ALBERT "ABBY" YBARRA

At Large Board Member 2011-2013

Albert “Abby” Ybarra began his community-organizing career in the 1970’s working with the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez. He realized then that issues of social justice and the environment were indistinguishable. For three decades, he has inspired communities to take action to improve their environment despite political and social barriers.

When asked about accomplishments Mr. Ybarra invariably focuses on people rather than job titles and organizations throughout his impressive environmentally related career. Mr. Ybarra has been working on the east coast to bring environmental education (EE) into underserved urban areas since 2002. In his current role as grassroots coordinator for the No Child Left Inside Coalition (NCLI), “Abby” has reached out personally to stakeholders in diverse communities across the country, including the most underserved audiences in urban and rural areas. His unique perspective and talents helped to build the 1,500 member organization into one capable of succeeding in its mission to promote a clean environment, healthy children, and a green work force through environmental and outdoor education. Prior to working with NCLI Abby created and developed EE curriculum and educational outreach programs for the District of Columbia and served as the Project Learning Tree ® State Coordinator.

Abby spent the 1990’s in California positively influencing the lives of thousands inner city youth in Los Angeles. He helped develop the California Conservation Corps (CCC) working directly with over 1,500 under served and economically challenged students a year and coordinating training events that today reach more than 85,000 young people annually. The program he started in 1997 as Director of Secondary Education for TreePeople, Inc. and Project Manager now brings EE to thousands of teenagers in LA County every day. It is with special pride that Abby talks about his time spent creating Generation Earth. Here he worked directly with 200 young employees, insuring that they received their GED, a job and the skills and work ethic necessary to keep it. While Abby’s great skills for organizing and galvanizing groups to action often land him in the position of leader, facilitator, and coordinator his greatest joy is working directly with underserved youth.

Abby also spent the many years inspiring communities to take action through better access to public information and human rights issues. He specialized in promoting Labor Market Information to bi-lingual news agencies as the Public Information Officer for the State of California Employment Development Department. As the Special Assistant to the Secretary of the California Health and Welfare Agency he focused on making the Agency’s information more widely available to the public.

Abby has combined his many public service experiences with his skills as a professional television producer, actor, and musician, including numerous award winning public service announcements and documentaries, to act as a role model and motivator for the inner-city and minority youth his EE programs reach.