Erika Thi Patterson
Erika (she/her) serves as Senior Director of Pacific Environment’s Climate Program. For over 13 years, she has led corporate and policy advocacy campaigns to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice.
Prior to joining Pacific Environment, she served as Public Citizen’s Auto Supply Chain Campaign Director, where she organized direct actions and mobilized tens of thousands of grassroots activists to push global automakers decarbonize their supply chains and to protect workers, Indigenous Peoples, and other stakeholders on the frontlines of mining, extraction, and processing.
In her role as Climate and Environmental Justice Campaign Director for the Action Center on Race & the Economy, she led campaigns to end Wall Street’s financing of fossil fuels, partnered with frontline to connect local polluters to Wall Street financiers, and organized allies and grassroots activists to demand that the Biden administration require Wall Street’s phase out from fossil fuels.
Earlier in her career, she served as Jobs to Move America’s California Director, where she ran corporate and local advocacy campaigns, which resulted in a landmark community benefits agreement with the world’s largest electric bus maker, as well as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority committing to swap its fossil fuel-powered buses for a fully zero emission fleet and adopting a pro-worker, equity-centered hiring policy. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University and her Master’s degree from University of California, Los Angeles in Urban and Regional Planning.