It's All About Food - Matt Ball, Justin Danhof, & Gena Hamshaw - 08/09/14

Part I: Matt Ball, Accidental Activist
Matt Ball co-founded Vegan Outreach and served as the group’s Executive Director for more than 20 years. As Executive Director, Matt built the organization into a leading animal advocacy charity, with revenues and assets approaching $1,000,000, and many thousands of active members around the world. Under his leadership, activists distributed more than 22 million booklets exposing the treatment of farmed animals, and promoting compassionate, thoughtful living. These booklets convinced countless people to adopt more humane diets. A globally-recognized authority on animal advocacy, factory farming, vegetarian diets, and applied ethics, Matt has presented at and written for many forums over the past two decades. He is the author of many essays and several books, including: The Animal Activist’s Handbook (2007) and The Accidental Activist. In 2005, he was inducted into the Animal Rights Hall of Fame.

Before working full-time for Vegan Outreach, Matt was a Research Fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, while working on a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to that, Matt was a Department of Energy Global Change Fellow, and he earned an M.S. in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in the Department of Forest Ecology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His undergraduate degree is in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, where he was a National Merit Scholar. As an Aerospace Engineering student, Matt worked for Booz, Allen, & Hamilton, and the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies.

Matt lives in Tucson, AZ with his wife Anne Green. Their daughter Ellen attends Pomona College in Claremont, CA. His blog is A Meaningful Life, a Better World.

Part II: Justin Danhof, GMO Labeling
Justin Danhof is the General Counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, as well as Director of the Center’s Free Enterprise Project. Mr. Danhof previously worked as a research associate with the National Center for Public Policy Research from 2008 to 2009. Prior to joining the National Center for Public Policy Research, Mr. Danhof worked in the Miami-Dade State’s Attorney’s Office in the Economic Crimes and Cybercrimes Division, for the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Danhof’s work has been widely published and quoted in major newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post,Sacramento Bee, Orange County Register, Politico, Bergen County Record and the Canadian National Post, among others.
Mr. Danhof is a member of the Federalist Society and Christian Legal Society. Mr. Danhof is a graduate of Bentley University (Waltham, MA), where he received a Bachelor of Science in economics and finance and pitched for three seasons on the school’s NCAA Division II baseball team. Mr. Danhof completed his graduate studies at the University of Miami School of Law where he received his Juris Doctor and Master of Laws in Taxation. Mr. Danhof is licensed to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C.

Part III: Gena Hamshaw, Choosing Raw
Gena Hamshaw, CCN, a former book editor turned clinical nutritionist, has contributed to VegNews , O Magazine, Whole Living Daily, Food 52, and other publications. You can find her online at choosingraw.com; @choosingraw.