Verena Owen and Club's Beyond Coal Campaign stop 150 nationwide coal plants from opening
Verena Owen has been the lead volunteer on the Club's Beyond Coal campaign since the beginning, in 2003, back when it seemed like new coal-fired plants would be unstoppable in her home state of Illinois. What actually proved to be unstoppable were Verena and the rest of the Beyond Coal team. Nearly a decade later, they've helped block more than 150 proposed plants nationwide. This year, Bloomberg Philanthropies recognized that remarkable achievement by investing $50 million in the campaign that Verena helped start