STAFF
Bastiaan (Bas) de Leeuw, Executive Director
bas.deleeuw@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x100
Ellen Moran, Operations Manager
emoran@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x110
Sarah Labbe, Operations Assistant
sarah@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x114
Susan Overakker, Special Assistant to the Executive Director
susan.overakker@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x105
Climate Program:
Andrew Jones
apjones@sustainer.org, 828-236-0884
Stephanie McCauley
smccauley@sustainer.org, 828-423-0219
Phil Rice
philrice@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x119
Elizabeth Sawin
bethsawin@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x103
Fellows Program:
Edie Farwell
efarwell@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x106
Nancy Gabriel
ngabriel@sustainer.org, 802-436-1277 x109
Dominic Stucker
dstucker@sustainer.org, 413-717-0692
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Jay Bragdon, Vice Treasurer
General Partner, Conservest Management, Woodstock, VT.
JHBragdon@aol.com, www.lampindex.com
Elizabeth Keating
Lecturer in Accounting, Boston University
liz-keating@comcast.net, www.ekkeating.com
Mark W. McElroy, Ph.D
Executive Director, Center for Sustainable Innovation, Thetford Center, VT.
mmcelroy@vermontel.net, www.sustainableinnovation.org
David Peart
Professor of Biology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
David.R.Peart@Dartmouth.edu
Gregory Prince
President, Educational Services Associates, Norwich, VT.
gprince39@aol.com
Vicki Smith, Secretary/Treasurer
Town Planner, Hanover, NH
vicki.smith@hanovernh.org
Jeanne Veatch-Bragdon, Chair
Attorney, Land Use and General Practice, Bragdon Law Office, Woodstock, VT.
JVBragdon@gmail.com
STAFF BIOGRAPHIES
Bas de Leeuw
Bas is the Executive Director of Dana Meadows’ Sustainability Institute, and is grateful for being able to work with a dedicated multidisciplinary team of scientists, writers, project managers and trainers, who want to make a difference in our system called ‘world’.
Bas is a team leader, writer, facilitator and public speaker on issues of sustainability, environment, economy and energy. He likes to create and initiate, analyse and reflect, organise and inspire, communicate and balance.
He has worked in several assignments for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) between 1998 and 2009, based in Paris, France. With a young team of diverse nationalities (Australian, Austrian, Brazilian, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Kazakhstani, Kenyan, Korean, Mexican, Norwegian, Peruvian, UK and USA) he initiated initiatives such as UNEP’s Sustainable Consumption Programme, the Advertising Initiative, YouthXchange, SC.net, the Life Cycle Initiative, and he set up the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production. He was instrumental in promoting and designing the “Marrakech Process”, aimed at building an international ten-year framework of programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production. As Head, Integrated Resource Management, he initiated in 2007 the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management (Resource Panel), chaired by prof. Ernst Ullrich von Weizsaecker.
Before joining UNEP Bas has worked for the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs, resp. Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment from 1985 – 1998, with responsibilities in macroeconomic policies, and energy and environmental policy planning. He has also worked for the OECD, and as a journalist and writer.
He is an economist, with a degree in macro-economic policy from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and lives in Quechee, Vermont.
Edie Farwell
Edie directs the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows New Initiatives Program. As the number of graduates of the Fellows Program grows, Edie is launching a social networking project to significantly increase the ongoing impact the Fellows make to global sustainability. This will be done by joint think/do tanks; projects across sectors; and by expanded interactions between Fellows, their networks and Sustainability Institute partners, colleagues and networks. Edie also co-designs the curriculum, workshops, and coaching methodology and serves as a leadership coach for the Fellowship.
In 2009 Edie will serve on the jury for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge to award a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
Edie has a M.A. in Cultural and Social Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies; and a B.A. in anthropology and environmental studies from Dartmouth College. Previously she was director of the Association for Progressive Communications where she coordinated the early adoption of information and communication technology by an international network of civil society organizations, including several United Nations world conferences in the 1990’s. She lives with her two sons and husband at Cobb Hill Cohousing – an ecovillage that is an experiment in sustainable living – in Hartland, Vermont.
Nancy Gabriel
Nancy directs the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program, where she co-designs the curriculum, workshops and coaching methodology and serves as a leadership coach. Nancy is an experienced designer and facilitator of multi-stakeholder learning and action environments for people engaged in the movement to create a sustainable world. Nancy works with a diversity of stakeholders to design projects working towards the twin goals of social justice and environmental sustainability and has brought people together to create change in fields that include higher education, youth leadership and global communications on health and the environment.
At SI she was co-leader of the Meadowlark Project Leadership Laboratory, a partnership with the nonprofit organization Northern Great Plains aimed at regional economic and cultural transformation and initiative manager for the Sustainable Food Lab.
Previously Nancy was Director of Community Partnerships at Tufts’ Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of Education and Training at Second Nature and Director of Operations at SatelLife. Nancy also worked for several years in the high tech industry. She holds a master’s degree in urban and environmental policy from Tufts University and a B.S. in business administration from the University of Vermont.
Nancy lives with her husband and two sons at Cobb Hill Co-housing in Hartland, VT.
Andrew P. Jones (Drew)
Drew is co-director of the Climate Interactive program at Sustainability Institute. He is a system dynamics modeler, facilitator, trainer, and designer of simulation-based learning environments.
Currently his primary commitment is contributing to breakthroughs in climate change strategy internationally and within the U.S., an effort one can track on the Climate Interactive blog and website.
Trained in Environmental Engineering and System Dynamics modeling through a B.A. at Dartmouth College and a M.S. in Technology and Policy at MIT, he worked as a research assistant in the System Dynamics Group at MIT and at Rocky Mountain Institute. Since 1996, he has focused his practice on helping individuals and teams solve problems by applying system dynamics modeling and systems thinking in the areas of corporate sustainability, diabetes and public health, global climate change, and land use policy.
In 2008, as part of the CDC System Dynamics team, he accepted the “ASysT Prize” for “a significant accomplishment achieved through the application of systems thinking to a problem of US national significance in the area of national security, homeland security, energy, environment, health care or education.”
He works out of SI’s southeast office, in Asheville, North Carolina and teaches system dynamics and sustainability at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and at the University of North Carolina – Asheville.
Sarah Labbe
Sarah is the Operations Assistant at the Sustainability Institute. She joined SI in March of 2010, and is responsible for the general administrative needs of the office. Though she has little background in environmental studies and sustainable living, she is eager to learn more on the issues challenging our world and to take part in making it a more sustainable place.
Before joining SI, Sarah worked as a Management Assistant at Tele Atlas, where she developed strong administrative skills. In 2007, Sarah received a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Salve Regina University in Newport, RI.
Stephanie McCauley
Stephanie is a web developer and project manager who is working to create and maintain interactive online climate models and an associated community of contributors as part of Climate Interactive, the Sustainability Institute’s collaborative effort to provide an open source forum on climate change research.
Before joining the Sustainability Institute, Stephanie was a statistician and project coordinator with the State of South Carolina Office of Research and Statistics, a planner for the SC Energy Office, and a GIS analyst for Arcadis Geraghty & Miller. She has a M.S. in Economics from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of South Carolina Honors College.
Stephanie works out of SI’s Asheville office and lives in South Carolina with her husband, two Corgis, and two cats.
Ellen Moran
Ellen is a business management generalist and entrepreneur with strength in corporate finance, human resources, and small business development.
Having held positions ranging from Business Manager to Vice President to Chief Financial Officer, Ellen’s career path has improved the operations, earnings, and public images of several small to mid-size corporations. Additionally, Ellen is the co-founder of a nationally acclaimed multimillion-dollar child safety organization. She holds degrees in both journalism and political science from Rutgers University.
Having spent much of her life as a volunteer activist for social and environmental causes, Ellen moved away from her career path and consulting business within the private sector to offer her practical corporate abilities and entrepreneurial work ethic to The Sustainability Institute. In Ellen’s words, “I wanted to devote my passion and energies to an organization that more readily reflects my personal ideals and goals.”
Susan Overakker
Susan is the Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the Sustainability Institute. She joined SI in April 2010 as part of the Trainee Development Program. She is a very enthusiastic, efficient and output-driven policy advisor with proven coordination skills and insight in international relations and diplomacy. She has a great motivation to contribute to a more sustainable world and was even called ‘sustainable Susan’ by her former colleagues.
Susan was born and raised in the Netherlands. She holds a Master of Laws in international and European law with a major in environmental law. She started her career as a policy advisor at the Dutch ministry of Public Works and Water Management in the prestigious government-run trainee program. After finishing the trainee program, she joined the ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment to work as a policy advisor in the International Affairs Office. Her responsibilities included Dutch policy making on climate change in the context of the international climate change negotiations.
Susan loves to play tennis, run long distances, swim and walk in nature. She lives in New York during the weekends.
Philip Rice
Phil develops materials and leads trainings for the Our Climate Ourselves program with a particular focus developing tools and approaches that allow leaders to communicate the complex and sometimes counter-intuitive dynamics of climate change and the breadth of possibility for solutions. He offers briefings on emerging climate science, the range of solutions available to climate change, and the many opportunities for building a better world while addressing climate change. He has lead trainings for leaders on climate change for community groups, grassroots groups, educators, and faith communities.
Phil also conducts trainings and workshops on applying the tools of systems thinking to the challenges of sustainability. He co-developed a train-the-trainer workshop on systems thinking for sustainable development practitioners, and often leads workshops on the subject for clients that range from colleges and universities, to NGOs, to businesses. Phil works with clients on applying systems thinking to strategic analysis for change. In the past he has worked on topics ranging from forest issues, to marine hypoxia, to healthcare outcomes.
Phil has a Ph.D. in physiological chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, and lives in Hartland, Vermont with Beth Sawin and their two daughters.
Elizabeth Sawin
Beth is co-director of the Climate Interactive program at Sustainability Institute. She is a scientist, writer, teacher, and public speaker who brings systems analysis together with an attention to vision, values, and human purpose.
In the Our Climate Ourselves program, Beth creates trainings and tools for effective leadership on climate change. Her work includes translating the most recent climate science into non-technical terms, sharing solutions for creating vibrant lives and communities with less reliance on fossil fuel, and tools for
community conversation and action.
Beth is a writer who focuses on the systemic leverage points for a sustainable society. Her writing is focused on climate change in the Our Climate Ourselves Essay series which focuses on the ways in which the act of facing the reality of climate change can open us to understand our place in the Earth community and orient us towards life-giving choices.
Beth’s writing is available here and has appeared in a variety of publications including, Utne Reader, Timeline, Population Press, Grist, and Annals of Earth. She was also a lead writer of Sustainability Institute’s report on Commodity Systems.
Beth teaches the tools of systems thinking, reflective conversation, and visioning within the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program, and in other workshops and trainings. She is an experienced coach of leaders in environmental sustainability. Her coaching emphasizes systems analysis, attention to personal effectiveness, and orientation towards one’s vision of a sustainable world. Most of her coaching occurs within the context of the Fellows Program but she is also available for personalized coaching in these areas.
She is a biologist with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and learned much of what she knows about systems dynamics and sustainability from her mentor and SI’s founder, Donella Meadows. Beth lives at Cobb Hill Co-housing with her husband, Phil Rice, and their two daughters.
Dominic Stucker
Dominic started working as SI’s first Fellows Network Coordinator in early 2009. He is responsible for increasing connectivity and collaboration among the Fellows’ network. Dominic comes to SI from Earth Charter International, based in Costa Rica, where he was the International Youth Coordinator for over 2 years. In this role, he connected and catalyzed a global network of university students and young professionals in over 70 countries. Dominic has led workshops at major international conferences, including ones organized by the United Nations, IUCN, and CIVICUS.
Dominic earned his M.A. in Environmental Security and Peace from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. An elaboration of his thesis, which focused on environmental security in rural Tajikistan, was published by MIT Press in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union. Dominic also holds an M.A. in Teaching from Brown University and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University.
For 3 years, Dominic served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and subsequently worked with humanitarian and educational organizations in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. He also has 2 years’ experience working as an education and community service program manager at CooperRiis, a healing farm community for adults suffering from mental illness located in North Carolina, United States.
Dominic was born in Germany and raised in the United States. He loves hiking and mountain climbing and is a trained Wilderness First Responder. He is married and the father of young twin boys.
