Jeffrey Ballinger VP, Sourcing & Policy
Lynne Lyman Treasurer
Natalia Muina VP, Personnel
Adam Neiman President, CEO
Jeff Ballinger
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See Blume's Interview with Jeff Ballinger
Jeff is Director of Press for Change, a non-profit human rights organization with a focus on worker rights in the developing world. He has just finished three years as a Research Associate at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. In the 1990s, Jeff was a program advisor for international trade union training programs, law drafts in the areas of privatization, labor codes and non-governmental organizations, and a consultant for the American Bar Association's human rights law-drafting team (Russia and Kazakhstan).
In 1992, he wrote the first expose of Nike's abusive labor policies for Harper's Monthly and played an instrumental role in getting several dozen NGOs to support the courageous struggle of workers at Nike's contract factories in Asia.
As a thirty-something, Jeff was Country Program Director for the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (now the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity): Turkey 1984-1987 and Indonesia 1988-1992, responsible for all aspects of field office operations. Jeff fought sweatshops here in the U.S. as the national student coordinator of the Farah Pants Boycott and, later, as an organizer in the epic struggle to organize workers at J.P. Stevens (see the movie 'Norma Rae', Jeff says).
In campaign work that presaged the current explosion of NGO-labor cooperation, he co-founded the Committee in Support of Solidarnosc, which organized frequent demonstrations and circulated lists of prisoners to New York-based media and organized the first trip to the U.S. by young Palestinian trade union leaders.
Lynne Lyman
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Lynne Lyman currently works in the office of Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, Massachusetts as a special assistant to the Chief of Human Services. The departments that cover youth programming, community centers, elderly, women, civil rights, homeless and veterans affairs are all within the Human Services Cabinet. Lynne works with the Mayor on youth crime issues and staffs his Strategic Crime Council.
Lynne Lyman received her Masters Degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in June 2001. At the JFK School her methodological area of concentration was in Leadership, while her graduate work concentrated in the policy areas of Crime and Criminal Justice, and Public Education. Among other distinctions, Lynne had the honor of receiving the Barbara Jordan Memorial Leadership Award given once a year to the most outstanding female student exhibiting leadership and commitment to public service.
Lynne’s passions and interests are focused on the social problems confronting inner city communities, particularly issues relating to race and urban youth. Her work emphasizes government-community partnerships applying problem-solving approaches to enhance community safety and quality of life.
Before and after completing the Masters Program in Cambridge, Lynne worked in local politics in the Los Angles area. Her work spanned from managing political campaigns to working as an aide to members of Congress, the State Legislature and the City Council. She earned her B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 1996.
Throughout Lynne’s numerous occupational manifestations, the constant theme has been her commitment to advocating for change that enhances democracy, social justice, and quality of life--whether it be inside an institution, within a specific community or for a country.
Lynne resides in Brighton, Massachusetts with her daughter, Kalia Pearl Lyman, born November 1st 2003.
Natalia Muina
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Natalia was born in Havana and raised in New York City. She is a graduate of the New England School of Acupuncture and has been practicing Chinese medicine for over twenty years.
In 1979 she co-authored Women in the US, a compilation of a year long series of focus groups addressing contemporary women's issues sponsored by HEW. She was an editor at Women of Power magazine in 1986 and 1987.
In the 1980s Natalia was involved in numerous research programs at Long Island Hospital and at Faulkner Hospital's Pain & Stress Clinic. She has lectured on Chinese medicine throughout New England. In 1987, she helped found Rosebud Roofing Company with her partner, Adam Neiman and her son Lucien. She remains a principal in the firm
Adam Neiman
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Adam Neiman founded the Rosebud Roofing Company in 1986. He writes in the first person:
"I had little experience and less capital when I started my first business, but I knew just enough to know the competition's weakness. Most tended to treat their natural allies, their workers and customers, like adversaries. They were predators without a clear understanding of who their prey was. We exploited this weakness, not by running down the competition; that too was standard practice. We differentiated our product just by being different, and that was enough. I experienced the pleasure of taking market share from well established outfits by doing nothing more complicated than trying to treat everyone the way I would want to be treated. And I began to wonder if this notion could have broader applications. Bienestar International is my answer to that question.
"Management's job is to serve as honest broker between the three parties that make up the deal -- workers, consumers and investors. If all parties get a fair shake everyone wants to come back and do business tomorrow -- in a perfect world. In reality, labor usually requires a strong voice to make certain a fair shake is had. But it¹s in the long term interest of all parties. It's no surprise that the management culture that started the '90s ripping off their workers ended the decade by robbing their investors blind.
"There is nothing like a very small business to teach a man his strengths and weaknesses. My best asset is a keen sense of enlightened self-interest. This is the ability not only to see the ethical choice but to figure out how to make doing the right thing just as profitable as doing wrong.
"I've found my old political skills, from the anti-war movement and the staff of the McGovern and Carter campaigns, readily applied to business. Visibility and name recognition translated into brand building. The nuts and bolts of building a grass roots insurgency just aren't that different from bootstrapping a business on a shoestring."
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