About
Board of Directors
Douglas Woodring
Doug is the co-founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, which is focused on bringing innovative solutions, technology, collaborations and policy together to impact positive improvements for the health of the ocean. Two global preventative projects on the issues of plastic waste were announced at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010: the Plastic Disclosure Project, and the Global Alert platform. Doug co-founded Project Kaisei which led a science expedition to the North Pacific Gyre with Scripps Oceanography in 2009, and was recognized as a UN Climate Hero and a Google Earth Hero for its efforts. Doug has worked in Asia for the past 18 years in a number of industries which have been at the forefront of technology within their sectors, mainly related to the environment and new media platforms. He also spent four years in the asset management industry and set up the framework for a Global Environmental Technology fund in 1998 with Merrill Lynch. Doug is a competitive swimmer and outrigger paddler, and has been nominated as Open Water Swimmer of the Year for his contributions to the sport. Born in Northern California, he has a dual masters degree from The Wharton School (MBA) and Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and an undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Ashley Day
Ashley is the co-founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, and is an entrepreneur with over 12 years of management and product development experience in the materials recycling industry. He is the co-founder of Metal-Tek, an Atlanta-based R&D company providing sustainable solutions to industry-leading metal recyclers, steel mills, and electronic recycling facilities. Through specialized designs and state-of-the art technologies, he has helped pioneer new and innovative approaches to materials handling and sustainable recycling which is currently being utilized around the world. Ashley is currently the CEO and founder of Vor-Tek Recovery Solutions, which is a company based in Southern California and is focused on new technology development and recovery methods for marine based applications suited for oil spill and marine plastics recovery. His oil spill recovery technology was recently selected as one of the top 10 finalists out of over 350 applicants in the $1m Wendy Schmidt XPrize Oil Spill Recovery Challenge. He attended San Jose State University and the University of Denver, where he studied International Business and played basketball. Upon his completion at the University of Denver he pursued a professional basketball career for several years before embarking on a new career in the environmental recycling industry.
Dr. Ali Beba
Dr. Beba is a Professor at the School of Business at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey and received his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. In over 30 years of his profession, he has worked extensively in and outside of Turkey for a range of public and private institutions as well as non governmental organizations, including Smithco Engineering Inc, Procter & Gamble, UNEP, EU and the private sector development groups of the WB. He served as the Chairman of the Environmental Protection and Packaging Waste Recovery & Recycling Trust (CEVKO) and established his first company, Recovery and Recycling Ltd, which designed and implemented systems for collection and down cycling used plastic and metal packaging materials. He provided services for SMEs and NGOs to support their R&D projects with innovative concepts via his company Project Development and Implementation Center and help them to draft professional business plans. He was the Academic Director for the Center for Entrepreneurship of Ozyegin University in Istanbul where he implemented an intensive teaching and research activities in the area of entrepreneurship. In this capacity, he taught entrepreneurship to UG and MBA students and executed international outreach activities such as, the Goldman Sachs Foundation (GSF) for their Global 10000 Women Entrepreneurs Program, European Forum for Entrepreneurship Research (EFER) and EU sponsored Life Long Learning (LLL) projects. Prof. Beba is presently an Adjunct Professor of the of the University of Science and Technology Business School, Consultant at MBA Programs, and Associate Director of the Center for Asian Family Business and Entrepreneurship Studies.
Dr. Calum McKinlay
Calum practiced as a doctor in London before commencing a 20 year career in international finance – investment, funds and CEO roles in Europe and Asia/Australia. His focus has been on improving health indices globally while allowing investors solid returns. He has done this by raising funds for infrastructure projects in developing countries (basic needs and clean economic growth), and more recently in raising risk capital to fund technology innovation in developed countries (medtech, anti-ageing and low cost biotech). For someone who initially grew up in landlocked, centre of the UK, he has spent most of his life trying to make it to the beach and water. He is a competitive pool and open water masters swimmer – winning medals at world masters championships and is a holder of numerous national records. He has maintained a strong interest in the sea, and believes the ocean to be the most important engine of environmental stability that we have. Calum holds qualifications in medicine, zoology and finance, and divides his time between Hong Kong and Sydney.
Dr. James Leichter, Ph.D
James is an Associate Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego. He is a biological oceanographer in the Biology Section of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego. His research is focused on biological and physical connections in coastal ocean ecosystems, the roles of internal waves for nutrient dynamics and ecological patterns, and human impacts and marine reserve design. He has served as Faculty Advisor for the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastics investigation in the North Pacific Gyre in 2009. In addition to pure research and dissemination of results through peer-reviewed publications, he is interested in public outreach and opportunities that involve a broad cross section of stakeholders to bring about innovative solutions to large scale environmental problems. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University, M.S. Northeastern University, B.A. Stanford University.
