Lewis Freeman was co-founder and is past Executive Director of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance (www.abralliance.org), a coalition of organizations and individuals in Virginia and West Virginia that led the successful fight against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and whose broader purpose is to protect the heritage, resources and economy of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge region. Previously, Lew was deputy assistant to the Governor of Ohio, an executive with several national trade associations and non-profit organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, American Petroleum Institute, the Eisenhower Institute, the Employer’s Council on Flexible Compensation and the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). While at SPI, as Vice President of Government Affairs, he led the creation of the resin identification code that is used throughout the world to identify types of plastics to facilitate their recycling, and he spearheaded the adoption of labeling on 5-gallon plastic containers to warn against the danger of infant drownings. He was featured in the 2020 PBS Frontline show “Plastics Wars” and in several National Public Radio segments on plastics waste. He has also been a featured interviewee in plastics waste in three separate documentaries that were broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom, throughout Germany and on Italian state television (RAI).Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Appalachian Music Festival (https://www.appalachianchamber.org) and is a Board member of Appalachian Headwaters (https://appheadwaters.org/), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering environmental education and ecological restoration. He also continues as a free-lance public policy consultant (www.freemanconsults.com). Lew has also been president of an opera company and is a professional actor and singer who still performs (www.lewisfreeman.com). He sang in the first operas performed, respectively, in The Kennedy Center and the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts. Lew holds degrees from Ohio State University (B.A., History) and George Mason University (Masters, Public Policy). He and his wife, Gretta Sandberg, reside in Highland County, Virginia. They have three children and two granddaughters.