Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows 2006

This is a program to increase the effectiveness of people dedicated to creating change in our society. The fellowship honors the work and life of Donella Meadows by teaching balance between scientific rigor and connecting from the heart.

~Lynn Stoddard, Department of Environmental Protection, CT

The 2005-2006 Fellows came from the non-profit, government, business and philanthropy sectors. They brought on-the-ground involvement in forest resource management, pollution prevention, solid waste management, corporate social responsibility, conservation of fisheries and marine habitats, sustainable agriculture, youth, teen reproductive health, energy efficiency, rural development and the organic spice trade. They came from eleven states nationwide, and from Indonesia, Mexico, British Columbia and Guatemala. Fellows have their roots in small rural towns such as Ascutney, Vermont and major cities like Chicago. Through their individual projects and home organizations, the Fellows impacted conservation activists, farmers, industry executives, legislators, citizen boards, and government officials. Their work represented diverse sectors, bioregions and ecosystems. By design, fifteen of the eighteen Fellows were women.

 

Biographies

Dayna Baumeister

Co-Owner and Co-Founder, Biomimicry Guild
Helena, Montana

With a background in biology, a devotion to applied natural history, and a passion for sharing the wonders of nature with others, Dayna has worked in the field of Biomimicry for the last 7 years as an educator, researcher, and design consultant. As keystone for the Biomimicry Guild, Dayna acts as the liaison between all members of the Guild and oversees most projects. In addition, she brings her skills as a systems thinker and organic communicator to her dynamic workshops, presentations, seminars, and exhibits, which have introduced the idea of “nature as model, measure, and mentor” to thousands of designers, business managers, and engineers around the country.

Michaelyn Anne Baur

Country Director, ForesTrade de Guatemala, S.A. Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
Michaelyn oversees technical services in sustainable and organic agriculture production, organic and Fair Trade certification, organizational strengthening within the producer groups, management of working capital loans, procurement and management of grants from donor organizations, quality control and processing of product, as well as other daily operations of the company including financial and human resource management. Her work embraces her personal commitment to sustainable agriculture, honoring indigenous knowledge, empowering disadvantaged people, and creating a vision that will bring about social change. ForesTrade Inc. is an international organic spice, coffee, vanilla and essential oils trading company based in Brattleboro, VT.

Maria Carvajal

Executive Director, Gulf of California Region, Conservation International Sonora, Mexico
For the past 14 years Maria has worked in conservation and management of fishing resources, natural protected areas and wetlands in the Gulf of California region. In this context, Maria has promoted and developed multi-institutional and interdisciplinary projects in this region. She has helped form several regional coalitions such as ALCOSTA which integrates 20 conservation organizations, and Noroeste Sustentable (NOS) which integrates 25 business leaders for Mexico and the Gulf region.

Elizabeth Luc Clowes

Director of Replication, The Food Project
Boston, Massachusetts
The Food Project (TFP) brings youth and adults together from city and suburb, to grow and distribute healthy food using sustainable agriculture practices. TFP’s community develops youth leaders, connects people to the land, teaches people about their food system, and empowers all towards personal and social change. Liz is developing replication strategies, and processes that capture the organization’s management, operational, and educational systems, to bring this innovative model to communities nationwide. She also manages a national training program that shares this organizational knowledge.

Abigail Corso

Associate Director, Delta Institute
Chicago, Illinois
Abby works on projects aimed at reducing toxic chemical emissions and use through pollution prevention and energy efficiency strategies as well as green purchasing initiatives. With her Delta colleagues, Abby is developing processes and methods that will allow companies to incorporate local eco-system issues into corporate policies in a way that will increase environmental stewardship and achieve environmental improvement. She is also involved with establishing the Delta Institute as a verifying agency on the Chicago Climate Exchange and has been working with farmers and foresters in Illinois and other Great Lakes states that are involved with land practices that sequester carbon to enroll in the Chicago Climate Exchange. The Delta Institute engages in the policy and practice of improving environmental quality and promoting community and economic development in the Great Lakes region.

Michael Dupee

Vice President, CSR Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc.
Moretown, Vermont
Formerly an investment banker, Michael now leads the Corporate Social Responsibility efforts or Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR) His responsibilities include providing strategic direction and focus for the company's Social Responsibility (SR) programs; managing the company's allocation of 5% pre-tax earnings into SR projects; leading the development and publication of GMCR first Corporate SR Report; generating increased understanding of and recognition for the company's SR activities, both internally and externally; developing next-generation commercial partnership opportunities with social responsibility as a key competitive differentiator; and broadening the reach and resources of the GMCR Foundation.

Jennifer Fletcher

Program Coordinator, Trust for Public Land
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jenna leads the open space/greenways collaborative, "Embrace Open Space," that brings together local officials, staff, soil and watershed district leaders, non-profits, agency staff and environmental consultants. The collaborative promotes sustainable land use in the Twin Cities and outlying fast growing suburbs with the goal of protecting sensitive natural areas by increasing awareness of economic and other benefits. The collaborative's work encourages cities, townships and counties to conduct open space planning using maps and adopt local policies as part of their required comprehensive plans in order to guide communities' growth.

Previously Jenna was Policy Analyst, Minnesota Forest Resource Council, Edina, Minnesota. Jenna served as project manager, financial manager, communications and public relations officer and helped to shape public policy options to work towards the sustainability of Minnesota's forests. This work served to frame what forest sustainability looks like in Minnesota. The organization created the venue for trust-based decision-making that balances economic, ecological and social goals.

Elaine Kohrman

Social Scientist/Economist, USDA Forest Service
Baker City, Oregon

Elaine is a part of a team engaged in revising forest plans for the Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests in northeast Oregon and southwest Washington. This collaborative effort encompasses a diversity of interests about how to best manage public lands for a sustainable future. The team is using a systems-based approach to create the vision and plan for sustainability with criteria and indicators. Elaine focuses on designing both the plan and the process of working with people to include the social and economic aspects of the system along with ecological considerations.

Valerie Langer

Director/Coordinator, Second Harvest Paper Project
Tofino, British Colombia

Second Harvest Paper Project is a partnered effort of Fiber Futures, ForestEthics and Markets Initiative. The project's mission is to accelerate utilization of non-wood fibers into mainstream paper production in order to protect endangered forests, reduce the paper industry's environmental impacts and re-vitalize rural economies. Valerie coordinates incentives on both sides of the supply and demand chain, including working with corporate paper buyers to develop eco-purchasing policies which are leveraged to influence mills to integrate agricultural fibers into paper manufacturing.

Terrie Lind

Associate Vice President of Teen Programs, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM)
Sacramento, California

Terrie acts as an “internal consultant” to maintain the quality of education programs for PPMM and address system and service provision issues. She also oversees and manages a program-scaling project designed to replicate Teen Success, a support group for pregnant and parenting teens. The project seeks to replicate the program that has been effective in the PPMM service area in at least 12 new sites throughout the United States over the next 3 years while maintaining program integrity and achieving similar results to those achieved by the original program.

Sally McGee

Marine Conservation Advocate, Environmental Defense
Mystic, Connecticut

Sally promotes sustainable fisheries and marine habitat protection in New England's coastal and offshore waters. In June 2003, she was appointed by the Secretary of Commerce as a member of the New England Fishery Management Council, which develops management plans for all fishing activities in the US exclusive economic zone (out to 200 miles offshore). Sally promotes sustainable fisheries by working with fishermen to develop fishing cooperatives. She works to protect marine habitat as chair of the Councilfs Habitat, Marine Protected Areas, and Ecosystems Committee.

Jerry Nagel

President, Northern Great Plains Inc
Fargo, North Dakota

Jerry serves as the President of the Northern Great Plains (NGP) Inc. a non-profit applied research, demonstration and convening organization. NGP Inc. focuses its work on futures study, creating economic opportunity, and supporting a healthy environment and vital communities. Jerry provides leadership, strategic direction and management to this a five-state collaborative rural development initiative.

Trista Patterson

Ecological Economist, USFS Pacific North West Research Station Juneau, Alaska

Trista works on the Sustainable Communities Team of the Alaska Forests and Communities Research Unit. She specializes in "cultures of consumption" and non-market resource use, namely tourism and subsistence issues. Trista recently relocated from Tuscany, Italy, where she served as Sustainability Analyst in the Complex Systems Group to the University of Siena.

Matt Roman

Environmental Affairs Manager, Visteon Corporation
Beverly Hills, Michigan

Matt's role as part of Visteon's Corporate Social Responsibility Department is to design and implement the corporate environmental strategy for both products and manufacturing processes. His current work focuses on ways to reduce the use of materials and substances that are potentially harmful to human health and the environment either during production, product use, or at end of life. Matt is also tasked with improving the company's environmental performance metrics, and communicating the role that every employee has in improving the company's performance. Visteon was previously a division of Ford Motor Company

Nonette Royo

Program Facilitator, Community Based Forest Management, Government of Indonesia
Southeast Asia Regional Coordinator, Global Greengrants Fund Jakarta, Indonesia

Nonette is a key facilitator of multi-stakeholders in the frontier natural resource sector (100 million hectares of viable forests and coastal areas) in Indonesia. Her greatest challenge is how to balance the rights and interests of ten million poor people living within this area, a government which is in dire need of revenue, and interests of the private sector. This becomes doubly difficult in the absence of reliable legal recourse, lack of publicly accountable mechanisms that are socially and environmentally sound, and lack of incentives for those who genuinely want to pursue corporate social responsibility.

Elizabeth Soderstrom

Director, Sierra and Africa Rivers Program
Natural Heritage Institute
Nevada City, California

Elizabeth focuses on river conservation and management in both the Sierra Nevada and in southern Africa. She has designed, funded and now manages multiple projects including: a two-year USAID-funded project promoting collaborative learning through the development of a joint data base and river basin planning model for the Okavango River Basin in southern Africa; a one-year project with the University of Botswana to factor inland fisheries into transboundary river basin discussions; and a three-year project funded by the CALFED Watershed Program focusing on applying adaptive management to smaller scale river restoration projects in financial hardship communities.

Jennifer Sokolove

Program Officer for the Environment, Compton Foundation
Menlo Park, California

In its Environment and Sustainability grantmaking, the Compton Foundation seeks a balanced and healthy relationship between humans, other life, and the planet. Jen is currently working to implement new guidelines that support this vision in the fields of fresh water, climate change, and community-based conservation in the western United States, with a particular focus on the Pacific coast. Jen has been working on sustainability issues for the past decade, with a focus on natural resource-based economies and collaborative decision-making. Prior to joining Compton, she worked on a variety of community-led resource management projects in California, Montana, and the Pacific Northwest. Jen is also a visiting scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Her academic research focuses on contemporary collisions between environment and economy, particularly the processes of marketing, consumption and investment that link natural resource industries to networks of urban capital.

Natalie Starr

Principal DSM Environmental Services, Inc
Ascutney, Vermont

As part of an environmental consulting firm, Natalie's recent domestic projects have included an analysis of the costs of recycling vs. disposal in New York City, development of systems to divert the waste stream from landfilling to composting and recycling in the State of Delaware, development of a cooperative waste management and recycling program for industry and households in Devens, Massachusetts, and an assessment of environmental conditions on a large northern Adirondack forest. Her international work focuses on citizen's participation in local government related to solid waste management and water quality improvements. This included development of a national campaign to Clean Up Bulgaria based on grassroots participation in the majority of Bulgarian municipalities, an assessment of existing materials recovery and the costs and methods to increase it in the City of Johannesburg, and a citizens led water conservation and metering pilot in two cities in Tajikistan. She also serves on her local conservation commission.
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