Speakers

Below are just some of the speakers we will have at Power Shift Pennsylvania.  Check back with us soon for additions!

Laura Stein, How to Speak to Your Administrators:  Laura recently graduated from Temple University where she majored in Tourism & Hospitality Management and Environmental Studies. She minored in Business management and Economics and served as the President of Students for Environmental Action, as the Student Government Environmental Committee Chair, and sat on the President's Sustainability Task Force. Laura currently works as a Sustainability Manager for Aramark's Corporate Dining Account at Bloomberg in Princeton, NJ.

Jim French, Copenhagen 101 & International Adaptation Aid. Jim French is the Regional Advocacy Lead and an agricultural speacialist for Oxfam America.  He specializes on the impact of policy on poverty, hunger and food security.  Currently, his work involves advocacy for just and equitable climate policies that can help disadvantaged communities here and abroad become more resilient and better able to adapt to global climate change.

Alisha Fowler, High School Student Organizing.  Alisha is psyched to be working with high school students at PA Power Shift!  She is an Educator with Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), a dynamic education and empowerment nonprofit based in Oakland, CA.  ACE works with high schools to spread climate literacy and empower high school students to take action to curb global warming.  A native of Philly, Alisha graduated from Hamilton College in 2006 with a B.A. in Geoscience and Environmental Studies. Alisha has also worked with MASSPIRG, NWF, and the Breakthrough Institute.   Find her on Twitter @alishafowler.

Tony Payton, Closing Remarks. Sworn into his first term in 2007, state Rep. Tony Payton Jr. is a dynamic legislator from Philadelphia. Prior to his election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Rep. Payton worked as a housing counselor at United Communities in South Philadelphia, where he educated low-income families on personal finance to help them achieve home ownership. It was through this work that he realized his desire for public service and, consequently, pursued and won a seat in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Since his election, Rep. Payton has introduced legislation to create the Pennsylvania Youth Commission, which is designed to engage young professionals to join in the democratic process; authored the REACH Scholarship Initiative, which would provide free tuition and fees to any state university for high school students who maintain a 3.0 grade point average and 90 percent attendance record; and introduced the Pennsylvania Green Jobs Act, which is designed to stimulate the expansion of clean energy research in Pennsylvania and increase the promotion and development of jobs and training in the clean energy sector. In 2007, he was also named one of the most influential African Americans under the age of 40 by the Philadelphia Tribune.

Pablo Baeza, Tactics & Strategy. Pablo Baeza is a first-year Creative Writing major at Pratt Institute. As a high school senior, he was a student leader for the PowerVote campaign, which asked young voters to pledge to support the presidential candidate with the best energy policy by signing pledge cards. His group, the Montgomery County Student Environmental Activists, was the third highest-pledging group in the nation. He has been involved with the Sierra Student Coalition since July 2008, and has been a trainer at the SSC's Los Angeles SPROG summer program in July 2009, as well as at the Yale Student Environmental Conference. He is currently working on campaigns with Pratt's NYPIRG chapter to reduce cafeteria waste and make his campus more bike-friendly.

Paul Glover, Radical Simplicity: Expanding your wallet, Reducing your footprint. Paul Glover teaches Metropolitan Ecology at Temple University.  He is founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, Ithaca Health Alliance, Green Jobs Philly, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, and many other groups.  He is author of Hometown Money, Health Democracy, Los Angeles: A History of the Future, and other books.  He publishes Green Jobs Philly News.  He was invited to contend in the 2004 Green Party Presidential primaries, earning delegates at the national convention.  In 1978 he walked, entirely on foot, from Boston to San Diego, to study the impact of cities upon this continent. <http://paulglover.org>http://paulglover.org

Bob Fiori, Energy Efficiency; Green Entrepenuers. Inspired by the clean energy campaign of Barak Obama and the obvious need to reduce carbon emissions in Pennsylvania and beyond, Bob Fiori created PowerMinders, LLC, an organization whose college student “ambassadors” teach family members and their communites how to reduce energy consumption in their homes and communities. The idea was originally conceived while talking to his son and daughter, both college students, who said young people today “want to get actively involved in stopping global warming; not just stand around while the old folks dither.” PowerMinders, currently involving over 700 college and university students throughout Pennsylvania, was the result and millions of dollars in energy savings has been achieved for Pennsylvania residents. An entrepreneur who has founded companies involved in advertising, direct mail, market research, internet marketing and financial services, Bob said working with PowerMinders’ student ambassadors “has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I started out to inspire them and wound up being inspired by them.”

Charles Sherrouse, Kicking Dirty Energy Money Out of Politics. Charles Sherrouse has promoted ballot access, open debates, fair elections and independent political alternatives for a couple of decades.  He currently serves as chair of the Green Party of Philadelphia.

Joe Hill, Youth Running for Office. Joe Hill is a junior at Georgetown University studying Political Economy, and a recipient of the Georgetown Scholarship. He has been involved in numerous local, statewide, and national campaigns, and served as Northeast Field Coordinator for Students for Barack Obama, the student outreach wing of Obama for America. Moreover, he currently serves as the Chairman of the Philadelphia Youth Commission, an agency that represents the interests of young people between the ages of 13-23 in City Hall, and works in the office of Congressman Patrick Murphy (PA-08). In addition, Joe serves as a fellow with Green for All and the Drum Major Institute.

Becca Kolins, Leadership Development is a sophomore at Skidmore College in New York. She attended the national Powershift in March of this year, which really started things for her. Over the summer she was went to Virginia SPROG where she was trained in leadership training and the sorts. Following that, she then went to Shindig where she joined one of SSC’s (Sierra Student Coalition) national committees- Anti Oppression. She has been working for the past few months to create more awareness and to help spread diversity within SSC and throughout the environmental movement.  Over the past year and a half she, and a working group of 6-7 Skidmore students, have been working to make Saratoga Springs (the town where Skidmore is) a Cool City by having the mayor sign onto the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Within the past week, Becca and a fellow student met with the mayor and he agreed to sign on!!

Brady Russell, What's Wrong with Natural Gas Drilling. Brady Russell began working for Clean Water Action in the late summer of 2008. He became interested in the environment while watching TV specials about Earth Day in 1990 back home in Pittsburg, Kansas. Since college, he's been a professional organizer working with religious communities, low-income people, national organizations, coalitions, unions and, for three years, as the Campus Organizer for the student government at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. At Clean Water, he's working to pass statewide rules around forests along streams, uniform drinking water protections and to slow the destruction caused by drilling the Marcellus Shale. He graduated in 1999 from Cornell University.

Elisa Young, Saturday Evening Keynote. Elisa Young began community organizing efforts by educating herself and her community about regulatory procedures and leading, "True Cost of Coal Tours" to educate media, students, and activists about the human costs inherent to coal extraction and consumption.  She allows others to see the all too painful connection between the surrounding power plants and disproportionate death rates in her community. Elisa supports the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition (OSEC, the Ohio state network) and this September was featured in a New York Times article on carbon capture and storage coal technology.

Randy Francisco, Coal: Past, Present, and Future. Randy is originally from Meadville Pennsylvania now living in Pittsburgh. He has worked previously with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  In his current role as an Associate Regional Representative at the Pittsburgh office of the Sierra Club he is the Pennsylvania organizer for the Sierra Club's Coal Team.

Stephanie Simmons, How Coal & Natural Gas Disrupt Communities and Damage the Environment (Panel). Stephanie Simmons is a wastewater consultant and a Sierra Club Allegheny Group activist.

Summer Rayne Oakes, Welcome Kickoff Speaker. Summer Rayne Oakes is a model-activist, host on Discovery Network’s upcoming show, "Trashed", and author of bestselling eco-style guide Style, Naturally (Chronicle, 2009). She works closely with companies both in front and behind-the-scenes as a brand ambassador and sustainability strategist advising and consulting on various aspects of design, production and practice. This April she launched zoe&zac, a line of green shoes with Payless ShoeSource and this past month a line of sustainable home products with Portico Home. Vanity Fair has named her a "Global Citizen," Outside called her one of the "Top Environmental Activists," Glamour anointed her "70 Women of Green," and CNN called her "A Young Person Who Rocks." Summer Rayne is a graduate from Cornell University with degrees in Environmental Science and Entomology and is an Udall environmental scholar.

Simone Lightfoot, Diversity in Our Movement.  Simone brings a civil rights, social justice and urban center perspective to the table.  Her public policy background includes handling energy and environmental policy for the NAACP and she offers a diverse perspective particularly around the impact on and need to enlist urban centers and communities of color. Simone enjoys both highlighting and offering step-by-step methods for engaging the community, mobilizing around key issues, and advocating public policy change.  Simone is adept at connecting formerly disconnected groups to one another and working in Coalition to make change.

Mark Dixon, YERT, Movie Presentation. After surviving childhood at a young age, Mark attended Stanford University and somehow graduated in 1997. He followed his dreams into the Internet bubble and worked for two start-up companies in Silicon Valley, including Akimbo Systems, where he managed the deployment of nearly 10,000 programs for its Internet video service. A citizen of the world, he has visited 26 countries and lived on three giant continents, including a year in Tokyo, Japan. Mark has also dedicated his life to the performing arts, entertaining audiences onstage through choral and solo vocal and acting performances in a variety of genres, including jazz, comedy, gospel, opera, improv and musical theater, and classical religious music. As evidence for global warming and resource depletion moved into prominent view on an international scale, Mark decided to refocus his life on helping America work with the world community to address these issues, by launching YERT in Summer 2007. Mark is also one of 1000 climate messengers chosen and trained by Al Gore to give presentations about the climate crisis that we face today

Raina Rippel, How Coal & Natural Gas Disrupt Communities and Damage the Environment (Panel), Raina Rippel has over nine years of experience researching and working on energy and environmental public health issues. She was previously the Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine, and helped build statewide coalitions around climate change and other progressive issues. During her studies at the University of Pittsburgh, she spent six months in Newcastle, Australia, where she witnessed daily lines of 35 or more coal ships on the horizon, living next door to one of the busiest coal ports in the world. As an avid supporter of climate change prevention and mitigation, she firmly believes that the local is the global, particularly when it comes to the devastating effects of coal as our number one energy source in America.

Maggie Zhou, Explaining the Cap & Trade System. Maggie received her PhD in molecular biology/genetics and worked as a computational biologist, a.k.a. bioinformaticist to study genes, proteins and molecular pathways.  After she became aware of the grave threats from global warming and environmental degradation, she became a full time volunteer for Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities (MCHC).  She is project coordinator for the MCHC climate project called Secure Green Future.  The project started off as a ballot committee, which last November placed a global warming question on the ballot in 11 districts in Massachusetts.  The initiative called for 80% greenhouse gas emissions and a re-focus on renewable energy and local, sustainable agriculture.  That ballot question was approved by over 80% of voters, proving the overwhelming support for aggressive climate action.  Maggie is also an organizer of Climate SOS, a national network of environmental, social justice and other grassroots organizations determined to demand strong climate legislation that can actually step up to the plate to tackle climate change and avert climate catastrophe.  Maggie and Climate SOS is unwilling to accept compromises that allow corporate stranglehold of our political system to throw away our precious window for climate action.  Maggie is a board member of MCHC, and a state committee member of the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party.

Dr. Brian King, Environmental Justice Panel. Dr. Brian King graduated with Honors from Bucknell University in 1995 with a degree in environmental studies. After working for two years as a legislative assistant for Clean Water Action and as an experiential educator, he received his Ph.D. in geography with a certificate in development studies from the University of Colorado in 2004. The majority of his research has been completed in South Africa, beginning in 1999 with a Master’s thesis in Geography that examined the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in advancing natural resource management following the 1994 democratic elections. He has continued to work in South Africa because the country’s experience of colonial and apartheid spatial regulation has fundamentally shaped its social and ecological landscapes. This work demonstrates that rural households are undergoing livelihood and demographic transformations that are mediated by historical and contemporary spatial systems that shape their livelihood opportunities. More recently, he is also examining the impacts of health and disease upon social and environmental systems with the intention of understanding how local environments are transformed by HIV/AIDS. This research commitment sheds light on the intersections between society and space, and human-environment interactions, in ways that inform both academic and policy debates on natural resource management, sustainable development, and environmental justice.

Dr. Susan Stewart, Renewable Energy. Dr. Susan W. Stewart is a research associate in the Energy Science and Power
Systems Division at the Applied Research Laboratory.  Her research area is energy system design optimization as a function of component design, economics, and renewable energy resource conditions.  In particular, she holds a detailed understanding of the technology, siting and economic development issues of implementing renewable energy technologies.  Prior to joining ARL in 2007, she was a research engineer for the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech, where she focused on performing technology assessments of various alternative and conventional energy systems and subsequently developed case studies on energy system technology implementation and deployment.  In particular, in the area of wind energy, she participated in a two year study funded by Southern Company to assess the feasibility of offshore wind power for coastal Georgia.  As a derivative of this work she is a founding member of the Georgia Wind Working Group, a member of the American Wind Energy Association's Offshore Wind Working Group, and has co-chaired several wind energy related conferences.  She received her PhD & MS in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2003 and 2001, respectively, and she obtained a BSME from Penn State in 1999.

Erica Reiko Anderson, Forest Justice.  Erica is a Program Associate for the National Wildlife Federation's Grassroots Team building support for an international climate treaty and the Forest Justice campaign. After graduating from the University of Oregon in 2007 with degrees in Asian Studies and Geography, Erica came to DC to intern for NWF. After her internship she joined the Energy Action Coalition to put on Power Shift 09' the largest youth summit in US history. Erica was born and raised on the island of Oahu, where she spent much of her time exploring the jungles and beaches of her home.

Khari Mosley, National Policy Panel. Khari is the Director of Green Economy Initiatives for G-Tech Strategies. Most recently he was the National Political/Policy Director for the League of Young Voters/Education Fund. He also is the elected democratic chairman of Pittsburgh's 22nd Ward. Khari has received a number of awards from various organizations including: Pittsburgh Acorn, Pittsburgh Magazine, the Pittsburgh League of Women Voters, the Pittsburgh Chapter of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. He attended Indiana University of PA where studied political-science and is a graduate of The Green For All Academy. Khari lives in Pittsburgh, with his wife Chelsa and their newborn son Thaddeus.

Jerry Silberman, Climate Change, Resource Wars, & National Security. Jerry is a full time union organizer representing health care workers, and an activist in the movement for a sustainable, relocalized economy. He became a full time organizer after the deindustrialization of Pennsylvania ended his career as a mechanic building passenger railroad cars. Intensely involved in anti-war organizing in the early stages of the Iraq war, and in support of the Palestinian liberation movement from the first Intifadah, Jerry has come to understand the roots of war in competition for resources, and the solution in sustainable, local cultures. Jerry is currently involved in a contract campaign involving 1500 nurses and professional employees at Temple University Hospital, which will likely result in a strike in the near future.

Ian Mayes, Non-Violent Communication. Ian has been a trainer and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication ("NVC") since 2003, and has led workshops, facilitated practice groups and has written on the subject all across the country. His particular focus has been on activist and volunteer circles, and how NVC can best support grass-roots social change. He currently lives in the Philadelphia area as a full-time live-in volunteer at Camphill Soltane, which is a residential education center for young adults with developmental disabilities. He is also a member of the international non-profit organization Association for the Development of the Person Centered Approach and is the editor for their publication "Renaissance".

Scott Subler, National Polcy (Panel). Dr. Subler is the president and co-founder of Environmental Credit Corp (ECC), a local State College company, that develops projects around the country that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Dr. Subler is actively involved in the development and implementation of a wide variety of projects that mitigate greenhouse gases, and provide expertise for the development of policy and protocols for U.S. and international carbon offset programs.

Dr. Subler received his PhD in Agricultural Ecology from Penn State in 1993.  He was a faculty member at Ohio State University as a Research Scientist in the School of Natural Resources where he directed research on carbon and nutrient dynamics in agricultural and waste management systems.  Dr. Subler currently serves on the Board of the Directors of the US Composting Council and Chairs the Offsets Committee for the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Allison Chin, Closing Remarks.  Allison Chin has served on the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors since 2007 and as President since 2008. Allison is a Sierra Club life member and joined in the early 80's to fight for the protection of public lands, including the ouster of Interior Secretary James Watt. She has been an outings leader for over 20 years, primarily with the club’s inner city outings outreach program. Additional club leadership roles have included service at local and national levels on outdoor activities, training, leadership development, nominating, organizational effectiveness, and finance committees. During her tenure on the board, Allison has focused on organizational and board development, including leadership of a strategic reorganization of the club’s governance structure. She is an advocate for increased diversity of the club’s membership and leadership. Allison is a molecular cell biologist and earned her BA from the University of California in San Diego and her PhD at the University of Southern California. She has served on and led multidisciplinary domestic and international project teams in the biotechnology sector focused on discovery and development of novel therapeutics for cancer and HIV. Allison has taken leave from her scientific career to fulfill her duties as Sierra Club President.

Andrew Munn, How Coal & Natural Gas Disrupt Communities & Degrade the Environment (Panel). A native of State College, PA Andrew Munn came out of the youth climate movement and campus climate challenge. He went to University of Michigan, where he studied music and became involved in campus organizing for climate solutions. In 2007 he became the first coordinator of the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition, which unites students at over 20 schools in Michigan for clean energy and green jobs. Since then, he has become increasingly interested in direct action as a strategy and philosophy to counter injustice, and create microcosms of a better world. He currently is an organizer with Coal River Mountain Watch and volunteers for the Climate Ground Zero campaign to end Mountaintop Removal in his spare time. He is a resident of Rock Creek, WV in the bossom of the Coal River Valley.

Eric Epstein, Nuclear Power No Room For Democracy;  The Brownside of Nuclear Power.  Eric Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., (tmia.com), a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA monitors Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations.

Mr. Epstein is also the coordinator of the EFMR Monitoring, Inc. (efmr.org) a nonpartisan community based organization established in 1992. EFMR monitors radiation levels at Peach Bottom and Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations, invests in community development, and sponsors remote robotics research. The group has also intervened at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to
protect the economic interests of Pennsylvania rate payers.   

Mike Ewall, How Dirty Energy Impacts Communities; Environmental Justice Panel is a founding member of the Energy Action Coalition and has been active in grassroots student and community environmental justice organizing since in high school in 1990.  Active for many years in the Student Environmental Action Coalition, he has since founded and directs ActionPA (www.ActionPA.org ) and the Energy Justice Network ( www.EnergyJustice.net), helping grassroots community groups in Pennsylvania and nationally to stop polluting energy and waste industries.  In recent years, he has developed grassroots networks to stop proposed coal power plants, ethanol biorefineries, incinerators and other polluters.  His victories include stopping incinerators, a nuclear waste dump, a coal-to-oil refinery, a liquefied natural gas terminal, water fluoridation and much more.,

Peter Roquemore, Starting a Group & Organizational Analysis. Peter is currently a Junior enrolled at Indiana University of Pennsylvania as a Political Science major.  Peter is very active on campus as the President of the Environmentally Conscious Organization and as a member of the newly formed Sustainability Committee.  His main organizing efforts through ECO and the Sustainability Committee revolve around a Green Fee Campaign and establishing a comprehensive recycling program on campus.  Peter became involved in the youth climate movement when he attended Power Shift 09 in Washington D.C.  At Power Shift 09 Peter joined the Forest Justice campaign and had his first organizing experience as a Forest Justice Fellow.  Over the summer of 2009 Peter became a member of the Sierra Student Coalition  after he spent the most amazing two weeks of his life with the Sierra Student Coalition when he participated in Sprog and Shindig. He has since been involved in the SSC Policy Sub Committee and is a member of the Power Shift PA Agenda Committee spending many late nights on conference calls working to plan the most incredible weekend of your lives!!!  Peter is now a proud member of the KEY Coalition and looks forward to the future of the Pennsylvania youth movement!

Mathew Himmelein, Lobby Training. Mathew has been an avid grassroots activist for more than five years, and an Environmental activist since birth. Having grown up in Philadelphia to parents in the peace, women's rights, and labor movements he has a lifetime of knowledge and passion. This background drives him to help change the ugly status-quo of our environmental stewardship toward a new clean energy future that our planet deserve.
 
He has worked with the Sierra Club on and off for two years, since graduating from Temple University. Specifically he has worked with the Sierra Club and the BlueGreen Alliance running the "Green Jobs for America" campaign, and the "Employee Free Choice" campaign in Eastern PA. Mat also sits on Sierra Club's Board in the South Eastern region of PA.  He now spends his time Chairing the Green Economy Committee of the South Eastern PA Sierra Club, and sits on Philadelphia's Green Economy Task Force, where he is contributing to the creation of Pennsylvania's up and coming Green Economy.  During his college career, he was the President of Students for Environmental Action at Temple University, where he and the amazing members of SEA, moved the new leadership of Temple University to become signatories of the Presidents Climate Commitment, which put Temple University on the path to become Carbon Neutral. Mathew has much more to accomplish in his lifetime, including one day, running for elected office to ensure there's a voice for the Environment that is heard loud and clear.