Green Symposium Speakers
Los Angeles, CA • Mar. 2, 2011

Majora Carter

Majora Carter simultaneously addresses public health, poverty alleviation, and climate change adaptation as one of the nation’s pioneers in successful urban green-collar job training and placement systems. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to achieve environmental equality through economically sustainable projects informed by community needs. Her work has earned numerous honors including Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People In Business, a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship, Essence Magazine’s 25 Most Influential African-Americans, and NY Post Liberty Medal for Lifetime Achievement. She is a board member of the Wilderness Society and CERES; and hosts the special public radio series: “The Promised Land” (thepromisedland.org). Her work now includes advising cities, foundations, universities, businesses and communities around the world on unlocking their local economic potential to benefit everyone as President of the Majora Carter Group, LLC.

J. Phillip Thompson

J. Phillip Thompson is an Associate Professor of Urban Politics at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and co-founder and board member of the Emerald Cities Collaborative, a cross-sectoral effort to green America’s metropolitan areas through “high road” strategies. He is the former deputy general manager of the New York Housing Authority and director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing Coordination in New York.

Anne Evens

Anne Evens serves as director of CNT Energy and leads programs including green and healthy housing demand-side management, energy research, energy efficiency, real-time pricing and regional energy and climate planning. Ms. Evens has been responsible for the development and oversight of an energy education program, a citywide energy efficiency retrofit program and a plan to reduce energy consumption and emissions for Chicago neighborhoods.

Anne also served in the Division of Environmental Health at the City of Chicago, where she administered energy efficiency, radon reduction and lead abatement programs with an annual budget of $8 million.

Ms. Evens has a BS in applied and engineering physics from Cornell University, an MS in energy management and international development from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Environmental and Occupational Health from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Cecilia Estolano

Cecilia V. Estolano is Green For All's chief strategist on state and local initiatives. Ms. Estolano oversees Green For All's State and Local Initiatives and the Capital Access Program. She is charged with spearheading Green For All's effort to scale public-private partnerships as a means to grow family-supporting green jobs in cities across the United States, particularly in under-served communities.

Denise Fairchild

Denise Fairchild is the inaugural president of Emerald Cities. She has dedicated over 30 years to strengthening housing, jobs, businesses and economic opportunities for low-income residents and communities of color domestically and internationally. In 1995, Dr. Fairchild founded the Community and Economic Development (CED) Department at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, as well as an affiliated non-profit community development research and technical assistance organization, CDTech. She helped launch the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), an initiative of Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, to provide inner city residents with career and technical education for high growth/high demand jobs in the LA region. From 1989­–1994, Dr. Fairchild directed the LA office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and is credited with raising over $100 million in equity, grants and loans for community-based housing and commercial development projects and generally with building the non-profit housing and community development industry in the LA region.

Her civic and political appointments have included the California Commission on Regionalism, the California Economic Strategy Panel, the California Local Economic Development Association, the Urban Land Institute National Inner City Advisor, the Coalition for Women's Economic Development and the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board. She recently served as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s special advisor for South LA Investments.

Rick Goodemann

Rick Goodemann is the Executive Director of the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, a non-profit community development corporation serving thirty counties in rural Minnesota. SMHP has a strong focus on healthy housing practices in their work and has collaborated on research on its impacts with the National Center for Healthy Housing.

Kate Houstoun

Kate Houstoun is the Director of Green Economy Initiatives at the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. Kate leads SBN’s Green Economy department, including research and business services, and oversees Philadelphia’s Green Economy Task Force.  She also developed and manages Emerging Industries Project research, and oversees two industry partnerships that benefit businesses and nonprofits in the Philadelphia region. She is a Board Member of the Mayor's Office of Community Services, and a member of SEPTA’s Citizen Advisory Committee. She is Truman National Security Project fellow and a past fellow of Green For All Academy, Center for Progressive Leadership, and Bryn Mawr College’s Executive Leadership Institute.

Ted Howard

Ted Howard is the founder and executive director of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. The Collaborative is recognized as a national leader in the fast growing field of community wealth building strategies and policy development. Its Anchor Institutions project focuses on the role universities, hospitals and other place-based anchors can play in fostering inclusive economic and community development. Among the Collaborative's most recent reports are "Building a Green Economy for All: From Green Jobs to Green Ownership" and "The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads." These and other reports are available as free downloads at www.Community-Wealth.org.

In July 2010, Mr. Howard was appointed as the Steven Minter Senior Fellow for Social Justice at The Cleveland Foundation. In this position, he has been responsible for developing a comprehensive job creation and wealth building strategy, which has resulted in the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative. For his leadership of the Evergreen Initiative, Mr. Howard was designated a CFED Innovation Award recipient in 2010. Utne Reader has named him one of "25 visionaries who are changing your world."

Anthony Iton

Anthony B. Iton, M.D., J.D., MPH, as senior vice president of Healthy Communities, joined The California Endowment in October 2009. Prior to his appointment at The Endowment, Iton served since 2003 as both the director and County Health Officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department. In that role, he oversaw the creation of an innovative public health practice designed to eliminate health disparities by tackling the root causes of poor health that limit quality of life and lifespan in many of California's low-income communities. Iton also served for three years as director of Health and Human Services and School Medical Advisor for the City of Stamford, CT. Concurrent to that, he also served as a physician in internal medicine for Stamford Hospital's HIV Clinic. In addition, Iton served for five years as a primary care physician for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Iton's varied career also includes past service as a staff attorney and Health Policy analyst for the West Coast regional office of Consumers' Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. Iton, who has been published in numerous public health and medical publications, is a regular public health lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences across the nation. He earned his BS in Neurophysiology, with honors, from McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec; his JD at the University of California, Berkeley's, Boalt Hall School of Law; and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Margaret Mahoney

Margaret Mahoney is director of Property Management for REACH Community Development in Portland, OR. With more than 30 years of experience, Margaret has worked at city and county levels of government in OR, in the nonprofit sector and in private business. Among other positions, she served as a department manager and county administrator for Lane County in Eugene. While at Lane County, Margaret was the first director of the Housing Authority and Community Services Agency of Lane County. She was the director of the Bureau of Development Services with the City of Portland for 19 years. As a consultant for six years, Margaret provided services to business and nonprofit organizations on a range of organizational issues including strategic planning, business process analysis, human resource management and building and land use codes and public policy. Margaret is a graduate of the University of Oregon with a Bachelor degree in Interior Architecture and a Master of Urban Planning, and has served on a number or nonprofit boards including the City Club of Portland, the Oregon Building Officials Association, the Rural Community Assistance Corporation and the Housing Development Center.

Rebecca Morley

Rebecca Morley is the executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH), a national non-profit organization dedicated to creating healthy and safe housing for children. She led the development of the National Healthy Homes Training Center; spearheaded NCHH's recovery work in the Gulf Coast region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; and more recently launched the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition. She has authored numerous publications, including the new book Healthy & Safe Homes: Research, Practice, and Policy.  Previously, Ms. Morley worked in the federal government and in the United States Senate where she was responsible for major children's environmental health laws and regulations. She currently chairs the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition.

Dr. Manuel Pastor

Dr. Manuel Pastor is professor of Geography and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Founding director of the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Pastor currently directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at USC and is co-director, with Dowell Myers, of USC's Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. He holds an economics PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has received fellowships from the Danforth, Guggenheim and Kellogg foundations and grants from the Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the W.T. Grant Foundation, The California Endowment, the California Air Resources Board and many others.

Pastor's research has generally focused on issues of environmental justice, regional inclusion and the economic and social conditions facing low-income urban communities. His most recent book, This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America (Cornell University Press 2009; co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka), suggests how regional organizing is charting a new path for progressive politics and policies in America's urban areas. Previous volumes include Staircases or Treadmills: Labor Market Intermediaries and Economic Opportunity in a Changing Economy (Russell Sage 2007, co-authored with Chris Benner and Laura Leete); Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America (W.W. Norton 2002; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh); and Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together (University of Minnesota Press 2000; co-authored with Peter Dreier, Eugene Grigsby and Marta Lopez-Garza), a book that has become a standard reference for those looking to link neighborhoods and regions. You can read more about Dr. Pastor on his website.

Dr. Ken Reardon

Dr. Ken Reardon is the Director of the Graduate Program in City & Regional Planning at the University of Memphis. Ken is a nationally renowned expert in community organizing, community-based neighborhood planning, and university-community partnerships.

Reverend Kenneth Robinson, M.D.
Pastor and Chief Executive, St. Andrew A.M.E. Church and The Works, Inc

The Rev. Dr. Kenneth S. Robinson holds a B.A., cum laude, from Harvard University, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Since 1991, he has served as pastor and chief executive of St. Andrew AME Church, initiating multiple ministries and program development in social service outreach, childcare, pre-K education, adolescent and family enrichment, health promotion and economic development. Rev. Robinson founded The Works, Inc., St. Andrew’s associated, faith-based CDC, which has constructed 33 affordable single-family houses and an 80-unit apartment community; provided homebuyer, credit and foreclosure-prevention counseling; and brokered home rehabilitations for elderly residents. The Works also sponsors the Circles of Success Learning Academy, a nationally accredited K-5 public charter elementary school founded by Rev. Robinson to innovatively educate children deemed to be at risk of failure in mainstream, traditional classroom settings.

Dr. Robinson recently completed a 4-year tenure in the Governor’s Cabinet as the Tennessee commissioner of health. He is widely sought across the country for his expertise on policy and partnership development, particularly related to health promotion and disease prevention in the African-American and religious communities. Dr. Robinson received numerous national honors, including one of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s country's Ten Community Health Leaders of the year and the annual Community Builder Award from the national United Way of America. He is an alumnus of Leadership Memphis, a Fellow of the Leadership Academy, and serves as a Director or Trustee of The Memphis Bioworks Foundation, The Soulsville Foundation, The Briggs Foundation, the Church Health Center, Healthy Memphis Common Table, GTx, Inc. and historic LeMoyne-Owen College. Most recently, he accepted the appointment of the Shelby County Mayor to become the County Health Officer.

Shanta Schachter

Shanta Schachter is the Deputy Director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she oversees the NKCDC’s work on the Sustainable 19125 initiative.

Tim Smith, AIA, AICP

Tim Smith is a Principal at SERA Architects in Portland, Oregon. Tim is a certified planner and a registered architect with over thirty years of professional experience. Tim is the recipient of numerous awards for his work in Smart Growth, and design and planning for sustainable communities. He lectures and writes on the concept of Civic Ecology, a sustainability framework developed by SERA.

Phil Thompson

Phil Thompson is an Associate Professor of Urban Politics at MIT.  In the early 1990s, Phil worked as deputy general manager of the New York Housing Authority, and as director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing Coordination. Phil’s most recent academic work includes a 2004 review of public health interventions in poor black communities (written with Arline Geronimus) published in the Du Bois Review, entitled “To Denigrate, Ignore, or Disrupt: The Health Impact of Policy induced Breakdown of Urban African American Communities of Support”; an article entitled “Judging Mayors” in the June 2005 issue of Perspectives on Politics; and a recent book, Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Struggle for Deep Democracy, published by Oxford University Press. Following Hurricane Katrina, Phil coordinated MIT’s technical assistance efforts in the Gulf.  Phil currently sits on the board of the Emerald Cities Collaborative.