Renee Hamel serves as Vice Chair and has been a member of the Board since 2018. She has over 17 years of experience in non-profits and community building. Her first experience with climate justice was organizing students to attend the People’s Climate March in 2014.

Renee Hamel has worked in different capacities in the Connecticut labor movement over the past five years. She currently serves as Communications Coordinator with AFSCME Council 4, representing 30,000 public sector workers throughout the state. She also serves as a Vice Chair of the CT Roundtable on Climate and Jobs and is co-chair of Council 4’s Environmental Committee. With over a decade of experience, primarily in Hartford, some of her past work includes coordinating after-school programs and conducting evaluation and research for local food insecurity initiatives.

As a social work and public health graduate student at the University of Connecticut, she organized students to attend the People’s Climate March and led presentations for classes about the intersection of climate change, human rights, public health, & social justice.

Her involvement with the Roundtable emphasizes support for a green economy that enables sustainable job growth for the most vulnerable & disenfranchised – not only those disproportionately impacted by climate change but including a thoughtful and intentional “just transition” of workers.

Renee is proud to be among inspiring leaders of the Roundtable and grateful for the opportunity to merge two passions of climate justice and labor activism.