Andy MacDonald
National Campus Organizing Director

Andy started his career with CoPIRG in the summer of 1983, and later moved east to become an Organizing Director with MASSPIRG. During that time, he helped organize and run several environmental ballot initiatives, and helped pass groundbreaking legislation on toxics, acid rain, consumer protection and student rights. In 1999, Andy started ecopledge.com, an organization which works to hold corporations accountable for the environmental impact of their businesses practices. In 2003, he moved into his current position as the National Campus Organizing Director, where he works with PIRG campus chapters across the country. When he's not training others to change the world, Andy is either training for marathons or training his young daughter to take on the Kenyans in the 2032 Olympics.

Margaret Howe
Assistant National Organizing Director

Margaret Howe is the Assistant National Organizing Director for PIRG Campus Action. Margaret’s finest achievement was working as the Assistant Organizing Director for CALPIRG when she oversaw campus organizers across the state and helped to run a field campaign that gathered 160,000 pledges from students to defeat Proposition 23, a ballot measure that would reverse California’s landmark global warming law. She also worked as the PIRG National Administrative Assistant for 3 years. When Margaret is not working, she is running in her Chicago running group.

Dan Xie
Political Director

Dan is the Political Director for the Student PIRGs. Previously, Dan was the NJPIRG Student Chapters' organizing director, where she oversaw NJPIRG's campus organizers and worked with student leaders to run successful campaigns. Prior to joining the NJPIRG team, Dan was the Assistant Organizing Director for CALPIRG Students based in Berkeley. She worked with students and organizers to stop student loan interest rates from doubling, to teach 30,000 kids about energy efficiency, and to pass more than 50 plastic bag bans in cities and counties across the state. She also oversaw eight campuses in Southern California to successfully defeat Proposition 23, the dirty oil proposition. Dan graduated from the University of California-Davis in 2008 in Political Science and Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning. Dan likes to ride bikes and read pop science books.

Sam Gibb
Organizing Director, MASSPIRG and CONNPIRG Student Chapters

Sam manages and trains 8-10 entry-level organizing staff each year to mobilize students to be effective agents of change and run strategic campaigns. Currently, her team of 100 student leaders and 400 volunteers are working to pass legislation to repower MA with 100 percent clean, renewable energy, save the bees by restricting the use of dangerous pesticides, reduce the cost of textbooks by promoting the use of open education resources, and alleviate poverty on campus and in the local communities. She got her start as a campus organizer with WISPIRG at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 2008 elections, working with the campus vote coalition to help register over 12,000 young voters. In her first staff management role in California with the CALPIRG Student Chapters, she worked with USC and UCLA students to run a grassroots petition drive and city-council lobbying campaign to pass a plastic bag ban in Los Angeles, effectively eliminating 3 billion bags from circulation. Sam graduated from Lawrence University in WI in 2008 with degrees in Psychology and International Relations.

Jenn Engstrom
Organizing Director, CALPIRG Student Chapters

Jenn oversees the CALPIRG organizers who are responsible for recruiting, training and developing student leaders to run successful campaigns. Prior to her current position, Jenn was the Organizing Director for OSPIRG Students for two years and the Program Director for CoPIRG’s Energy Service Program for two years before that. Jenn began her career with CALPIRG as a student intern in 2007. She served as the chapter chair for the CALPIRG Student’s UC Berkeley Chapter, where she coordinated a campaign to make textbooks more affordable and pass Prop 1A in California, creating the funds to build the nation’s first high speed rail network. Jenn likes hiking and long brunches.

Michael Basmajian
National Administrator

Michael Basmajian is the National Administrator with PIRG Campus Action, based in Boston. Michael oversees the organization’s tracking systems, helps plan and run national trainings, oversees budgets and legal responsibilities, and works on the group's website and social media, among other projects. He got his start on staff as a MASSPIRG campus organizer in Fall 2014 and has organized students at number of schools in Western Massachusetts. Over the past two summers, Michael has helped direct canvass offices in Cambridge, MA and in New Brunswick, NJ, where he helped break the office's fundraising record and restore Clean Water Act protections to rivers and streams nationwide. Michael graduated from UMass Amherst with degrees in Political Science and Communication.