service from Penn State University. A native of Pittsburgh, he now resides in Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

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Travis Madsen

Travis Madsen has worked with Frontier Group since 2002. His work has won coverage in a wide variety of local and national media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He has helped to build the foundation for major policy advances, including the phaseout of toxic flame retardant chemicals from U.S. commerce and the expansion of renewable electricity standards across the nation. Prior to joining Frontier Group in 2002, Travis completed a fellowship at the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, helping to win a campaign for tougher limits on automobile air pollution. Travis holds a bachelors degree in molecular biology and chemistry from the University of Colorado, and currently resides in Santa Barbara, California.

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Elizabeth Ridlington

Elizabeth Ridlington works as a policy analyst with Frontier Group. She focuses primarily on global warming, energy efficiency and clean vehicles, and has written dozens of reports on these and other subjects. Her work includes Too Much Pollution, assessing state and national trends in global warming emissions; Utility Work Ahead, evaluating Maryland’s progress improving energy efficiency and reducing electricity consumption; and numerous reports on the benefits of state adoption of stronger vehicle emission standards. Elizabeth graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in government and worked as an assistant to the director of the Fund for the Public Interest and U.S. PIRG before joining Frontier Group in 2002. She lives in Northern California with her husband and son.

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Benjamin Davis

Benjamin Davis is an analyst in Frontier Group's Santa Barbara office, where he focuses primarily on transportation and government transparency and accountability issues. He was the lead co-author of Following the Money 2011, which set the national benchmark for proficient state transparency websites – new government-run sites that allow citizens to track state spending. Benjamin's other work includes Road Work Ahead, which advocates that America adopts “fix it first” rules to maintain our roads and bridges; and Tax Shell Game, which catalogs the additional tax burden faced by citizens because of corporate tax haven abuse. In 2009, Benjamin graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in International Development. At Berkeley, he studied a year abroad in Ghana conducting research on the country’s recently discovered oil.

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Jordan Schneider

Jordan Schneider is an analyst in the Frontier Group Santa Barbara office. Before joining Frontier Group in the fall of 2010, she worked as a reporter, page designer and copy editor for small newspapers in both southeastern Alabama and in Colorado. In 2008, she wrote grants for the Catamount Institute in Colorado Springs, Co., and worked as a communications assistant for the Gulf Restoration Network in New Orleans. She has a strong interest in conservation and natural resources management issues, especially concerning the American tropics and the U.S. Gulf Coast. She completed independent studies in coastal Ecuador in 2009. Jordan is a 2008 summa cum laude graduate of Loyola University New Orleans. She majored in print journalism.
 
 

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Judee Burr

Judee Burr is a policy associate in Frontier Group’s Santa Barbara office. Before joining Frontier Group in August 2012, she attended Stanford University, where she worked as a research assistant for the Carnegie Institute for Global Change, for the nationally syndicated radio show, Philosophy Talk, and as a student researcher for the Bill Lane Center for the American West. She also served as a docent at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and as Vice President of Students for a Sustainable Stanford. In 2011, she participated in a study abroad service-learning program in Cape Town, South Africa, where she helped build permaculture gardens at primary schools with the non-profit SEED. She graduated from Stanford in June 2012 with a B.S.H. in Earth Systems and a B.A. in Philosophy, and is a native of Coventry, Rhode Island.

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Tom Van Heeke

Tom Van Heeke is a policy associate in Frontier Group’s Boston office. Since joining Frontier Group in August 2012 he has worked primarily on government accountability and transparency issues. A Florida native, Tom was raised largely overseas in Switzerland and Britain where, as a high school senior, he served in local elective office. Tom was thrilled to return to the United States to attend Grinnell College, where he majored in political science and graduated with honors in May 2012.  

 

The Mary Leah Braun Fellowship

Mary Leah Braun was a remarkable young woman who worked with the Frontier Group and other organizations in the Public Interest Network before her untimely death in April 2006. The Mary Leah Braun Fellowship was dedicated in her honor in the summer of 2007. For more information about the fellowship and its recipients, click here.