THE HYGEIA FOUNDATION
For Health, Science and the Environment
Who We Are
The Hygeia Foundation was founded in 1977 by John Clausen and Clark Easter. Named after Hygeia, a Greek and Roman Goddess of Health, the Foundation’s mission is to promote respect for all life and awareness of the interconnectedness of all creation.
The Hygeia Foundation is run by volunteers, apart from paid support for IT, legal and accounting services as required. Our main office is in New Canaan, CT, USA. We also have an office in Findhorn, Scotland and a registered office in New York.
John has been studying and exploring the evolution of culture and consciousness since the late 1960s. His work currently focuses on community and ecovillage development, philanthropy, networking, investing and sustainability education. He’s especially interested in healthy soil and sustainable food systems.
John lived in the Findhorn Foundation Community in Scotland from 1974-77 and has been closely associated with the community ever since. He currently represents the Findhorn Foundation and Gaia Education at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City as well as serving on the Gaia Education Board.
He is a founding member of the Spiritual Caucus at the UN and is a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle: In Service to Conscious Evolution.
He taught Transcendental Meditation and The Science of Creative Intelligence in the UK and the USA from 1971-1977 and has been practicing meditation for over 50 years.
John grew up in Connecticut, graduated from Boston University and has traveled extensively.
Ralph was born in Los Angeles in 1930, attended UCLA and UC Berkeley law school, worked as a lawyer for many years, and now lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
He has been actively involved in philanthropy for a long time, particularly supporting people who aren't fully respected and empowered, like women, people of color, gays and lesbians.
He has been a supporter of the Threshold Foundation for over 30 years and served on its governance and granting committees in the 1980s and 1990s. Since 1986 he has actively supported Escuelas para la Vida, a Spanish non-profit dedicated to helping people on the margins of society learn to be subjects of their own history rather than objects of others’ history.
Ralph has been a dedicated meditator for the last several years, and hopes to, some day, become a wise and tranquil old fellow.
Clark has been an entrepreneurial leader since 1985, founding or co-founding multiple companies, including several software companies in the geospatial, health, and education sectors.
Key startups have been: a software development initiative used for diabetes management; a software enterprise to automate timelines and legal paperwork requirements for K-12 Special Educators; and a waste-to-energy project that brought innovative Swedish technology to the US.
In 2017 he founded GWI, an initiative to bring to market emerging new water technologies that could make the desalination of brackish groundwater and other impaired water sources affordable for agriculture.
He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Santa Monica, a named inventor on multiple software patents, a former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and a long time meditation practitioner.
Clark lives by the sea in Cambria, CA with his wife Ute and their two dogs.
Bob’s professional expertise includes more than twenty years providing strategic planning, marketing and operational excellence to authors and organizations promoting wellness and holistic living, including Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Ballentine.
For over 40 years Bob has pursued an interest in the arts of personal transformation, encompassing meditation and self-awareness practices as well as body/mind therapeutic tools and therapies. His formal studies include a Bachelor of Science in Consciousness Studies from Maharishi European Research University (MERU) in Switzerland and a Master of Arts in Organizational and Educational Administration. Additional trainings include programs from the Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis and the Multiversity in Pune, India.
Bob lives in Fairfield, Iowa where he enjoys hiking, cooking, the arts and culture.
Frances lived in the Findhorn Foundation Community in Scotland for 15 years, where she worked in various areas, including gardening, education, management and building ecological houses. She left there in 1992 to join her husband, John Clausen, in Connecticut. Since 1997 they have been representing the Findhorn Foundation at the UN Headquarters in New York City, where she chairs the Spiritual Caucus, a group which meets regularly to meditate in support of the UN.
Since 2009 Frances has been the Treasurer and Administrator for Hygeia.
Frances grew up in England, has a degree in Psychology, has traveled extensively around the world and has been a keen organic gardener since early childhood.
Max grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, with summers at Lake Tahoe and on a ranch in Montana. He has lived in Helena, Montana for the last 40 years.
He studied at Dartmouth College and Chicago Theological Seminary.
Max currently chairs the Board of Timeless Seeds, a Montana based packager of organic lentils, other pulse crops and ancient grains and is a partner in a family land and livestock business.
He started and owned a small restaurant, has been part of a small publishing operation, and helped start a non endowed foundation to raise funds for granting throughout the NW and Northern Rockies in areas including human rights, environment, and sustainable agriculture.
Robert was raised in Ridgewood, NJ and attended Ridgewood public schools where he developed his early interest in studying ecosystems and environmental change. He earned his undergraduate degree in economics at Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
He was a lieutenant in the US Navy and deployed principally to the Middle East region. He served as representative of Naval Base Charleston to the Charleston Business – Community Partnership, a program that sought to address local community challenges, including fetal alcohol syndrome, localized crime, environmental pollution, and the causes of elevated high school drop-out rates.
Robert has worked as a financial analyst, portfolio manager, and investment strategist in the private and public equity and debt markets for over thirty years.
His personal interests include classical piano, organic gardening, racquet sports of all kinds, and liturgical studies and exploration.
Directors and Officers:
John L. Clausen, President, Director
Maxwell Milton, Assistant Treasurer
Ralph Alpert, Vice President, Director
Clark Easter, Secretary, Director
Bob Shrem, Director
Frances Edwards, Treasurer, Director
THE HYGEIA FOUNDATION for Health, Science and the Environment, Inc. P.O. Box 1176 New Canaan, CT 06840 hygeia@hyfo.org (203) 972-0695
Robert B. Ross, Assistant Secretary
