Wendy Abrams

Wendy Abrams (born 1965) is an American environmentalist. She is founder of Cool Globes. In 2010 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.

Early life and education

Abrams grew up Wendy Mills in Highland Park. She received a bachelor's degree from Brown University (1987) and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Career

In 2006, Wendy Abrams founded Cool Globes, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of climate change through public art and education. The first exhibit, "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" premiered in Chicago in 2007 and since then the exhibition has been in 22 cities and translated into nine languages- from Arabic to Spanish.

Abrams serves on the Leadership Council for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and is a 2019 Ripple of Hope laureate, along with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and J. K. Rowling, among others.

In 2011, she helped establish The Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. It was the first step of the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic expansion which intends to guarantee clinical experience to all law students.

Medline

Abrams is a principal shareholder of Medline, but is not currently involved in day to day operations, although her brother and husband are CEO and president, and COO, respectively. Medline has been on the frontline of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and most recently, the COVID-19 Pandemic, supplying crucial medical supplies from their Chicago based plant.

Abrams has been criticized for her being a self-proclaimed environmentalist, but failing to stop the use of a carcinogenic gas at Medline. A National Air Toxins Assessment (NATA), completed by the U.S. EPA., found Medline to be the largest source of ethylene oxide emissions, a known carcinogen, in Waukegan, Illinois. The NATA determined that the cancer risk in Waukegan, Illinois is about 5 times higher than the national average due to ethylene oxide emissions from Medline and another plant, Vantage Specialty Chemicals. Abrams has been personally criticized for her unwillingness to address emissions at Medline and the risk it poses to the community, which is largely minority and low income, despite her prior activism calling on the wealthy to address environmental problems plaguing the poor.

Politics

Abrams expressed a hope that President Obama would initiate divestment from oil. Abrams was a substantive critic of the Keystone Pipeline and urged voters to oppose it, claiming that it would impact American energy independence. Abrams is a major donor to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel.

Personal life

She is married to Jim Abrams; they have four children. They live in Highland Park, Illinois.