Leadership and Board

Leadership

Anna Upton, Chief Executive Officer

Prior to leading the Everglades Trust, Anna Upton served as the general counsel for the Everglades Foundation since 2011 and its vice president of government affairs since 2021.

In addition to serving as the outside general counsel for the Foundation, Upton has represented non-profit clients in Everglades-related water quality litigation and administrative proceedings in state and federal court at trial and appellate levels. Upton has also represented clients in civil matters, including commercial litigation, casualty defense, employment, product liability, environmental issues, and constitutional challenges while at the law firm of Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. Upton has been noted in Florida Super Lawyers, Rising Star in 2010 (Business Litigation), 2011 (Civil Litigation Defense, Environmental Litigation, Employment & Labor Law), 2020 (Environmental Litigation), 2021 (Environmental Litigation). Upton is admitted to The Florida Bar, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States District Court: Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Florida. Upton received a juris doctorate, cum laude, from Stetson University College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Wake Forest University. Read more.

Kirk Fordham, Chair

Drawing on his three decades of experience on Capitol Hill, in philanthropy and the private sector, Kirk works to shape public policy in a way that expands individual freedom, protects our spectacular natural treasures and creates a more just and humane society. He is passionate about creating innovative ways to provide impoverished kids with the hope, self-confidence and education to succeed. He is passionate about creating change.

Kirk understands that government works in both predictable and unexpected ways. He knows how to craft and execute a strategy for a big policy win and he understands that, sometimes, quiet, incremental changes can produce equally important outcomes. Read more. 

Board of Directors

Christopher C. Dewey

Mr. Dewey currently serves as a Managing Director of Ceros Financial Services, Inc., the Placement Agent in this Offering.  He was a Founder and President of The Cannon Group Inc, a/k/a Cannon Films, the first independent film company to finance, produce and distribute motion pictures worldwide. Cannon became a public company in 1972 and was thereafter sold.  He was a Partner and Institutional Sales Manager of high yield corporate bonds at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., from 1980 to 1990.  In 1990 he joined Scully Brothers & Foss/The Marion Group, L.P. as Managing Partner where he remained until 1994. Read more

Marshall Field V

Mr. Field is the immediate past chairman of The Everglades Foundation Board of Directors. He is the fifth generation of a Chicago family whose activities have included merchandising, real estate, publishing, communications, and civic affairs. He is Chairman of the Board of The Field Corporation and President of The Old Mountain Company, Inc. He is a graduate of Harvard College and has served as publisher of the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Daily news. Mr. Field was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute from 1965 to 2012 and a member of the Board of Trustees of Rush University Medical Center since 1970. Read more. 

Jon L. Mills

Jon Mills is Dean Emeritus and Professor of the University of Florida College of Law and former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.  He is counsel to the law firm Boies, Schiller and Flexner.

In public service, Jon served ten years in the Florida House of Representatives and was Chair of the Natural Resources Committee. He was a prime sponsor of The Wetlands Protection Act, Water Quality Assurance Act, and the Growth Management Act. He received environmental awards from Audubon, the Sierra Club, and the Nature Conservancy.  He also served on Florida’s 1998 Constitution Revision Commission and was selected its most valuable member. Read more

Robert Parks

Robert Parks is partner in the Miami, Florida, law firm of Robert L. Parks, P.L. Mr. Parks is one of the nation’s premier trial lawyers specializing in personal injury and commercial litigation, focusing in the areas of wrongful death, products liability, aviation law, and class-action litigation. Read more.

Bruce V. Rauner

Bruce Rauner served as the 42nd Governor of the State of Illinois from 2015-2019, striving to reform the state’s culture of deficit spending and corruption. Governor Rauner achieved equal funding for charter schools, created an historic tuition scholarship tax credit program, negotiated an 1115 Medicaid waiver making the state a national leader in mental health services, reformed the criminal justice system reducing recidivism rates by 22%, formed the Competitiveness Council to eliminate burdensome regulations, and created the state’s first Department of Information Technology, making Illinois a national leader in streamlining and digitizing government services. At the outset of his term, Governor Rauner sued AFCSME in a case decided by the U.S Supreme Court in 2018, eliminating the forced collection of union dues in the public sector and enabling state and local governments and public schools in the U.S. to become Right-to-Work. Read more.