Maria Zannes
Director

Maria Zannes is an attorney, consultant and lobbyist with more than twenty-five years in the environmental and energy industries, providing strategic and general consulting at the state and federal level for business and program development for clients in the energy, environmental, and biotechnical fields.

Ms. Zannes currently consults for private clients in the medical and waste industry after stepping down in 2005 as president of the national waste-to-energy trade group, Integrated Waste Services Association in Washington, D.C.

For more than a decade in Washington, DC, Ms. Zannes built and directed Integrated Waste Services Association, the national trade group for America’s $10 billion waste-to-energy industry. Her accomplishments included negotiating major environmental laws with the Clinton and Bush Administrations; lobbying Congress on tax, renewable energy and environmental legislation; developing and executing IWSA public affairs campaigns; directing five IWSA professional committees working at the local, state and federal level in engineering, health & safety, municipal issues, state legislative issues, and federal politics; and directing all fiscal, administrative and budget duties required of the office   

She also was a legislative aide and press secretary to Congressman Charles Wilson (D-Texas) after leaving her home state of New Mexico where she began her career as a journalist. Ms. Zannes earned her law degree at the University of Puget Sound School of Law, 1992 and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of New Mexico in 1982.

She has played a key role in directing the conception and organization of American Homecoming Foundation and serves as secretary of the AHF board.

Her private practice is based in Albuquerque, NM.