Sustainable Lafayette - Board of Directors
The Board meets once per month to steer the direction of Sustainable Lafayette and collectively has expertise in energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction, environmental science, sustainable & local food, small business, green gardening, and education. Board meetings are open to any member. Please email us at info@sustainablelafayette.net if you'd like to attend the next meeting.
Steve Richard - Co-Founder & President (steve@sustainablelafayette.net)
Steve co-founded Sustainable Lafayette with Bart Carr in early 2007 and has led Sustainable Lafayette's efforts for the past couple years. Steve is a ten year resident of Lafayette and has continuously worked to reduce his family's environmental footprint since watching Inconvenient Truth in 2006. This effort has included installing solar panels, CFLs, new appliances, low flush toilets, riding his bike, using a push mower, and a wide range of other upgrades. Steve is utilizing his 18 year background in high-tech marketing and management at companies like Hewlett-Packard, Netscape, and Lotus to help promote sustainable practices across the community. Steve is a member of Lafayette's Environmental Task Force and Chamber of Commerce Green Committee. He has helped organize Lafayette's Earth Day Festival the past three years and spearheaded the city's Green Awards program.
Bart Carr - Co-Founder & Local Business Chair (bart@sustainablelafayette.net)
Bart co-founded Sustainable Lafayette with Steve Richard in early 2007. Bart has been a leader in waste reduction for the past 20 years and is a widely recognized waste and transportation expert in Contra Costa County. He currently works as a senior program manager at the Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority. Bart volunteers on the city of Lafayette's Environmental Task Force and is the chair of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Bart also chairs the Chamber of Commerce Green Committee and has helped organize Lafayette's Earth Day Festival the past three years. At home Bart is actively working to reduce his family's environmental impact by installing solar panels, riding his bike to work and around town, composting, and a host of other activities.
Barbara Williams - Treasurer & Co-Chair of School Committee (barbara@sustainablelafayette.net)
Barbara is a 15 year resident of Lafayette. Before leaving the corporate life in data processing to take time to raise her kids, Barbara worked with her Fortune 500 clients to implement paperless payroll and human resource reporting and paychecks in the early 1990's, taking some clients from 20-30 boxes of paper every week or two, to zero. Now working part-time as a property manager, she is active in scouting and on the green team at her childrens local school. She is currently working to help the Lafayette cub scout program access local resources to learn more about sustainability. "Getting the kids to think green is the future". Barbara and her family take part in the beach cleanup days with Marin County Surfrider Foundation. She has always composted and had a family garden. They enjoy sharing their produce with friends and neighbors who do the same.
Greg Wikler - Co-Chair of Education Committee (greg@sustainablelafayette.net)
Greg is a 20-year resident of Lafayette. His passion for sustainability and the environment goes back to his days as an undergraduate at UC Davis in the early 1980s when he focused his studies on economics and public policy related to energy and the environment. He works as an energy economist for a Lafayette-based employee-owned international consulting firm called Global Energy Partners. Greg’s work at Global involves conducting technical, economic and financial assessments for electric utilities throughout the world. In his nearly 25 years of experience in this field, Greg is involved in strategic planning assessments, program design, and regulatory support for energy efficiency and demand response initiatives. He has directed studies for dozens of electric utilities that focus on innovative and cutting-edge approaches to utility-sponsored energy efficiency programs. Greg also serves on the Holy Planet Task Force at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Lafayette, where he advises on various projects at the church to reduce energy and water usage, and educate the congregation on easy ways to save energy.
Becky Shafi - Volunteer Coordinator & Events Committee (becky@sustainablelafayette.net)
Becky Shafi works for AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah where she is an active member of the Greenlight Initiative Committee. This group works to advocate for the use of hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles and transportation issues relating to emissions reductions, ridesharing and public transit. Becky also works on the employee environmental action team, and advocates for corporate social responsibility initiatives. Currently Becky serves on the Board of Directors of Go Solar Cooperative, Inc and is a member of the women’s leadership group Leadership California. Becky is also active in the Lamorinda peace and justice group. Becky is passionate about reducing her carbon footprint and helping others to do the same. She writes a Blog called “Global warming isn’t funny.” Read it at www.globalwarmingblog.squarespace.com.
Linda Riebel - Local Food Committee, Events Committee (linda@sustainablelafayette.net)
Linda Riebel, Ph.D., is a psychologist who maintained a private practice for 25 years before retiring in 2007 to devote herself to writing and volunteering on environmental issues. As a faculty member at Saybrook University in San Francisco, she helped create the certificate program in sustainability and teaches courses in ecopsychology and sustainability. Linda grows food at her Lafayette home and developed expertise in turning acorns into flour during 2007's banner acorn harvest. Naturally, she is a member of Lafayette's urban farming collective. Linda is also on the board of SaveNature.Org, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps save rainforest and coral reef. Linda is the author of "The Earth-Friendly Food Chain: Food Choices for a Living Planet" (available at www.earthfriendlyfoodchain.com and at Amazon) and a frequent speaker on sustainable food that is healthy for person and planet.
Kim Curiel - Secretary, Local Food Committee, School Committee (kim@sustainablelafayette.net)
Kim Curiel is the Garden Instructional Specialist at the Burton Valley Elementary Garden Classroom, where she has the awesome job of teaching children about sustainable agriculture and gardening. Her home, a solar-powered strawbale house, is a dream come true for Kim and her husband, Fred, and has been featured on Green Home tours in the past. A few years ago, Kim helped launch and run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Clayton called Happy Farms. A regular at the local farmer's market, Kim also grows some of the family's food, as well as raising chickens for eggs. Her four daughters are sustainability enthusiasts and Kim learns more from them each day.
Janet Thomas - Chair of Local Food Committee (janet@sustainablelafayette.net)
Janet has lived in Lafayette since 1982, where she and her husband Ramsay have raised three children. Her background is in healthcare and education. She was motivated in college to explore man’s relationship to resources and the biodiversity of our planet by then forward thinking professors Paul Ehrlich, Colin Pittendrigh, Donald Kennedy and lecturer Jane Goodall. Since then, she has worked to try to help students understand some of the same lessons. Janet has taught at Campolindo, Mills, UCBerkeley and Acalanes High School. She recently retired from Acalanes, where she taught chemistry and developed a district environmental science curriculum. Janet is currently a member of Lafayette’s Environmental Task Force and has helped organize Lafayette’s Earth Day events.
Ann Johnston - Co-Chair of School Committee (ann@sustainablelafayette.net)
Ann has lived in Lafayette with her husband Ray and their twin daughters for 11 years. She is a partner with the San Francisco law firm Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass. Ann was drawn to sustainability issues by her daughters' passions for the same. After watching "An Inconvenient Truth," the family decided on a simple action plan: learn more about the problems facing the environment, identify specific steps that they could take to help make a difference, work together to take those steps, and finally to explore ways to help educate other about what they had learned. Luckily, Ann and her daughters found a group a like-minded girl scouts and formed a group proudly known as the "Eco-Warriors." Ann and the girls have worked on many projects, including partnering with The Climate Project to organize a community event called “Climate Change - Kids Making a Difference” that drew about 150 people. What Ann learned in this process is that kids care deeply about the earth and, if given the information and the opportunity, can and will do amazing things to help preserve and protect it.
Rebecca Calahan Klein - Business Development & Local Food Committee (rebecca@sustainablelafayette.net)
Rebecca moved to Lafayette with her family five years ago – drawn here by the town’s sense of place and community, good schools, and beautiful landscape. Rebecca is the President of Sustainable Strategies, a business consulting practice that helps large and small companies integrate sustainability into their values, strategies and market offerings. She founded and led Organic Exchange, a global non-profit focused on expanding organic agriculture around the world, and led the Business and Environment Program at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). The Calahan Klein family sustainability practices include eating organic and local foods, conserving energy and water, recycling and composting at home, as well as driving a hybrid car, walking, and biking as much as possible. Rebecca became involved with Sustainable Lafayette through the trial farmers market and took the lead presenting survey results and a proposal for a permanent market to the City Council.
Michael Dawson - Co-Chair of Education Committee & Technology Director (michael@sustainablelafayette.net)
Michael moved to Lafayette with his family in 2008 with a desire to be part of a green community. A quest to meet like-minded people led him to Sustainable Lafayette where he took the lead on building a relationship with the new Library & Learning Center and organizing our participation in the grand opening. With two children just starting elementary school, it is important for him to educate his children and the larger community on how to lead a sustainable lifestyle. He has seventeen years experience in high tech partnership development and marketing, most recently with Google, Inc. where he managed their largest partnerships. A meeting with Al Gore while at Google gave Michael the impetus to get more active in sustainability and environmental issues. In between consulting work and green community action opportunities, he is playing with his kids, tweaking various green and energy conserving projects around the house, and pursuing his passion for winemaking.