Position: Secretary

Type of Appointment/Position: Presidential with Senate confirmation    

Peter Miguel Camejo

Current Rating:

Mr. Camejo is a first generation American of Venezuelan decent who was born in 1939 in New York. He has fought for social and environmental justice since his teens. He marched in Selma, Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., rallied for migrant farm workers and was active against the war in Vietnam. He was admitted to MIT after receiving a perfect score on the Math SAT test. He attended UC Berkeley where he studied history. In 1967, after winning a student council election at UC Berkeley he was suspended for "using an unauthorized microphone" protesting the Vietnam War. When he was 20 he competed in the Olympics in Italy as a yachtsman.

Mr. Camejo has worked to defend the rights of workers and Latinos and other immigrants in the United States. In 1976, twenty-eight years ago, he ran for President as a socialist. His most recent run for office was as a Green Party candidate in the gubernatorial recall election in California. His participation in the debates in that election resulted in him speaking to a worldwide audience.

For the last two decades he has brought his sense of economic, social and environmental justice to investing. He created the Eco-logical Trust for Merrill Lynch, the first environmentally screened fund of a major firm. His current firm allows investors to screen for: corporate governance, environmental performance, employee relations, product liabilities, militarism and weapons, nuclear power, genetic engineering, repressive regimes and alcohol/gambling/tobacco. His firm also empowers investors teaching them how to influence the direction of the corporations they partially own through their shares. His firm also has a community investing program so investors can provide financially underserved communities with needed access to capital for the betterment of their business and communities.

Mr. Camejo, from 1999 to 2002, served for three years as a county-appointed trustee of the three billion dollar Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association. In the early 1990s, he was appointed by the Lt. Governor of Hawaii to be an advisor to the Hawaii Capital Stewardship Forum.

Active in the environmental movement, Mr. Camejo has served as a member of the Board of Directors of EarthShare in the early 1990s  a coalition of over 40 major environmental groupsand on the Council for Responsible Public Investment which he founded. He also helped form the Environmental Justice Fund, to finance and unify environmentalists of color. Mr. Camejo is married and has two children. He is the author of "The SRI Advantage- Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially," "Racism Revolution Reaction 1861-1877," (1976) as well as other books.