Conserve Water through Local Action

Brandy Lellou, President/Executive Director

Our Director, Brandy Lellou grew up in Colorado and has closely followed the strain that water scarcity is having on all industries in the western US.  However, while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania, West Africa, she saw the real meaning of water scarity and its impact on communities.  Brandy has a Civil Engineering degree from Colorado State University with 10 years of experience implementing environmental, geotechnical, and water engineering projects in the field; including 7 years of experience working on engineering projects in Africa from building simple village schools to installing a high tech water distribution system for the US Embassy.  In response to the need to find additional water resources in Mauritania, Brandy founded Nature's Voice Our Choice with the goal of developing a system that could treat waste water using locally available materials and labor for reuse in agricultural production.  With the success and expansion of this project, the vision for the organization has grown as the Board of Directors began to explore the need for a grass roots water preservation and conservation movement in the United States.  Brandy's technical skills combined with her communication skills and passion for her work allows her to guide Nature's Voice Our Choice in designing and implementing programs that strive to ensure the sustainability of water resources in communities throughout the world.

Valerie Strassberg, PE - Water Energy Program Director

Valerie Strassberg is a professional engineer specializing in Water Resources.  Valerie has 5 years of experience in project management and designing international and local water infrastructure projects.  Valerie also has years of wetland, rain garden, and stream restoration design and build experience.  Through her involvement, as the lead in our 2009 Water/Energy feasibility study and development of the Water Resource Management for Energy Conservation (WRMEC) project she is well prepared her for he role as the Water/Energy Program Director; as she has acquired invaluable knowledge of the entities involved, needs, and links between who’s who among the WT and WWT industry.  Valerie's design and project implementation experience and her engagement with the city of Ann Arbor, MI, as an Environmental Commissioner, have equipped her with the skill and knowledge necessary to navigate between the technical and bureaucratic aspects of this program. 

 Ambassador Christopher Goldthwait, Vice President

Mr. Goldthwait graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. and earned a Master’s in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  From 1982 – 1986 he was the Agricultural Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria, with regional responsibilities in Cameroon and Ghana. From 1991-1999, Mr. Goldthwait served as General Sales Manager in the Foreign Agricultural Service of the Department of Agriculture where he was responsible for USDA’s market development, export credit, export subsidy and food aid programs.  From 1999 to 2004 he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Chad. While in Chad, he arranged a U.S.-funded agricultural development project near Chad’s oil production to retain the agriculture industry once oil production started.  Mr. Goldthwait now works as an independant consultant for agriculture and foreign affairs.

 Dr. Katherine Moseley, Secretary

Kay Moseley is an Africanist by background, with a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University.  She did her fieldwork in Dahomey (now, “Bénin”), and taught at Fourah Bay College (Sierra Leone) and at the University of Port Harcourt (Nigeria), as well as at Vanderbilt, Brooklyn College, the University of Connecticut (Storrs), and several other American universities. In 2000-2006 she worked as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department, where she had the good luck to serve in Sudan, Mauritania, and Chad.  She has since returned to her academic interests, specifically, the social history and ecology of Saharan oasis towns – a subject that first came into focus during a research Fulbright in Morocco in the 1990s, now extended to the oases of the Adrar and Tagant regions of Mauritania.  Kay is currently researching a paper entitled “Development or Ecocide?  Dilemmas of Water Exploitation in the Sahara.”

John Leary, Treasurer

John is an instructional designer and agroforestry specialist who has worked in international development for the past ten years. John served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal, West Africa. He later worked as the Director of Programs and Training at Trees for the Future from 2003-2007 where he was instrumental in expanding their agroforestry program; including developing a sustainable funding base, development of an agroforestry training manual, establishing training centers and training in-country technical representatives.  John now enjoys working as the Director of Training at ACDI/VOCA. He holds a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Instructional Design, and he is currently working on his EdD in Educational Technology.

Our volunteers are scientists and engineers with a interest and passion in developing and implementing community based water resource management solutions.  If you are interested in volunteering contact us.