GoGreen Seattle Conference

Christie True was appointed by King County Executive Dow to lead King County's Department of Natural Resources and Parks (DNRP) in July 2010. True previously served as the director of DNRP's Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) and is a 25-year veteran of King County, where she started her career in 1984 as a water quality technician. The Department of Natural Resources and Parks has four major divisions — Parks and Recreation, Solid Waste, Wastewater Treatment and Water and Land Resources — perform tasks ranging from improving water quality, to enhancing parks and trails, to protecting citizens from flooding, to restoring crucial fish and wildlife habitat, to recycling and reusing wastewater and solid waste byproducts. Its overall mission is to safeguard the environment, ensure public safety and preserve the region's quality of life. Read more..

Dr. Frank is the Bombardier Chairholder in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia and Senior Non-resident Fellow of the Brookings Institution. He is cross-appointed with the School of Population and Public Health and specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behavior, air quality, and health. He has been studying the effects of neighborhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for nearly 20 years. He has lead or co-authored dozens of papers and two books Health and Community Design, The Impacts of The Built Environment on Physical Activity and Urban Sprawl and Public Health on these topics. He and his colleagues have also been conducting detailed assessments of fuel consumption and climate change impacts of urban form policies. Read more..

Amy Snover is Director of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, an interdisciplinary research and outreach team dedicated to supporting the development of regional resilience to a changing climate, and Assistant Dean with the University of Washington's College of the Environment. She has over fifteen years of experience bridging the gap between science and decision making, focusing on improving society's resilience to natural and human-caused fluctuations in climate. Dr. Snover performs integrated research on assessing climate impacts and climate-related vulnerabilities and planning for climate change, and frequently advises on strategies for adopting this research to planning and decision making processes. With her colleagues at the Climate Impacts Group, she has developed methods of engaging stakeholders in climate change-related needs assessment, in order to develop priorities for research, decision support tool development, planning and assessment support, and strategies for clear and effective communication.

David is the former CEO and co-founder of Pacific Bioscience Laboratories, the Clarisonic® company. Previously, he was CEO and co-founder of Optiva Corporation, the Sonicare® company. He also was a featured speaker at the White House Conference on Corporate Responsibility in recognition of his innovative business practices. David received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering, summa cum laude, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He studied graduate-level electrical engineering and business at Stanford University, and has authored more than a dozen U.S. patents. David was the SBA's National Small Businessperson of the Year and the Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year for Manufacturing in 1997. David actively participates in Washington State community activities including Junior Achievement, the Washington Technology Center, Alliance of Angels, and ham radio for emergency preparedness. He lives on Mercer Island with his wife, Patricia.

As Sr. Director of Environmental Sustainability, TJ is the chief architect responsible for designing and managing Microsoft's new carbon neutral policy with internal carbon fee model that drives accountability while supporting efficiency, renewable energy, and carbon offset projects. Recently TJ was recognized by Congress for her U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Individual Leadership award in response to her efforts in establishing bold mitigation efforts to climate change at Microsoft. In addition, TJ was recently listed in the 'Top 35 Women Leaders in Sustainability' by Triple Pundit, was one of 8 winners of the Eco Forum Leadership Challenge, and was invited to speak as a panelist at the 2013 White House Women and Environment Summit in Washington DC. TJ has worked for Microsoft for over 15 years, and has over 25 years of experience designing innovative global business models for corporations such as Intel, Merrill Lynch, and Microsoft. Read more..

Bellamy Pailthorp joined the staff of KPLU as a general assignment reporter in 1999 and covered the business and labor beat for more than a decade. She now covers the environment beat. She was raised in Seattle, but spent 8 years in Berlin, Germany freelancing for NPR and working as a producer for Deutsche Welle TV after receiving a Fulbright scholarship in 1989. She holds a Bachelors degree in German language and literature from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and a Masters in journalism from New York's Columbia University, where she completed the Knight-Bagehot fellowship in business reporting in 2006. Bellamy's most memorable KPLU radio moment: "Seeing the INS open a shipping container at the Port of Seattle that contained stowaways from China, three of whom died en route of seasickness. Harrowing stuff, with global economics and inequity at its root."

Mayor Matt Larson is currently serving his second term as Snoqualmie's Mayor. As an Advanced Certified Municipal Leader -- a certification earned through the Association of Washington Cities -- Mayor Larson enjoys serving in leadership roles in local and regional capacities. For two years he held the position of president of the Snoqualmie Valley Governments Association and currently serves on the King County Flood Control District Advisory Board and the Sound Cities Association Board of Directors. He was named the 2012 Elected Official of the Year by the Alliance of Eastside Agencies (AEA), an association of more than 50 health and human-services organizations and governments serving East King County. Mayor Larson takes an active role toward environmental sustainability. In November 2007, he joined colleagues from across America for the 2007 Mayors Climate Protection Summit held by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Read more..

Joan McBride was elected by the City Council on January 3, 2012 to serve as mayor. Mayor McBride has served on the City Council since January 1998 and has served as Mayor from 2010-2011 and as Deputy Mayor from 2002-2009. Prior to her election to the City Council, Mayor McBride served as a member of the Houghton Community Council for six years, two terms as Chair. In 2007, Mayor Joan McBride was awarded the "Elected Official of the Year" by the Alliance of Eastside Agencies for Outstanding Contributions to Human Services on the Eastside. She also received the 2007 Special Service Award by the King Conservation District, a regional land conservation organization. In 2004, Mayor McBride received the "Community Partnership Award" presented by King County and Public Health-Seattle and King County for outstanding contribution to Public Health for her work on creating Kirkland neighborhood walking maps.

First elected in 2007, John Marchione is now in his second term as mayor of Redmond, a thriving city 16 miles east of Seattle. The community of over 55,000 is home to a variety of industries such as aerospace, high tech, gaming, and biotech as well as several thousand small businesses where over 80,000 people are employed. As mayor, he oversees seven departments consisting of over 600 employees. To date, through Mayor Marchione's leadership, the City has adopted Budgeting by Priorities, completed the downtown street grid, and purchased the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line and converted it to the Redmond Central Connector, a multi-purpose trail that links Redmond to the region. In the local community John has teamed up with local business and community leaders to establish OneRedmond--a combination of the business, economic development, and community leaders working towards one vision for Redmond. He also worked with other community leaders to found the Lake Washington Schools Foundation where he served as a board member and treasurer. Read more..

Liz Dunn is the founder and principal of Dunn & Hobbes LLC, a developer of mixed-use projects in Seattle that specializes in the adaptive re-use of existing buildings and the construction of small in-fill projects, with a focus on maintaining and creatively embellishing the character and fine urban grain that is at the heart of successful urban village neighborhoods. She is also the Consulting Director of Sustainable Communities Policy for the Preservation Green Lab, a research and policy think-tank affiliated with the National Trust. The Preservation Green Lab works with partner cities and environmental organizations around the nation on policy initiatives that incorporate reuse of existing buildings into cities' larger sustainability objectives — ranging from environmental performance to economic resiliency and cultural diversity. In 2011-2012 she was an Affiliate Fellow with the Runstad Center for Real Estate at the University of Washington. Read more..

Casey is a co-founder of Community Sourced Capital, a sustainable finance company that helps small businesses borrow money directly from people in their community. He received his MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where he currently helps teach Social Entrepreneurship. He is also a partner and volunteer at Social Venture Partners. Casey grew up in Hawaii but has happily called Seattle home for over a decade.

Alma Lorraine Bone Constable is passionate about making energy technology understandable and attainable for everyone. To realize her dream of democratizing energy technology, she founded TayaSola (www.tayasola.com), a for-profit Washington Social Purpose Corporation (SPC) that teaches people how to generate their own clean power and light. TayaSola sells the individual components (rechargeable batteries, solar cells, and LED bulbs) and provides the educational tools to enable people to build their own custom power and light systems. These systems are modular, user-friendly, and adaptable. They can be used by anyone, anywhere and in any situation. Alma's formal training in artificial intelligence honed her skills in bringing people and technology together. Before founding TayaSola, Alma was a software tester and test lead at Microsoft. In this capacity she developed products in Microsoft Word, Publisher and Interactive Television. She has also taught computer classes, trained office workers, and written technical articles. Read more..

Peter J. Smith is a partner at the Apex Law Group, LLP where he has a diverse general business law practice advising nonprofit and for-profit organizations on corporate governance, finance, and risk management. Peter's practice focuses on entrepreneurs and organizations aiming to make a social impact. Before joining Apex Law, Peter represented both private and public institutions in complex environmental and land use litigation. By combining his litigation background and corporate transaction experience, Peter's goal is to help companies, incorporate, maintain regulatory compliance, avoid costly litigation, and ultimately become successful and sustainable.

Zeke Spier is the Executive Director of Social Justice Fund and has been with the foundation for six years. Over that time, he has worked to engage a cross-class membership of over a thousand people and helped move millions of dollars to grassroots organizing in the Northwest. Zeke has experience both as a manager in the corporate sector and as a community organizer, working on issues from the just reconstruction of New Orleans to criminal justice issues in Philadelphia. He is currently sits on the Board of Advisors of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, the Board of Directors of Resource Generation, and is a member of Seattle's Race and Social Justice Community Roundtable. Zeke was born in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys reminiscing about his cross-country bicycle trip on his 6-mile ride to work. Read more..

Dune Ives, Ph.D., is the founder of Milepost Consulting and brings nearly 20 years of experience helping private, utility and non-profit clients define, measure and achieve organizational objectives with a keen focus on lasting behavior change. She guides clients through complex, multi-stakeholder facilitations and consensus building, organizational development, change management, process improvements and business strategy development. Dune is often called upon by clients to facilitate sticky technical discussions, which she loves, and high stakes organizational change efforts, which she loves even more.

Dr. Kaplan is chairman and CEO of Seattle-based Virginia Mason Health System, where he has led the implementation of the Virginia Mason Production System, based on the Toyota Production System, to reduce costs and improve quality, safety and efficiency. Under Dr. Kaplan's leadership, Virginia Mason was named a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence by HealthGrades in 2011, a Top Hospital by The Leapfrog Group for five consecutive years and was one of two hospitals named a Leapfrog Top Hospital of the Decade for patient safety and quality. Dr. Kaplan is also a clinical professor at the University of Washington, secretary-treasurer of IHI and chair of the National Patient Safety Foundation's board of directors. He serves on the board of Washington Healthcare Forum and is a founding member of Health CEOs for Health Reform. In 2009, Dr. Kaplan received the John M. Eisenberg Award for patient safety and also was a recipient of the Harry J. Harwick Lifetime Achievement Award from the Medical Group Management Association and the American College of Medical Practice Executives. Read more..

Green product innovator with nearly two decades of experience in all aspects of business, Amee Quiriconi has earned substantial direct experience with manufacturing systems design, green building technologies, sourcing recycled/recovered aggregates, designing unique yet market-ready green building products and creating strong yet heartfelt branding for green products. After more than 10 years owning and operating start-up companies, she is now taking this vast experience to her new company, Agrestal Designs, an endeavor seeking to create and market lines of products for home living, interior and exterior architectural applications that utilize waste products from carpet recycling. Amee was recently featured with her Agrestal Designs tiles on the DIY Networks "House Crashers".

Brooke Bascom has worked for King County's Healthy Incentives program since it launched in 2006. Each year Healthy Incentives engages more than 17,000 county employees and their spouses or domestic partners covered by county benefits in improving their health. Since the program began 2,000 people have lost 24 tons of weight and more than 800 have quit smoking. These health improvements and other strategies have saved the county $46 million in health care costs. Brooke has been with the county since 2002 where she has been involved in other major change initiatives including Parks' switch to more entrepreneurial operations and Elections' reforms to be more accurate and transparent. Brooke's background is in politics and communications. She was formerly Deputy Press Secretary for King County Executive Ron Sims, a speechwriter for the Mayor of the City of St. Louis and she worked for U.S. Senator John Danforth in Washington, DC. Read more..

Jim Hanna is director of Environmental Impact for Starbucks. Since joining the company in November 2005, Jim has collaborated with partner corporations and nongovernmental organizations to help shape the company's environmental strategy. He contributes to enterprise-wide initiatives that support green building, energy conservation, international procurement, recycling and waste reduction efforts. Prior to Starbucks, Jim served as Director of Environmental Affairs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts at Yellowstone National Park. In the position, he oversaw Xanterra's many progressive environmental initiatives in its operations as the primary concessionaire in the park, including an ISO 14001-certified Environmental Management System. Before escaping to Yellowstone, he worked as Director of Operations for Teris Environmental in Los Angeles, managing the company's seven regional offices in North America.

Jessie leads waste-to-resource initiatives for King County's wastewater treatment utility. As an urban utility dedicated to protecting public health and the environment, WTD leads the country on harvesting carbon, nutrients, methane, waste heat and non-potable water resources from what Jessie considers to be the "ultimate" renewable resource. Every day, Israel and her colleagues balance running an unfailingly reliable, safe and efficient business operation, with environmental envelope-pushing and innovative public service. Prior to joining WTD, Jessie helped to reshape King County Parks into an entrepreneurial, performance-driven governmental organization. This transformation allows Parks to generate non-tax revenue and ensure green space remains open, even during tight fiscal times. As a public servant, consultant and non-profit leader, Jessie has a fifteen year track record of bringing together groups to invest in community development, environmental and equity issues. Read more..

Megan Owen joined McKinstry 2009. She currently holds the position of Director of Strategic Market Development. In this role, Megan is responsible for developing, implementing and managing a Strategic Market Development agenda for the west coast. Her extensive experience in government gives her unique insight into identifying critical paths to common interests across disciplines of public and private entities. Her expertise supports clients in the education, healthcare, commercial and industrial sectors by identifying and removing barriers to market adoption, or the scale of clean energy initiatives, through a variety of levers that include - but are not limited to - policy, regulation, finance, campaigns, communication, marketing and/or public private partnerships. Megan provides strategic oversight to complex, high profile projects throughout the company and, on behalf of McKinstry, serves in a support role to various nonprofits and philanthropic initiatives throughout the Pacific Northwest. Prior to joining McKinstry, Megan served as Governor Chris Gregoire's Director of King County Outreach.

As Executive Director of Puget Sound Bike Share, Holly is leading the effort to bring a transformative and successful bike sharing system to King County. She is currently overseeing a bike share operator selection process as well as working to identify and secure private sector system sponsorships, foster community support, and collaborate with King County, the City of Seattle and others to receive federal, state and other grant funds. A Seattle native who's equally passionate about smart urban design, sustainable development, social justice and the arts, Holly's background includes project management in both the commercial real estate development industry as well as the fine arts world. In her free time, she serves on the board of Rain City Rock Camp for Girls, an organization she co-founded in 2008, and is an active musician in the local music scene. She holds a B.A. in Geography and a Certificate in Commercial Real Estate from the University of Washington.

Matt Hansen began working for the Market Development Section of King County Metro Transit in October 1994. In August 2002, Matt became the supervisor of that group. Market Development demonstrates innovative approaches to building ridership and partnerships in the community. Many of Metro's employer, residential, and other programs have their roots in the Market Development group. Matt received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in 1989 and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Washington in 1994. He currently serves on the Washington State Governor's Commute Trip Reduction Board, the Transportation Demand Management Committee of the Transportation Research Board, and chairs the Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation Demand Management Steering Committee.

Hilary joined Futurewise just one year ago as the Executive Director. She has over 15 years of experience working on local and state environmental, transportation, and land use public policy issues. She has also served as a local government leader, bringing together diverse coalitions of local, state, and national entities and developing several nationally recognized policies and programs on energy efficiency, green building and affordable housing. She has served on the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Board, the Puget Sound Regional Council Economic Development District Board, the City of Seattle Climate Action Plan Green Ribbon Commission. In 2008, she was appointed by the Governor to Washington State's Climate Action Team IWG on the State Environmental Policy Act. She currently sits on the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council and Puget Sound Partnership Ecosystem Coordination Board.

Dave Bell has worked in quality control for Lakeside Industries since 1984 and has been the quality control manager for the past ten years. Lakeside Industries is a family-owned company that is one of the largest asphalt paving contractors in the Northwest. Lakeside has incorporated several recycled products into their asphalt, including recycled asphalt pavement, steel slag, asphalt shingles and ground tire rubber. Dave works with the aggregate processing, asphalt mix designing and asphalt production to ensure high quality asphalt pavements while at the same time getting the benefit of using recycled products.

Sophia currently serves as Supplier Diversity Officer for Multnomah County where she assists in providing oversight of the $300-400 million spent annually on goods and services. She has over 13 years experience leading and implementing small business and sustainable purchasing initiatives, and serves on the National Association of Counties (NACo) Green Purchasing Task Force. Sophia developed and oversees the County's nationally recognized Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity Policy.

Kris Beatty, Program Manager for King County Solid Waste Division, has worked in the field of market development for recyclable materials for 12 years. She manages the Division's LinkUp program which works to expand recycling of target materials by facilitating an interactive community of businesses, public agencies and other organizations. In recent years, Kris has conducted a wide variety of successful projects designed to establish recycling infrastructure and markets for compost, asphalt shingles, carpet and numerous recycled-content products manufactured in King County and Washington State.

Howard Frumkin is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist, who has served many years in academia and public service. Prior to UW, he held leadership roles at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. He currently serves on numerous boards, including the Bullitt Foundation, the U.S. Green Building Council, and Seattle's Green Ribbon Commission, which is developing the city's climate plan. His research interests include climate change, energy policy, and nature contact; toxic effects of chemicals; environmental health policy, and public health aspects of the built environment -- topics explored in his most recent book Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability (Island Press, 2011, co-edited with Andrew Dannenberg and Dick Jackson). Howie received his A.B. from Brown University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and his M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. from Harvard. Read more..

Joni Earl is the Chief Executive Officer of Sound Transit, the agency responsible for building and operating the Puget Sound region's mass transit system. Under Joni's leadership, the agency has built new transit centers, park-and-ride lots and HOV access lanes throughout Central Puget Sound. The agency runs ST Express buses, Sounder commuter trains, Tacoma Link light rail, and Central Link light rail trains from downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac Airport. Joni is a graduate of Harvard University's State and Local Government Executive Program. She holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Puget Sound, and a bachelor's degree from Washington State University. In 2005, Joni was named one of Seattle Magazine's 25 most influential people of the Puget Sound region and one of Puget Sound Business Journal's 20 Women of Influence.

Matt Lerner is CTO of Walk Score. Matt bikes to work every day and recently broke his bicycle chain in half pulling his two boys in the bike trailer. From 2001-2007, Matt worked at Microsoft, most recently as Lead Program Manager for the Windows User Experience Team. Matt had responsibility for the Start Menu, taskbar, visuals, and other core components of the world's most widely used software. Prior to Microsoft, Matt was co-founder and CTO of EQuill, a Web development software company he sold to Microsoft in 2001. Matt was awarded a Fulbright fellowship and has a Computer Science degree from Brown University, where he studied under Professor Andries van Dam.

Aubrey Batchelor works at the University of Washington as a Program Coordinator for the Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability office. During her six years at the University she has worked in a variety of roles primarily focusing on the development of the Sustainability office from its inception in 2008. Some of her projects and activities to enhance the University's sustainability efforts include assisting with the development of the University's Climate Action Plan and implementation, developing a green laboratory certification program, organizing public lectures and educational events, tracking and reporting sustainability metrics, supervising students and student led projects, and coordinating with external businesses to explore new innovations for advancing sustainability at the University. She serves as a judge for the UW Environmental Innovation Challenge (EIC), as a staff advisor for the student Campus Sustainability Fund (http://csf.washington.edu), and presents regularly to the UW Program on the Environment FYI Sustainability Studio undergraduate class as well as the Environmental Stewardship Committee. Read more..

Gregory works with EnergySavvy's utility clients and internal engineers to ensure successful deployment of the company's software solutions. He is a Certified Scrum Master and Scrum Product Owner with over a decade of experience managing technology projects and Internet strategy. Gregory holds a BA and MPA from New York University and serves on the board of the Seattle Chefs Collaborative, an organization dedicated to promoting sustainability in the food service industry.

Teresa Burrelsman has 18 years of experience working in design and sustainability. With a background in architecture, she has worked on building and planning projects with strong connections to place and high sustainability performance. A former Director at retail design leader Callison, she led sustainable brand and design integration for local and international projects, addressing local culture, ecology, and social issues within typically fast paced and cost-driven markets. Now, as a member of Site Story, Teresa has turned her design and eco lens to the creation and preservation of cultural capital. She brings her deep knowledge of sustainable design and NW ecological issues to her work, which often pulls inspiration from nature and local culture. Recent projects include temporary art installations for Sound Transit and Snohomish County, and the Sustainable Futures Exhibit as part of the Seattle Center's Next50 programming.

Steve Webb is the director of communications at RelayRides, the world's leading peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace. Prior to joining RelayRides, Steve worked on communications and brand building for environmental NGOs, cleantech companies and emerging startups for close to a decade. Based in San Francisco, he spent four years in Beijing working on campaigns for Fortune 500 companies for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Bart has a degree from the College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University and over 30 years of experience in Environmental Affairs, Regulatory Compliance and Recycling. He has worked both in the public and private sector and is currently Environmental Manager for Nucor Steel's Seattle plant, recycling scrap steel into new steel products.

Long recognized for her marketing to women expertise, Andrea Learned now uses that gender lens in her sustainability-focused writing and communications strategy work. As the co-author of "Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy--and How To Reach Your Share of this Crucial Market" (2004), Andrea sees a distinct link between how women make decisions and the type of thinking needed for sustainability-oriented behavioral change and corporate leadership. She discussed this connection in her March 2011 Solutions Journal piece: "Gender and the Sustainable Brain". Andrea has written about women and sustainable business for the Huffington Post, Greenbiz.com, the SustainableBusinessForum.com, and her own blog, Learnedon.com, among other publications. She actively contributes to sustainability and corporate social responsibility conversations on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, and consults on social media and content strategy with Pyramid Communications and other clients.

Currently the Director of Customer Initiatives and Continuous Improvement at Puget Sound Energy, Troy is a strategic risk taker willing to challenge himself to learn new, difficult skills with focus and calm resolve under pressure. He has had a diverse career as a commissioned officer, hospital nurse, association and non-profit executive, national and state leader on workforce development, senior agency and corporate executive and internal consultant. Troy maintains a consistent focus on improving the customer experience, empowering and supporting staff, building strategic communities, developing high performance business processes and a culture of innovation and creativity. Read more..

Paige Pauli is a co-founding team member, designer, and front-end developer of Seattle-based web and iPhone app, WhichBus, a simple, beautiful way to navigate public transit. Combining both real-time arrival information and trip-planning capabilities, WhichBus (whichbus.org) merges the best features of existing transit apps into one singular experience, simplifying public transportation—buses, ferries, and light rail—for even the most unacquainted riders. Creative Director of design and development studio, Honest Fabrication, Paige works with companies large and small, tech startups, non-profits, and individuals to develop award-winning web and mobile experiences. A native Seattleite, she holds a BA from Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and serves on the Seattle Academy Alumni Board.

As a Program Administrator for the City of Bellevue's Environmental Stewardship Initiative, Paul's main responsibility is implementing actions that result in cost savings and environmental protections for city residents, businesses, and government. Paul is fascinated by the modern renaissance of global understanding that he sees taking place around him, inspired by the potential for improvements ahead, and committed to ushering in a far more regenerative era of the industrial revolution. Key initiatives that Paul has led within City of Bellevue include the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, management of the Eastside Sustainable Business Alliance, and integration of 'one stop shop' reporting on environmental metrics across city operations. Paul holds a MBA and Certificate in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute and a BA in English Literature from Iowa State University. He is a native of suburban Chicago, Illinois.

Mary Evans is Waste Management's Area Director for Public Sector Services in the Pacific Northwest. She is responsible for managing the company's municipal contracts in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and British Columbia. Evans works closely with cities to customize local recycling and waste diversion programs that foster sustainability and safeguard health. She is passionate about providing innovative yet pragmatic solutions. Prior to joining the Pacific Northwest team in 2011, Mary had a wealth of industry, public sector and business experience. Evans worked for Waste Management in a similar capacity in the 1980s and 1990s in the Northern California Bay Area. During that period, she assisted cities with the development and implementation of groundbreaking recycling programs in response to state mandated reduction goals. Additionally, her executive background also includes marketing, operations and finance for a major metropolitan newspaper and a national IT project services firm. Read more..

Valerie joined PMI in 1995 with 16 years of experience in design, product development, quality and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In 1997, Valerie initiated PMI's first CSR program. Today, she is responsible for overseeing global CSR, Liability and Philanthropy functions at PMI. Valerie's CSR leadership has enabled PMI to be recognized for its work in this area. Most notably, the 2006 & 2008 American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai Corporate Social Responsibility Awards for CSR program excellence in China, and the 2012 international Communitas Award for Social Responsibility and Supply Chain Partnership. Valerie has worked closely with PMI factories to enable continuous improvement for both social and environmental initiatives. Valerie was part of the 2005 PMI Environmental Task Force that researched and mapped out environmental initiatives for PMI. In 2009, PMI set Environmental Responsibility and Social Consciousness as two of its five corporate pillars. Read more..

Helm is a twenty-year veteran of business journalism. He spent seven years with Business Week, first as Tokyo correspondent, where he covered many environmental issues, and later as Boston bureau chief. He worked briefly for the Seattle Post Intelligencer before joining The Los Angeles Times, reporting at various times out of Japan, South Korea and the Pacific Northwest. In 2006, Helm was appointed editor of Washington CEO where he launched the Green Washington Awards program to recognize the state’s business leaders in sustainability. Helm was appointed editor of Seattle Business Magazine in 2009, soon after the publication acquired Washington CEO. Helm has a BA in Political Science and an MA in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Nik Blosser is Co-founder and President of Celilo Group Media, a media company with the mission of expanding markets for sustainable products. The company produces Chinook Book — print and mobile savings guides focused on green and local businesses in Portland, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Denver and Minneapolis. The company has distributed over 200 million coupons, works with over 1,500 businesses, and has 28 employees. In addition to his responsibilities leading Celilo Group Media, Nik serves as Chair of the Board of his family's business, Sokol Blosser Winery. Founded by his parents in Dundee, Oregon, Sokol Blosser Winery was an early pioneer in the Oregon wine industry. The winery has organic farming, production and retail operations in Yamhill County and its wines include Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Evolution. The company has distribution in 50 states and over a dozen foreign countries. For the past decade in the Pacific Northwest Nik has been a leading voice in the sustainable business arena, shaping both political and business perspectives around the economic opportunities surrounding sustainability. Read more..