Board of Directors

Eric Younger

Eric Younger has worked and studied in the field of sustainable economic development for fifteen years. Eric earned a Master's degree from Thunderbird (the American School for International Management). He focused on issues of sustainable development and its influence on the social, political and economic development issues in Latin America. Eric served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Papua New Guinea where he taught Mathematics and consulted with the local community on sustainable forestry projects. Following the Peace Corps, Eric ran an NGO on the Navajo Reservation that focused on sustainable development by integrating health, literacy and economic development projects to address a wide range of needs of local native families.

After five years on the reservation, Eric's desire to work abroad returned, taking him to Sofia, Bulgaria where he served as an Associate Peace Corps Director. In this role he worked with over 400 volunteers to help assure that their two years of volunteer service were relevant, productive and safe. Eric returned to the US as Executive Director of the Foundation for Sustainable Development which focuses on bringing interns, small grants and technical training to small grassroots organizations in support of their development work. In 2010, Eric established the Foundation for Community Development and Empowerment.

Kathleen Lynch

Kathleen Lynch, founding member and Executive Director of ISLA, began her international odyssey when, at the age of 15, she moved to Greystones, Ireland. She lived and worked there for seven years and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a degree in history, psychology and classical civilization. After graduation, Kathy returned to the US to work in international education at the University of Kentucky. In 1985 she headed back overseas to study at the Ruprecht Karl's Universitat in Heidelberg, Germany. Kathy served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Mali, West Africa. An agricultural volunteer, Kathy worked with local farmers and gardeners on new crops, improved production and solar drying of mangos and on health education. After Peace Corps, Kathy worked for the USDA's Cochran Fellowship Program, selecting participants and designing training for agribusiness entrepreneurs from the former communist countries. This opened new vistas for Kathy and led to her taking a position as Program Director for ACDI/VOCA in Warsaw Poland where she and her family lived from 1992 to 1996. Currently Kathy resides in Fort Collins, Colorado and is a certified Montessori instructor.

Carl Hammerdorfer

Carl Hammerdorfer is the Director of the Global Social Sustainable Enterprise program at Colorado State University. An entrepreneur with twenty years of experience internationally and domestically, Carl began his international career working at the grass-roots level as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, West Africa. Carl trained Malians in improved well-digging and stabilization and was a health and sanitation educator. Working with his wife and other PCVs, he wrote and produced songs on health and sanitation that played for several years on Radio Mali.
Since his Peace Corps service, Carl has held a number of international positions, including water sanitation consultant in Cote d'Ivoire, Country Director of VOCA in Warsaw, Poland and Peace Corps Country Director in Sofia, Bulgaria. In addition to his international work, Carl has extensive experience forming and launching cooperatives internationally and domestically. He was co-founder of Cooperative Solutions and the Main Street Cooperative Group in Phoenix, Arizona.

His current passion is in developing and applying enterprise solutions that solve chronic development challenges in base of pyramid markets to produce triple bottom-line results. He is fluent in German, French and Bulgarian and speaks passable Bambara.

Heidi Campbell

Heidi Campbell served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon from 1989-1991. She received her Master’s in Environmental Health from Oregon State University in 1998. As part of her graduate work, Heidi conducted a microbiological assessment of water quality in streams throughout the state of Oregon. In 1999, Heidi moved to Thoreau, New Mexico and worked with Navajo women to provide a home-health visiting program for expecting and new mothers. While in New Mexico, she developed a nationally distributed catalog for Native American artisans that provided them with a greatly expanded market. In 2002, Heidi and her family moved to Sofia, Bulgaria where Heidi worked with a gallery that supported local, disabled, minority and orphaned artisans.

Heidi now lives in Ketchum, Idaho and is the mother to two wonderful boys. She is an active volunteer for the schools, environmental causes and international development.