Walter Dartland, executive director

Walter Dartland has earned a national reputation as a consumer advocate.   He has expertise in consumer protection, investment and insurance fraud, and public interest issues.  

In 1987 he was named deputy attorney general and served under Attorney General Bob Butterworth.   While in the attorney general's office he oversaw litigation in environmental protection, land use, consumer protection, antitrust enforcement, and execution of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

In 1996 he returned to the attorney general's office and served as Special Counsel until 2000.

Dartland is a member of numerous professional, civic and charitable boards including past Vice-President of the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and past Chairman of the Florida Bar Consumer Protection Committee.  

He has represented the public interest before the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as an NAIC designated consumer representative and served on the US Food and Drug Administration Consortium.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Consumer Federation of America and Common Cause Florida, an organization dedicated to open, honest and accountable government.

Richard Burton, advisory board member

Richard Burton is currently in private practice, where he is primarily involved in consumer class actions and civil rights litigation.

He founded the Medical Commission on Human Rights from 1969-1971, which eventually paved the way to our current system of fire rescue.   From 1986-1990, he served as the first elected Fire and Rescue Service Commissioner for Miami-Dade County.

He helped found and implement the Florida Condominiums and Landlord Tenants Act and served as general counsel for Rexall Sundown Vitamins, Inc. for a number of years.

Dr. Barney L. Capehart, advisory board member

Dr. Capehart is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida.   He has conducted several energy research projects and published more than 50 research articles in scholarly journals.   His main area of research and publication is energy systems analysis.

He has performed energy efficiency and utility research projects for the Florida Governor's Energy Office, the Florida Public Service Commission and several utilities in the state of Florida.   He also has served as an expert witness in the development of Florida's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, the Florida rules for payments to Cogenerators and the passage of the Florida Appliance Efficiency Standards.   He is one of the state's leading experts on electric utility demand-side management programs for reducing customer costs and for increasing the efficiency of customer end-use.

Dr. Capehart is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a senior member of the Association of Energy Engineers.

Phil Edmonston, advisory board member

Phil Edmonston has toured North America extensively as an expert witness before the courts and government committees.   He testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Technology, where he castigated American automakers for not offering motorists adequate quality and rust protection on their automobiles.

As President of the Automobile Protection Association, Edmonston negotiated several multi-million dollar court settlements for consumers, including a $2.8 million out-of-court settlement with Ford to compensate owners of prematurely rusted vehicles.

In 1998, Phil successfully lobbied Ford and Chrysler to set up special compensation programs from January 1998 to April 2000 to review and compensate owners with automatic transmission, brake and paint delamination complaints.

Edmonston is the author of 104 best sellers dealing with consumer rights and the automobile industry.   He has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS News and National Business Radio.

He is the founder and past- President of the Automobile Protection Association, a former Board of Director of the Consumers Union, and a colleague of Ralph Nader.

Lester A. Garringer, Jr., advisory board member

Les Garringer, as former assistant deputy attorney general, coordinated and administered the Economic Crimes Division consisting of personnel in the Antitrust, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Consumer and Medicaid Fraud Control sections.

He is currently a partner at James, Hoyer, Newcomer and Smiljanich, a law firm that recently represented plaintiffs in a nationwide class action lawsuit that involved complex litigation in both state and federal courts on behalf of consumers in the areas of telemarketing, telecommunications and other consumer-related issues.

He is a member of the Florida Bar, the United States District Court - Northern, Middle and Southern Districts - and the 5 th and 11 th Circuits of the United States Court of Appeals.

Peggy H. Haney, advisory board member

Peggy Haney is a successful consumer affairs leader with more than 20 years of experience resolving controversial consumer public policy issues.   Her expertise and experience includes consumer credit and debt issues, consumer education programs, arbitration issues, and quality customer service.

She currently serves as President of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Center for Social and Legal Research and the American Council on Consumer Interests.

Molly Sinclair McCartney, advisory board member

Molly Sinclair McCartney has written on consumer-related issues and advocacy for several years for various newspapers, including T he Houston Post, Atlanta Constitution, Miami Herald and Washington Post .  

While at the Miami Herald she won five prizes as part of an investigative team for a series of 20 articles on automobile abuse.   During her time at The Washington Post she developed local consumer coverage and implemented a new consumer column to give sharper focus to regional issues and relate them to larger national trends.  

Her experience as a writer has gained her valuable insights into home mortgage rates, health care, gasoline prices, automobile insurance, food prices, utility rates and regulation and consumer rip-off schemes.

Georgia Ruiz, advisory board member

Georgia Ruiz worked for Miami-Dade County for several years and analyzed personnel practices and procedures, supervised productivity study teams responsible for developing recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness of county operations, and facilitated communication between neighborhood residents, community agencies, organizations and service providers.

She is a founding Board Member of the Florida Institute of Government, Florida International University (FIU) and a Board Member of Miami-Dade County's Performance Commission.

Rod Tennyson, advisory board member

Rod Tennyson worked as Consumer Counsel to former Gov. Reubin Askew and former Attorney General Bob Shevin.   During this time, he drafted Florida's Little FCT Act and litigated the first condominium case for the attorney general's office.

He is a member of the Florida Bar, the United States District Court, Southern District and the 11 th Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals.

He was appointed to the State Board of Medical Examiners and served as the first non-physician.   He is also a former president of the Florida Consumers Federation.

Currently, he is in private practice with special interests in high technology litigation including trade secrets and intellectual property rights, Constitutional law and class actions, construction defects, commercial litigation and serves as general counsel for the Land Trust of the Palm Beaches, Inc., a public interest environmental organization.  

Robert S. Winter, advisory board member

Robert Winter [and wife Elizabeth] established a consulting firm Catalysts for Effective Change to provide assistance to organizations in the development of strategic plans, initiating and sustaining quality efforts based on teamwork, and managing change.

Over the years, he has provided consulting services to various organizations including Northwestern University, the University of Illinois, the City of Chicago and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

He served as a Member of the Board for the Information Technology Resource Center (1992 - 1996), and is currently a member of the American Society for Quality, the Association for Quality and Participation, the Association for Institutional Research as well as other organizations.