L. HUNTER LOVINS, OPENING KEYNOTE SPEAKER is President of Natural Capitalism Inc. (www.natcapinc.com). She holds a JD and several honorary doctorates. Co-founder of California Conservation Project (an innovative forestry group) she has extensive hands-on experience with economic development, forestry, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and construction of sustainable buildings. She subsequently founded Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), which she served for 20 years as CEO. She created the RMI Economic Renewal Project and helped write many of its manuals on sustainable community economic development. She was a founding director of RMI’s second for-profit spin-off, E source, until its 1999 sale to the Financial Times group. Ms. Lovins has lectured extensively in over 15 countries, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos, The International Symposium on Sustainable Development in Shanghai, the Annual General Meeting of UNIDO, the Global Economic Forum, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. She has consulted for industries and governments worldwide, from multinational companies such as Shell Oil as well as many community groups, local economic development agencies and municipal governments.

She has taught at numerous universities and has several honorary doctorates. Currently a professor of business at Presidio World College, she has founded and grown several businesses, including E-Source, which ultimately sold for $18 million. She has served on the governing boards of one government, several businesses, and a dozen non-profits. She served on the State of the World Forum’s Commission on Globalization. With broad expertise in sustainable community development, she has co-authored nine books, including the 1999 book Natural Capitalism, and hundreds of papers, including briefings for Presidents Clinton and Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Lovins has shared a 1982 Mitchell Prize for an essay on reallocating utility capital, a 1983 Right Livelihood Award, a 1993 Nissan Award, and the 1999 Lindbergh Award for Environment and Technology. In 2000 she was named a “Hero for the Planet” by Time Magazine. In 2001 she received the Leadership in Business Award and shared the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Research.

WAYNE FAWBUSH served for 16 years as a state legislator from rural Oregon. During that time he owned and operated a commercial pear and blueberry farm. He was an early advocate of using networks within industry clusters as efficient development tools, especially when applied to the natural resource base in a region. He created the Oregon Wood Product Competitiveness Association that enabled secondary wood producers throughout Oregon to pool their resources. He led the effort to pass the first comprehensive home energy efficiency legislation in the country. Wayne served as the Deputy for Operations for the Farmers Home Administration Washington, D.C., where he managed the Northwest Timber Mitigation Act. He coordinated the Federal response that resulted in seven Federal agencies and the three western states agreeing to implement a program valued at $10-14 billion. For nine years, Wayne served as the Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, which was dedicated to helping rural communities and business prosper through collaborative pooling of resources. The Jobs Fund created several successful rural clusters in the forest products, food production, and rural service industries, and initiated several buy-local campaigns. He is working with Regional Technology Strategies on cluster development practices in rural Pennsylvania, Newfoundland, and Oregon.

DAVID GERSHON, founder and CEO of Empowerment Institute, is an expert on behavior change and large system transformation. Over the past two decades, David has developed an effective and robust transformational technology. David’s clients include cities, countries and large organizations addressing issues ranging from organizational culture change to low-income neighborhood revitalization; from environmental behavior change to emergency preparedness. He founded and led Global Action Plan for the Earth and developed its well known EcoTeam strategy to help citizens, neighborhoods and entire communities reduce their environmental footprints while building community. That framework for supporting voluntary behavior change has been adapted in a variety of local government programs. It is also the foundation of The Low Carbon Diet.

David’s initiatives also include a global transformative event created at the height of the Cold War, the First Earth Run. In partnership with the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and ABC Television, he organized the historic passing of a torch of peace around the world. This simple and profound act of global unity, offered at a moment of great fear, engaged the participation of 25 million people in 62 countries directly and through the media. His best selling book, coauthored with Gail Straub, Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It, has become a classic on the subject. A well-known personal growth trainer, he co-leads the Empowerment Institute Certification Program – a school for practitioners. He has served on White House, United Nations and international advisory committees.

GWENDOLYN HALLSMITH, the founder and Executive Director of Global Community Initiatives (GCI), has over 25 years of experience working with municipal, regional, and state government in the United States and internationally. She is author of The Key to Sustainable Cities (New Society Publishers 2003), lead author of the workbook Taking Action for Sustainability and coauthor of LASER (Local Action for Sustainable Economic Renewal). She is working with the City of Newburgh and with Calgary, in Canada, on long-range plans for sustainable development. Gwen has served as a City Manager, a Regional Planning Director, Senior Planner for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy Resources, the Deputy Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and as an international specialist on sustainable community development. Her international experience has included work with the United Nations Environmental Program, the United Nations Development Program, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the International City/County Management Association, the Academy for Educational Development, and Earth Charter International. In addition to her academic training in public policy (M.A. Brown University), she has done Ph.D. work in international environmental policy at the University of British Columbia, and theological studies at the Andover Newton Theological School. She currently serves on the Board of Vermont Earth Institute, and was on the founding board of the Vermont Peace Academy and the Twinfield Learning Center.

KIM LUNDGREN is Director of the first Regional Capacity Center for ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability. In this role, she is responsible for supporting all ICLEI members and participants in the Cities for Climate Protection® Campaign within the Northeast on the Milestone Process and furthering the network of greenhouse gas emission reductions within this region. Additionally, she manages various grant programs that are focused on Northeast communities and sustainability.

Ms. Lundgren has significant experience in addressing climate change issues at the local level. She received a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University. After working several years as a U.S. EPA consultant on hazardous waste, Ms. Lundgren began working with the City of Medford, MA. As the Director of the Energy and Environment Office for the City, she was responsible for all energy efficiency and environmental initiatives in the City, including the implementation of the City’s Climate Action Plan, which entailed reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria air pollutants through various measures related to buildings, transportation, lighting, clean energy installation, and education. This office developed and supervised programs related to wetlands conservation, open space preservation, and Stormwater management.