PHOTO ABOVE COURTESY OF McGARRY?BAIR & LEGAL NEWS FILE PHOTOS OF BILL FARR AND ELIZABETH LYKINS BY CYNTHIA PRICE
by Cynthia Price
Legal News
The Michigan League of Conservation Voters (MLCV) has made many smart strategic moves in West Michigan, and among them has been asking Bill Farr, Elizabeth Lykins, and Bob Eleveld to serve on the board.
The organization started out in 1985 as an all-volunteer effort spearheaded by yet another attorney, Mark Richardson, who recently retired from the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office, along with Brian MacKenzie, now a judge, and Mark Miller from West Michigan.
“Actually we were active in the 1990s,” Richardson says. “We endorsed candidates, we gave small contributions, but we were a small operation.”
Though it was incorporated in 1985, it was not until 1999 that funding allowed full-time staff to be hired.
At the time, current Executive Director Lisa Wozniak was employed by the national League of Conservation voters, working out of Ann Arbor, and one of her charges was to encourage the formation of state leagues in the region. Between 1999 and 2001, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin formed LCVs, which, Wozniak stresses, are autonomous from the national group.
It was not until 2005 that Wozniak became Executive Director of Michigan LCV. She has grown the organization from two staff members to 16, and one office to two. Comments Richardson, “It really has come a long way under Lisa’s directorship, she’s done a marvelous job.”
Well-known local attorney Bill Farr’s tenure on the board pre-dated Wozniak’s directorship by two years.
Farr had served on the Pere Marquette Watershed Council, and became close to Joan Wolfe, the founder of West Michigan Environ-
mental Action Council, and her conservationist/dentist husband Will.
“Joan was on the League board and recruited me,” Farr said, “but then the first meeting I went to was her last meeting. That came as a surprise... but I’ve stayed on.”
Farr, who won the Grand Rapids Bar’s Donald R. Worsfold Distinguished Service Award in 2010, retired from Farr Oosterhouse and Krissoff, but has a practice serving, among other things, as an expert witness in legal malpractice cases under the business name William S. Farr, Attorney at Law.
He has over the years devoted time to a variety of causes, such as pro bono work at Dégagé Ministries, several positions with the State Bar including on the Judicial Qualifications Committee, and as president of the Grand Rapids Bar Association president.
Though Elizabeth Lykins came to MCLV much later, she is currently chairing the board.
“I got involved by volunteering on projects,” Lykins said, “initially through David LaGrand, who was on the board then. Lisa asked me to join the board for a while before I said yes, and then after I’d been on for only a year, they asked me to chair it.
“Even that I put off for a year,” she added with a laugh, “but eventually I gave in.”
Lykins, who started Welch Law in 2004, practices exclusively in labor and employment law, helping companies across the spectrum of issues in that field.
Her community service is vast, ranging from Westminster Child Development Center to Home Repair Services, from Big Brothers/
Big Sisters to the Home and Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids. She serves the Grand Rapids and State bars, and has been for many years a Chapter Editor for the American Bar Association’s Developing Labor Law, published annually.
This professional and volunteer work contributed to Lykins being named one of the Grand Rapids Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” in 2009, as well as winning an Outstanding Member Award from the Women Lawyers Association.
Visitors to the website www.michiganlcv.org may view a video in which Lykins speaks favorably about MLCV’s role.
MLCV, which is a bipartisan 501(c)(4) non-profit — the Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) — is perhaps best known for its scorecard of how legislators vote on conservation issues.
Says Wozniak of MCLV’s strategic direction, “Our course looks for Michigan LCV to be a pragmatic center, to own the political space in a bipartisan way, to be a trustworthy go-to organization for media and elected officials on all things related to natural resource protection and its intimate connection to our economic future.” This entails scoring Michigan policymakers from governor to legislators, in addition to running a variety of programs and doing direct advocacy on behalf of its 90,000 members statewide.
“I think the new scorecard for the Supreme Court is just a great idea,” said Bob Eleveld, who is the newest MLCV board member of the three West Michigan attorneys, having started in 2012. (The Green Gavel scorecard is a simple tool for rating justices on their opinions regarding conservation cases before them.)
Eleveld is a litigator with McGarry Bair, which specializes in intellectual property law. Prior to the founding of McGarry Bair, he was at Varnum for 36 years and a solo practitioner for seven. He is experienced in arbitration and mediation.
Eleveld too is a dedicated contributor to the community; he has served on the boards of St. Johns Home and Planned Parenthood among others.
He is a very political animal, having run for state legislator in the past but been unsuccessful in the Republican primary. “I think it’s fair to say Michigan LCV is the ‘lead dog’ in terms of the Great Lakes, at least in terms of political action,” Eleveld comments.
And political savvy is one reason, according to Lykins, for the large number of attorneys on the MLCV board. “Politics makes some people very uncomfortable; hard decisions have to be made,” she said. “But attorneys are used to working on both sides of the aisle, and we don’t have as much discomfort with conflict. We’ve learned to manage it professionally.”
Lisa Wozniak observes, “People who come out of a legal background have a strong connection to and understanding of the laws that guide our state and our nation. We’ve been very, very fortunate to have the bipartisan expertise of people like Bob, Bill and Elizabeth, on our board.”
All three attorneys return that praise. “It’s a terrific organization, highly professional,” Lykins said, “and in Lisa we have a tremendous leader.”
Wozniak, who was raised in the Grand Rapids area and graduated from Comstock Park High School, also sees the need to focus energy on West Michigan. “One very important part of our building the organization has been a very determined and purposeful look at West Michigan and the important role West Michigan plays in the state,” she says.
The MLCV West Michigan office opened in 2008, and has recently added staff and hired Patty Birkholz, the former state representative, state senator and Director of the Office of the Great Lakes, as its West Michigan Director.
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