News from CES Alumni and Friends
Bob Bendick ‘68
Last fall I moved from my position of the last five years as Director of U.S. Government Relations at The Nature Conservancy’s headquarters office in Arlington, Virginia, to become TNC Gulf of Mexico Program Director based in Florida. In this new job I work with the five TNC Gulf state chapters to advocate for and implement on-the-ground work for restoration of the Gulf. Use of funds from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill is one, but not the only, aspect of this work. For now we are focused on the U.S. states but expect to include Cuba and Mexico in the years to come. In this new job I am returning to the south where I was TNC’s Southern Regional Director before going to Washington. I am also serving as chair of The Practitioners’ Network for Large Landscape Conservation—a group of conservation professionals working on large scale projects across the country.
Bill Carney ‘70
I guess covering the formation of CES for the Williams Record back in 1967 got me thinking big. So now I’ve written a book length poem on the history of the universe, Mountain, An Evolutionary Epic. The cosmic story unfolds around the campfire in the high Sierra, informing the personal stories of backpackers on a weeklong sojourn. You can browse, comment and order at www.williamcarney.net.
Mountain follows Cities, a nuclear peace poem, from the mid-1980s. Sheafe Satterthwaite, ever ready with answers (and questions) suggested where to find the cover photo for that one, an aerial of Manhatten with the World Trade Center still soaring. Sheafe also suggested that I consider earning an honest living by becoming a landscape architect. That eventually led to a quarter century in San Francisco helping to design and manage the Yerba Buena Gardens, Transbay and Sixth Street redevelopment areas.
Harry Kangis ’72 & Brewster Rhoads ’74
We are working together to help make Greater Cincinnati the nation’s most environmentally sustainable region. Brewster is the Executive Director of Green Umbrella, a “backbone” organization driving collaborative efforts through its 200+ member organizations in the Cincinnati Region. Just this month, Brewster was honored with the Phyllis Smale Award for Environmental Stewardship; the Award was created as a memorial to the wife of former P&G CEO John Smale. Harry is co-founder of One Page Solutions (OPS), and for the past 15 years has been using OPS’s One Page Strategic Plan® process to help a number of conservation organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC), The Cincinnati Zoo, The Cincinnati Nature Center, Environmental Defense Fund, and now Green Umbrella to bring better focus to their conservation work. Harry recently completed 11 years as a trustee of TNC’s Ohio Chapter, the last 3 as Chair. He remains an Honorary Life Trustee.
Dean Cycon ‘75
I just returned from Ethiopia where I have been facilitating and funding the creation of an important cervical cancer detection and treatment program between Siidama Cooperative and Grounds for Health. Also working in Nicaragua with Prodecoop on a program to combat deadly coffee rust that has decimated farms and livelihoods throughout Central and South America. Thinking about retirement but the environmental, social and economic issues I work with just don’t want to go away.
Carolyn (“Candy”) Cox Dann ’76
Happily working for Mass. Dep’t of Environmental Protection as a “Municipal Assistance Coordinator”. We are fondly referred to as “MACs”. I am one of seven MACs that cover the state and work with municipalities in our region on a wide variety of projects – anything that relates to enhancing recycling and reducing waste. It is great fun and I’ve learned a lot about municipal governments and how they work and basically learned that they all work differently! But, it is also amazing to be in a position to help a group of environmental advocates change the way trash and recycling is handled in their town. Volunteers make things happen all the time! Towns that I have worked with have gone from “unlimited trash” to weekly recycling, weekly curbside organics collection and every other week trash – yes, right here in Massachusetts! (no, not Cambridge, either!) In addition to loving my work, I am busy with church, with weekends away with my husband and with frequent visits to Oregon to see my daughter, son-in-law and 2-yr old grandson, James! Life is good!
Charlie Janson ’77
I was recently elected Chairman and President of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, continues as a real estate and land use lawyer with Robinson & Cole’s Stamford office.
Roger Wilson ’77
After many years of focusing on making money for publishing and non-profit clients, I’ve shifted my focus to public policy with a new venture called Civic Decisions. Working in recent years for the Project for Public Spaces and their National Center for Bicycling and Walking helped stimulate the move. Meanwhile I serve on the boards of the rapidly growing Wright Locke Conservancy in my hometown of Winchester, MA and a small land conservation foundation in Vermont. http://www.wlfarm.org/
Sarah Thorne ‘79
I’m celebrating my 10th year teaching high school at a small rural high school in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. I use my Williams CES classes as inspiration for my Field Ecology and Biology classes. I channel Hank Art, Sheafe Satterthwaite, Bill Moomaw, and Tom Jorling as we track wildlife on snowshoes, inventory lichen, monitor streams, discuss environmental policy, and learn our plants. I’ve developed a new course on climate science that I’ll teach next year. This is quite a change from my previous 20 year career in land conservation. Helping 17-year olds connect to nature and feel hopeful enough to engage in sustaining our planet is confounding and amazing. In the summer I recharge by spending time with my grown mountaineer children and husband, gardening, as well as joining research teams in the White Mountain National Forest.
Malinda Bergamini Chapman ‘80
I’m still living in a passive solar home in the woods with 22 PV panels on the roof and a wood stove for the coldest parts of winter in Ticonderoga, NY. It’s the edge of the Adirondacks, in between Lake Champlain and Lake George, a beautiful place to raise a family. My husband is still a too busy family doctor and I keep chaos from reigning while happily teaching Biology and Environmental Science part time and keeping up with our four kids. Only the youngest is usually here, Colvin will be a junior in High School. The next two older boys are enjoying hands on engineering at Olin College, in Needham, MA. Our oldest, Linnaea, has fallen in love with Seattle and a Seattlite – so we are looking forward to visiting them the end of August.
Trying to lessen our fossil fuel intake has inspired our project loving boys to do two “grease car” conversions, they run on either diesel or used veggie oil from a local restaurant. We had a special trip with the boys backpacking 40 miles down a beautiful canyon, Grand Gulch, in SE Utah – repeated the itinerary of 31 years ago. I treasure my Williams friends but don’t often see them. I really enjoyed visiting one of my Williams roommates, Peggy Duesenberry Binney, ’80 now in the Boston area after many decades in Scotland . And also had fun with Betsy Kepes ’82 ( ?) in her off the grid home near Potsdam, NY. I’m on the Board of CATS – Champlain Area Trails, helping to connect small towns with a network of walking/skiing trails- come check it out, and give us a call!
Mimi Dumouchel ’80
I invite alumni friends to read the online version of her newspaper column, “Bedford Beat” at “The Bedford Bulletin” on Facebook.
Becky Webber ‘80
I am practicing employment law at Skelton, Taintor & Abbott and loving the firm and my work. Have one in Bowdoin, one at BC, one leaning toward Middlebury, and a 4th leaning toward BC – one year I will have FOUR kids in college! We’ll call that our “Ramen year.” Just had my left kidney taken out, along with a metanephric adenoma (class doctors – ever seen one?), so the golden age of body parts being replaced or removed has begun but it’s also the age of feeling ok about all of that, as in, well, ok, that scar is just about where my six pack abs would be if I were to get some of them.
Susan Edwards Richmond ‘82
On June 1, I curated a Poetry Walk as part of the Energy Necklace Project at the Jackson Homestead in Newton, MA, a stop on the Underground Railroad. Eleven poets wrote site-specific poems on the themes of sustainability, preservation, and place, in conjunction with a sculpture installation, and shared them in a public reading. A write-up of the event, as well as a link to an online chapbook of the poems, is at http://historicnewton.org/.
Nils D Christoffersen ’88
I continue to lead a small, innovative non-profit (Wallowa Resources) working on rural community revitalization and land stewardship in Northeast Oregon.
We’re involved in two national pilots involving federal land collaboration and the cohesive wildfire strategy. Both are pursuing an integrated and inclusive process that consider whole watersheds and both public and private lands (“all lands approach”). They are designed to facilitate joint assessment and strategy development by diverse stakeholders committed to crafting new restoration and stewardship strategies.
We’ve also helped build an integrated biomass energy campus that creates a new, efficient, market for small diameter logs and slash produced in restoration projects. The campus uses its own wood waste to generate both thermal and electrical power required by the business. This project is one in a broader suite of projects advancing small-scale, distributed renewable energy in rural communities.
Finally, we continue to invest in K through graduate education in natural resource stewardship and rural resilience. We’d love to have Williams students or faculty come out to see what we’re doing. Maybe my daughter can help organize a trip…she is transferring to Williams this fall as a Sophomore from Smith.
Mary Miller ‘88
Life in the southwest here at Elkhorn Ranch is very busy! Our guest ranch keeps us busy, as do the activities of the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance. I use my CES skills DAILY! My husband Charley and I received the Arizona Range Managers of the Year award from the Arizona Chapter of the Society for Range Management – pretty neat! Check us out at www.elkhornranch.com and www.altarvalleyconservation.org
Jim Neumann ’88
As some of you might know I work as an environmental economist, consulting to the USEPA, the World Bank, UNDP, and many other clients mostly on issues related to climate change. I work out of my firm’s Cambridge, MA office (Industrial Economics, www.indecon.com). This has been an exciting year for me with the release of the IPCC Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report – I was a lead author on the Economics of Adaptation chapter – and the release of the US National Climate Assessment, where I was a lead author on the Coastal Impacts chapter. Both made big news and I hope are contributing to better understanding, awareness, and most of all, action on climate change, here and abroad. Recently I’ve been very involved in helping EPA understand and make a case for the economic benefits of this Administration’s program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (where more exciting and important steps have recently been taken with the new proposed rule to limit emissions from existing power plants), and helping the World Bank incorporate climate change in infrastructure and energy planning in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and most recently, Central Asia. It’s perhaps not the traditional job for a CES graduate, but as a joint economics major at Williams it fits for me, and I enjoy contributing to making an economic case for environmental protection.
Lisa Marrack ‘89
I graduated from Williams as a Geology major in 1989. I have a Masters in Marine science in 1997 from Moss Landing Marine Labs, Cal-State. I worked as a marine ecologist for the National Parks in Hawaii 2001-2009. Now I am hoping to finish a PhD at University of California at Berkeley in Fall of 2014 in the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Dept. I have been modeling sea level rise on the Island of Hawaii and combining the data with field surveys to inform conservation planning. I’m looking forward to teaching and continuing my research next year.
Cindy Franz ‘91
I won a teaching award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues for my work with students doing behavior change research for Oberlin College’s Climate Action Plan. My students used Community Based Social Marketing to identify the most impactful behaviors to target, and to develop successful behavior change strategies. These programs will be incorporated into the College’s Climate Action Plan and implemented on campus.
Barbara Allyn Behling-Rosa ‘92
I live in Nissequogue (St. James), NY with two dogs, (George and Bella); Married Dominik Rosa, MD (7th year anniversary this May). I am the Chief Resident at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System Dept of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (June 2014-June 2015). Graduation next year! I just started new private practice for Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine and PM&R in Northport, NY (North Shore Osteopathic – Phoenix Center). Check us out on NorthShoreOsteopathic.com! Getting involved in Quality Improvements through the NSLIJ system. Basically overextended, but loving it all!
Kerrita Mayfield ‘93
I am teaching Upward Bound summer session – science this summer on the UMass Amherst campus. I have an article coming out in urban review: “Creating A Critical Genetics Curriculum as a counternarrative to/in the urban imaginary.”
Kevin Weng ’93
I am moving to Virginia in the fall, to start a new position as an assistant prof of fishery science, at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It is part of the College of William and Mary. Very excited about my new job, and perhaps I’ll run across some Ephs in the Chesapeake area!
Becky Schaffner ’94
After spending 14 years in California, I am moving back to the east coast to start a new job as a GIS Coordinator with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, in Augusta. I’ll be working with their Bureau of Land and Water Quality, doing mapping and data analysis. Looking forward to moving closer to family and friends in New England!
Willard Morgan ‘96
Still living in Alna, Maine and serving as President of Chewonki in Wiscasset. At Chewonki we are about to begin our Centennial Year celebration of powerful nature-based education focused in Maine – adventurous summer programs for boys and girls, a rigorous semester school for high school juniors, and a variety of innovative school programs. In the last three years I have also been founding board chair for Juniper Hill School Place-Based Education, a growing independent school in Alna with a very similar philosophy to Chewonki. Next year we will have over 40 students from ages 4 to 9 (preK-4th grade) and we are adding a grade each year so far. In addition, I just began my second term as trustee of the St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts. My daughters Sierra (8 this summer) and Zella (2 in December) are well and my wife, Jenn, and I are looking forward to family time in the outdoors together in 2014.
Tim Billo ‘97
I am currently a lecturer in the University of Washington’s Program on the Environment (essentially the equivalent of CES at UW). I am also a part-time lecturer in UW’s Biology Department. Through these two departments, I teach a variety of courses, including core courses in the environmental studies program, a field course entitled Natural History of the Puget Sound Region, conservation biology, field ornithology, a tropical biology course in the Peruvian Amazon, and an interdisciplinary field course in the Olympic Mountains which discusses landscape change on the Olympic Peninsula, including the history and literature of wilderness preservation, and the effects of climate change on local species and ecosystems. My wife and I recently welcomed our first child into the world in October 2013. I welcome interactions with CES alumni and students. I can be contacted at [email protected].
Laura Massie ’99
I’ve been incredibly delinquent in writing to the newsletter but I’ve been doing environmental justice work with farmworker communities in California for the last three years as an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. I feel a huge debt of gratitude to the CES community, without whom my 2-year-old daughter, Eleanor, might not know the words “hiking” or “quinoa.” CES forever!
Christine (Chrissy) Fletcher ’02
I finished up a year and a half in the National Ocean Council Office at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and am joining Pew Charitable Trusts to help with
communications with their ocean work, specifically with Arctic issues. There are Williams alums in both directions, including Claire Swingle ’16, a summer intern at CEQ, and Leah Sharpe ’02 (who is at NOAA). Williams students and alums who work (or want to work) in ocean issues are invited to be in touch!
Jon Weiner ‘02
I moved back to California a year ago to join the Natural Resources Law Section of the California Attorney General’s office. I represent a variety of state agencies in all sorts of environmental cases, but have been focusing heavily on greenhouse gas rules at the state and federal level. These include EPA’s power plant regulations, the offsets provisions in California’s cap-and-trade system, and the state’s low-carbon fuel standard. Also, and this is probably not relevant to CES Notes, I am coaching San Francisco’s only “straight-friendly gay and lesbian” water polo team two nights a week.
Sam Arons ’04
I continue to work on renewable energy supply at Google. Since the last update I’ve worked on a 240 MW wind contract in Texas (http://goo.gl/hY5bZO) and a new utility renewable energy tariff in North Carolina (http://goo.gl/gwV4ky). I lives in San Francisco with his wife Magali (’07).
Laura Cavin Bailey ’05
In the spring of 2013 I moved back to my home state of Vermont to work for Maclay Architects run by principal by Bill Maclay (’70). The firm is involved with diverse architecture and planning projects throughout New England and specializes in high energy efficient designs (www.maclayarchitects.com). I spent a portion of the last year helping with a book by Bill and the firm called: The New Net Zero: Leading-Edge Design and Construction of Homes and Buildings for a Renewable Energy Future, which goes to print at the end of June by Chelsea Green Publishing.
My position as research director for the firm involves modeling the energy performance of our designs and monitoring the actual performance of our buildings. I have also worked on developing a financial analysis tool to show clients that creating net-zero buildings can result in financial benefits from year one. Over the last year I have managed some of the smaller architecture and planning projects that come through the firm, including work with small New England liberal arts colleges. I have been following the Kellogg house renovation and am thrilled that it will soon be open and is striving to meet the Living Building Challenge. After 10 years in the west (Western CO, MT, and Eugene, OR) it is good to be back in VT and close to family, snow, rivers, and an abundance of new mt. biking trails! I even joined fellow Ephs for a weekend stay in Hopkins Cabin last fall and look forward to more time back in the purple valley.
Carolyn Dekker ’05
I received my PhD in English from the University of Michigan in May and am excited to be teaching in the Environmental Studies department at Bates next year.
Jonathan Landsman ‘05
The natural world favored me on my wedding day last weekend, when I and my wife Tomomi tied the knot beneath a black locust in full bloom. No better way I can imagine to put my plant knowledge to good use than to have picked that spot half a year ago, knowing that, if we were lucky, the locust would be blooming. The way I knew actually has to do with Williams: I remembered that Williams black locusts are often in bloom an quite fragrant during graduation. That is why I remember the timing of that species.
Last winter I also became the horticulture manager of Northern Manhattan’s public parks. It’s hard to describe what that means, but suffice it to say if you are in a park garden north of 155th Street, you are probably looking at our work (except if you’re at the Cloisters, which is a five minute walk from my office, but under separate care).
Elana Boehm ‘06
I’m currently working for a Boston-based energy efficiency and renewables company, Next Step Living, as a Strategy & Operations Manager. The CEO, COO, and VP of HR are all Williams alums as well! We’ve grown significantly in the five-and-a-half years since we started, and have been able to successfully bridge the private, public, and non-profit sectors in our mission to make home energy efficiency easy, accessible, and affordable. If there’s ever an opportunity over the school year to engage with students, please let me know!
Daniel Doyle ‘06
I do field work as an Environmental Scientist for Cardno ENTRIX, an international environmental consulting company specializing in water resource assessment, environmental liability and natural resource management and I currently work full-time as an English instructor with the Mississippi Virtual Public Schools as well as part-time with the UM Independent Study High School and as Executive Director for the Mississippi Sustainable Agriculture Network (www.mssagnet.net).
Sara Jablonski ‘07
After finishing my masters in community food systems at Michigan State University and working for one year as an Americorps VISTA for a hunger non-profit, I finally have a real, good paying job! I am currently living in Buffalo, NY and working for Cornell Cooperative Extension as the Urban 4-H Educator. I love my job! I get to work with teenagers to promote healthy eating in Buffalo Public Schools, train afterschool staff on positive youth development principles, and get young people excited about serving their communities. What I really love about it is that I spend most of my time focusing on processes: how to engage young people and hear their voices in a meaningful way, how to have a more inclusive organization, how to work collaboratively to improve the health of Buffalo’s children. I was also elected to sit on the newly formed Food Policy Council of Buffalo and Erie County, which is meant to serve as an advisory board on all local policies related to food.
Andy Stevenson ‘07
I’m finishing up my third year of the JD/MBA program at Stanford, still enjoying living on the west coast. This summer I’ll be working with an investor in Palo Alto to develop relatively small scale renewable energy projects, with a likely focus on 1-10 MW hydroelectric projects at existing dams in the United States. I’m planning to graduate next spring and continue developing and investing in renewable energy out here in California.
Adam Banasiak ’08
I just graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government this spring with a Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) and am busy job-hunting. I was fortunate enough to be able to present my master’s project, “The Other Sequester: Ecosystem Services and Carbon Sequestration at Everglades National Park” (available at bit.ly/evergladesecosystem), to the National Park Service Advisory Board at their meeting in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado before I graduated. Director Jarvis is interested in following up on my suggestion to calculate the total tonnage and dollar value of carbon sequestered on NPS properties nationwide to show another way the NPS adds value to the economy and how big of a return we get on funding of the NPS as part of the upcoming NPS centennial celebrations in 2016. If anyone needs a resource economist/policy planner, give me a holler ([email protected])!
Morgan Goodwin ‘08
I’m living in Truckee, CA and working for the global campaigning movement Avaaz.org. In my spare time this year I managed to tear my ACL skiing, put a lot of energy into the initiative to divest the college endowment of fossil fuels, am exploring running for Truckee town council in the fall, and building giant art for burning man. It’s been quite a year! Plus I’ve gotten to spend some time with Geo majors Andy Anderson ’99, Rebecca Anderson ’00 and Steve D’Oreo ’01 — not sure what connection they had to the envi department.
Whitney Leonard ‘08
I just finished my second year of law school at Yale and am spending the summer interning for Earthjustice in Bozeman, MT, where I get to go adventuring with Kim Taylor (’08). This spring, I ran the Boston Marathon in memory of Katie Craig (’08) to raise money for Samaritans, a suicide-prevention organization based in Boston. I am grateful to all the CES alumni and faculty who supported my run. I hope any CES alumni who are wandering through the West this summer will come visit us in Montana!
Rebecca Gilbert ‘10
This fall, Rebecca (Bex) Gilbert ’10 will start the second year of her Master’s of Environmental Management at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is interning this summer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine and working on a project examining the impacts of climate change on fish stocks and the New England communities that depend on them.
Rachel Savain ‘10
I am currently a program coordinator for waste and water management projects in Haiti for a Dutch Municipal Association, named VNG International until October 2014. The main objective of our program is to reinforce four municipalities in Haiti’s Palms Region to implement sustainable waste and water management systems. I recently moved back to Florida, as the project will end in December.
Joya Sonnenfeldt ‘10
After spending three wonderful years as a litigation assistant for Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, I migrated home to the east coast to begin a J.D./M.E.M. at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry (class of 2017 for both programs). At YLS I have reconnected with Whitney Leonard ’08 in her capacity as co-chair of the Yale Environmental Law Association, a position I have taken over from her for the 2014-15 academic year. Look me up if you’re in New Haven!
Brian Cole ’11
I’m busy catching and banding birds living and working at a research station in Point Reyes National Seashore, California, studying bird populations. In August, I am moving to San Francisco to begin a commercial Tilapia farm with Wade Davis ’13. Andrew Gaidus ’11, who is doing GIS work in SF, is also planning to join the fledging aquaculture team. No doubt, it will be great!
Andrew Gaidus ‘11
I have been living in San Francisco since graduating from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in June 2013. At Yale, I concentrated in GIS and Environmental Policy Analysis, and I now find myself working at a Public Health research institute in Oakland as GIS Analyst / Research Associate. I assist several researchers, professors, and post-doctoral fellows on the spatial and statistical components of their research which generally involves identifying, measuring, and quantifying the temporal and spatial patterns of various public health outcomes – crime, drug and alcohol abuse, car crashes, domestic violence, gun violence, etc. I am enjoying my work and learning a lot of useful technical skills, which I ultimately hope to apply to environmental / energy policy analysis at some point in the relatively near future. Life in the Bay Area is great – I spend my free-time biking, hiking, running, and rock climbing in the beautiful surrounding areas.
Will Harron ’11
I’m just finishing my third season at Pok-O-MacCready Outdoor Education Center in the Adirondacks. It’s been a blast teaching kids ecology, wilderness survival, canoeing, and leading hikes and I’ll be sad to leave it. But, adventures await: This July I hope to hike the Vermont Long Trail end-to-end, and come August I’m taking a ‘sabbatical’ from the mountains by spending a service year in Boston with the Life Together community.
Sophie Robinson ‘11
I work for a Better Future Project, a climate change non-profit based in Boston, where I coordinate the statewide network called 350 Massachusetts. Aside from movement building, I enjoy exploring Boston/ Cambridge and riding my bike everywhere.
Brandon Abasolo ’13
I’m currently working at a company called CleanEdison that’s based in New York. CleanEdison provides training throughout the country to businesses, non-profits, community organizations, and individuals for different industry certifications in clean tech, such as solar PV installation (NABCEP), energy efficiency (BPI), and sustainable building design (LEED). I recently competed in the Long Island Half-Marathon (my first ever race at the distance) and won.
Emily Ury ‘13
I had an exciting year since graduating in 2013. Last summer I moved to Washington State to work in a research lab doing water quality testing in lakes and reservoirs in the Pacific North West. After the field season ended I traveled abroad to Israel where I spent the winter WWOOFing on an organic goat and vegetable farm. I am currently living at home in Great Barrington where I am working on a gardening crew and saving up money for graduate school. In August I will move to New Haven to begin a Masters of Environmental Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Megamenu Social