Ranay Guifarro grew up in The Dalles, Ore., a picturesque city of 16,000 on the banks of the Columbia River, whose scenic vistas belie a sobering reality: Between 1958 and 1984, the Martin Marietta Aluminum Co. contaminated portions of its 305-acre plant there during the treatment, storage, and improper disposal of metal waste.

Living near that Superfund site—which Martin Marietta, with oversight from the EPA, was responsible for cleaning up between 1989 and 1992—inspired Guifarro ’21 MPS Agr to seek a career in corporate social responsibility. She’s a CSR specialist with Acorn International, which works to create sustainable relationships between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including those with indigenous populations. She operates as an independent professional, interviewing residents of particularly impacted communities and collating her research into a report. “Are we going to tell companies stuff that they don’t want to hear? Absolutely,” she says. “Sometimes we learn there are perceptions that something is happening, even if it might not actually be happening. We can report that to the company, and while we can’t force it to mitigate those perceptions, we can certainly bring light to the concerns.”

Currently based in Tucson, Ariz., Guifarro focuses her efforts in the rural Southwest, compiling social impact assessments for mining companies that contract Acorn International. “A company might not realize its impact, so we would draft a mitigation measure and ask it to look at different ways to reduce traffic flow, for example,” says Guifarro, who joined Acorn International in May 2022. “There could be heavy traffic flow at 5 p.m., so they might decide to have people come in a little earlier or later.”

She recently worked with the Kinross Gold Corp. in Nevada to develop and implement a social responsibility plan after the business acquired a mine there, and she’s performed similar assessments for mining operations in countries around the world. —Andy Faught