Board of Directors

GPS’s Board of Directors is comprised of veterinarians, lawyers and long-time animal rights and environmental activists.

Allison Lance, Founder and President
Allison hails from Los Angeles, CA. In her twenty-year career as an activist, Allison Lance has served in many different roles. She started off as a protester and grew to be a campaign leader. Allison worked as a senior staff member for 10 years at a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and when not on campaign at sea, Allison worked as campaign director, major gifts officer and office manager for Sea Shepherd. Through her work with Sea Shepherd, Allison had the opportunity to visit the Galapagos Islands numerous times. Over the years, she began seeing packs of dogs where she once saw groups of iguanas basking in the sun. Allison began bringing street dogs and cats home with her from all ports she visited aboard a Sea Shepherd vessel. In 2008, she founded Galapagos Preservation Society to protect places like Galapagos.

Marnie Gaede
Marnie Gaede is a writer, editor, and publisher of numerous books and articles. She has taught Environmental Issues at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California since 1993. She served as Advisor to the Director Board of Duke University Primate Center in the late1990s. Marnie has been involved with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society since 1989 and worked in support of numerous campaigns and publications. She served as a director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for two years and is presently an Advisor. Marnie is currently on the board of Wings of Care and Grizzly People. Since 2000 she has been on the board of and is currently President of the Fund for Wild Nature.

Jim Moss, Esq.
Jim Moss is an attorney and the Editor of the Outdoor Recreation and Fitness Law Review. The Outdoor Recreation and Fitness Law Review is an online legal resource for the outdoor recreation and fitness industry. He is also the editor of the Recreation Law Blog. Jim Moss is an instructor for Colorado Mountain College. He teaches the Risk Management course for the Ski Area Operations and Business Law. Mr. Moss has worked in the environmental law fiend since 1987. He has defended more than 100 environmental activists. He still works as a river guide in the Grand Canyon and his birding life list is just over 400. Mr. Moss is the author or co-author of six books: The Lawyer’s Advisor, Outdoor Recreation, Travel, and Hospitality Forms, Outdoor Recreation Insurance and Law, and co-author of Legal Liability and Risk Management in Adventure Tourism. He is contributing author of the Boy Scouts Fieldbook. He also has a new textbook coming out this year Outdoor Recreation Risk Management, Insurance and Law.

Larry Richman, D.V.M.Larry Richman received his veterinary degree from the University of Georgia in 1960. After 32 years in private practice, he decided to concentrate all of his veterinary efforts on performing low cost sterilization surgeries to help combat the pet overpopulation problem. He regularly works at 4 clinics and shelters around the state of Maryland. Since leaving practice in 1992, he has performed over 70,000 surgeries.Currently he is chairman of his county’s Animal Control Commission and is the Senior Veterinary Advisor to the Orphan Wild life Rescue Center in Lusby, Maryland. He is also surgeon and advisor to numerous animal rescue groups throughout the state. In 2006 he began working with Animal Balance and has now done 7 campaigns with them, visiting the Galapagos Islands, the Dominican Republic, and Samoa. It was through Animal Balance that he met Allison Lance and became familiar with her work. He is now a proud board member and regular contributor to GPS.

Stu Sugarman, Esq.Stu Sugarman has practiced environmental defense and criminal law in Portland, Oregon, USA, since 1992. While Stu is best known for his efforts protecting people accused of being members of the Earth Liberation Front in court and before Congress, he also has defended Oregon environmental and animal rights civil disobedience protesters in criminal court, free of charge, since 1995. He also leads an ad hoc group of trial lawyers, up to fifty five strong, to represent large numbers of mass disobedience protesters. Stu is proud to have been awarded the Portland National Lawyer’s Guild award for Activism in 1999, and has twice won the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyer Association’s President’s award, in 2004 and 2008. Stu has taken on numerous environmental clients, including the Sierra Club, GASP, and the Oregon Wildlife Federation in their continuing, 22 year old effort to force the U.S. Army to safely dispose of chemical weapons stored in Oregon. Stu also was arrested for illegally occupying the office of Tom Tuchman, the overseer of President Clinton’s Forest Plan, in 1998. Long before that, Stu in first grade set the Cantiague Elementary School’s (of Jericho, New York) all time record for discipline with eleven trips to the principals office in his first nine months. Stu somehow survived the ensuing expulsion effort to create more trouble wherever he’s gone.

Diego Barrera, D.V.M.Dr. Barrera is the director and resident veterinarian/surgeon for PAE-Amabto, as well as the director of Ambato’s Municipal Shelter, the first and only governmental facility for the humane control of dogs and cats in all of Ecuador. Dr. Barrera gained expertise in wildlife veterinary medicine by rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing wildlife, which he began doing in veterinary school. After graduation, Dr. Barrera continued to volunteer for wildlife rescue centers and in 2005 he moved to the Galapagos Islands, where he learned about the importance of controlling dog and cat populations through sterilization programs. Three years ago he started working with a group of people in Ambato who shared his goal of improving the lives of animals. Now as director of of the spay/neuter program in Amabato, Dr. Diego coordinates all the activities of PAE and the municipal shelter, including the rescue of neglected, abused, sick, and abandoned animals, rescue and treatment of wildlife, humane education, and public outreach.