Richard Renner is a leading advocate for whistleblowers, with a long record of service for labor organizers and civil rights.  He is a member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and a former Co-Chair of NELA's Whistleblower Committee. 

Prior to joining the National Whistleblowers Center in 2008, Mr. Renner worked for 27 years as a lawyer in Ohio where he was a founding partner in the firm of Tate and Renner. Mr. Renner was co-counsel in Charvat v. EORWA, 96-ERA-37, before the Department of Labor, the Sixth Circuit in Charvat v. EORWA, 246 F.3d 607 (6th Cir. 2001), and before the Ohio Supreme Court in State ex rel. Russell v. Thomas (1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 83, 1999-435. Mr. Renner also prevailed as sole counsel in Trueblood v. Von Roll American, Inc., 2002-WPC-1,3-6; 2003-WPC-1.

Mr. Renner founded Hispanic Ministries of Tuscarawas County, Inc. (1997) and served as its president. He assisted in bringing a 20-year UFCW organizing drive to a successful NLRB election in 2007.  He was an adjunct faculty member at Kent State University, Tuscarawas Branch, where he taught Mathematics and Environmental Law, 1998-2000. Mr. Renner also received the Pillars Club Community Service Award in 1995, the Big Brother of the Year Award from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of East Central Ohio in 2004, and the Tuscarawas County NAACP Freedom Fund Award for the Furtherance of Social Justice in 2008.

Mr. Renner is the author of several articles including: "Federal Environmental Whistleblower Complaints," in Employee Rights Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Summer 2002), pp. 29-34; "Whistleblower Book Helps with All Retaliation Cases," a review of Concepts and Procedures in Whistleblower Law, NELA Employee Advocate, Spring 2001, p. 24; "Federal Whistleblower Complaints," feature article for Ohio Employment Lawyers Ass'n Newsletter, October, 1996.

Mr. Renner served on the program committee for Representing Employees in Whistleblower and Retaliation Cases in Chicago, 2007, and co-presented a plenary session on Department of Labor procedures.  Mr. Renner presented "Sarbanes-Oxley and other federal whistleblower protections " to the Ohio Employment Lawyers Association in 2004 and "Informed Consent and the Obligation of Attorneys to Clients" in Akron, Ohio in 1995. He also moderated a seminar on ethics, professionalism and substance abuse for Tuscarawas County Law Library in 2001.