Sustainability Institute selected the following sixteen environmental and social leaders to form the inaugural class of the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program.

The 2003-2004 Fellows came from the non-profit, government, business, tribal, university and philanthropy sectors. Fellows convene from 14 states nationwide, and from major cities such as Chicago and Washington, DC, as well as university towns and rural communities. One Fellow comes from Brazil, and several more have significant experience working in international settings with a range of colleagues and stakeholders. Through their individual projects and home organizations, the Fellows impact conservation activists, farmers, industry executives, legislators, citizen boards, and government officials. Their work represents diverse sectors, bioregions and ecosystems. By design, thirteen of the sixteen Fellows are women.

Biographies

Tim Brown Co-Director and Co-Founder, Delta Institute Chicago, IL

Tim focuses on pollution prevention, toxic reduction, watershed planning and stewardship in the Great Lakes. The Delta Institute engages in the policy and practice of improving environmental quality and promoting community and economic development in the Great Lakes region. More (+)

Virginia Farley Director for Leadership Programs, Conservation Study Institute, National Park Service (NPS) Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Historical Park Woodstock, VT

Virginia has worked in the conservation field for over 25 years. She served as a Regional Director for the Vermont Land Trust and currently she serves as Director for Leadership Programs for the Conservation Study Institute. The Conservation Study Institute is a National Park Service resource center, which creates opportunities for dialogue, inquiry, and lifelong learning to enhance the stewardship of parks, landscapes, and communities. More (+)

John Fisk Director, Henry A. Wallace Center, Winrock International Arlington, VA

The Henry A. Wallace Center works across the nation to increase the sustainability of our food and farming system. The Center’s current work focuses upon developing models, knowledge, and technical assistance that support the creation of food and farming enterprises that provide healthy food, grown in a manner that protects the environment and offers a viable return to farmers. The Wallace Center for Sustainable Agriculture is part of Winrock International, a nonprofit organization that works with people in the United States and around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment. More (+)

Ashley Lanfer Consultant, Barr Foundation Boston, MA

The Heart of the City project treats inner-city Boston as a whole system. It seeks to address the inaccurate and incomplete flow of information between government agencies, communities, local organizations, academics, and other stakeholders. More (+)

Michelle Miller Associate Director, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, University of Wisconsin – Madison Madison, WI

Through the sustainable agriculture research center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, Michelle works with 50+ researchers, representatives from 13 state agricultural organizations, and 19 Center staff on projects that contribute to rural economic health, vibrant rural communities, and environmental enhancement on working lands. More (+)

Julia Novy-Hildesley Executive Director, The Lemelson Foundation Portland, OR

As Executive Director of the Lemelson Foundation, Julia Novy-Hildesley leads the Foundation’s team in unleashing invention to tackle 21st century challenges.

The Foundation’s work is rooted in the belief that ingenuity is evenly distributed throughout the world and that all people should have the opportunity to realize their creative potential and benefit from the power of technology. Programs in the U.S. and developing countries support invention-led economic, social and environmentally sustainable development. To date the Foundation has donated or committed more than $150 million in support of its mission. More (+)

Christina Page Head of Sustainability, Yahoo! Inc. San Francisco, CA

Chris Page is Head of Sustainability at Yahoo! Inc. Chris is responsible for overseeing the company’s climate program, efficiency and clean tech initiatives, and providing technical support to Yahoo!’s all-volunteer Green Team, an employee group that harnesses the collective energy of Yahoos around the world to reduce our carbon footprint. Click to read or listen to a “Living on Earth” radio interview with Chris, Low Carbon Internet Surfing
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Cynthia Pansing Principal, Changing Tastes Consultants Gaithersburg, MD

Cynthia is principal with Changing Tastes, a consulting firm based in the Washington DC metro area. The firm provides strategic planning, facilitation, research, organizational change guidance, network building, evaluation and fundraising support to nonprofit organizations, government agencies and businesses working on sustainable development issues in the US and Canada. More (+)

Angela Park Director, Diversity Matters: catalysts for environmental and social change Consultant on diversity, inclusion, leadership development and organizational change Hartland Four Corners, VT

Angela Park is director of Diversity Matters, a nonprofit organization that aims to make diversity and inclusion foundational assets of environmental and social change leaders and their organizations. She is also a consultant to organizations, educational institutions, foundations, and companies. More (+)

Shanna Ratner Principal, Yellow Wood Associates St. Albans, VT

Shanna is a researcher, trainer, and facilitator specializing in rural community economic development. She works with federal, state, and local governments, foundations, non-profit organizations and others to explore development options and build client capacity to achieve shared goals. Her areas of interest include agriculture, forestry, and green community technologies. More (+)

Agnieszka Rawa Senior Project Manager and Sustainable Development Specialist, Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (ERM) Washington, DC

Agnieszka is an environmental consultant with over 14 years of experience working for private companies and public organizations evaluating and mitigating factors affecting social and environmental sustainability of development projects. She has a passion for connecting people around the common necessity of caring for our world and believes that collaboration among different sectors of our society (private, public, not-for profit, etc) is the cornerstone to a rational, equitable and sustainable use of our resources – as well as long term social wellbeing. Currently working for Environmental Resources Management (ERM), she leads design studies, impact evaluations, and strives to meaningfully involve stakeholders to avoid, reduce or manage impacts of development. Agnieszka is also a member of the Board of Directors of the ERM Foundation where she helps to designate funding to initiatives that help improve the quality of life of communities around the world while ensuring a sustainable use of our planet’s resources. She has worked and lived in the United States, North Africa and South America. More (+)

Maria Amália Souza Executive Director, Center for Socio-Environmental Support (CASA) Cunha, São Paulo, Brazil

Amália is a co-founder and Executive Director of CASA, a small grants funding and capacity building institution that provides the basis to mobilize and expand the resources that are essential for supporting critical work of broad movements of social and environmental justice throughout South America. CASA´s advisory board is formed by experienced activists from the region who have dedicated their lives to build wide social and environmental justice strategies that fully involve and strengthen grassroots groups and community based organizations (CBOs). For 2 years, she was chair of the Global South Task Force for a coalition of progressive foundations called Grantmakers without Borders, whose aim is to encourage more international grantmaking by US foundations. More (+)

Mark J. Spalding President, The Ocean Foundation Washington, DC Executive Director, Fundacion Bahia de Loreto Baja California Sur, Mexico Executive Director, St. Kitts Foundation Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis

Mark brings his extensive experience with the legal and policy aspects of ocean conservation to The Ocean Foundations’ grantmaking strategy and evaluation process. Mark is an active participant in the marine working group, Baja California group, and coral reef group of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity and serves on the International Bering Sea Forum. Mark has also consulted with numerous foundations including the San Diego Foundation, the International Community Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Fundación La Puerta, and a number of family foundations. He has also served as a member of the Environmental Grants Advisory Committee of FINCOMUN (Tijuana’s Community Foundation). More (+)

Lynn Stoddard Environmental Analyst, Climate Change and Energy Team, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Hartford, CT

Lynn has developed and implemented numerous environmental sustainability programs in her work at the CT Department of Environmental Protection. Her work has focused on climate change and energy, land use planning, recycling, waste management, and pollution prevention.More (+)

Kathy Tibbits Strategy Group, Cherokee Nation Stilwell, OK

Kathy has a BA degree in Political Science from University of Oklahoma and a JD in Law from University of Tulsa. She is a policy strategist for Cherokee Nation , working in retention of sovereignty to self-govern, pass laws and generate revenue to provide for its commonwealth and that of its neighbors. More (+)

Ellen Wolfe Vice President, Resero Consulting Granite Bay, CA

Ellen is a Vice President of Resero and focuses on electric utility restructuring activities. She works with electrical system operators, policy makers, regulators and market participants to effect change in market structures. Ellen’s work has been in the midst of the “California energy crises” the past few years; she seeks further thinking on how to put in place effective and efficient market structures in an environment of short run political and business cycles. More (+)

Application to Work

Tim Brown

Co-Director and Co-Founder, Delta Institute
Chicago, IL

Tim has incorporated systems thinking into his work developing an Environmental Management System (EMS) to prevent the introduction and spread of biological pollution in the Great Lakes by preventing the release of contaminated ballast water from ships. Tim used a systems map he created with the help of his Sustainability Institute coach and other Fellows during an exercise in the second Fellows workshop to provide strategic orientation to his team (5 people from 5 different organizations.) His use of systems thinking on this issue was particularly significant because he is a team member, but not a project leader. This is one example of the way in which insights gained by the Fellows ripple out to be useful to others, even, as in this case, when those colleagues do not have formal systems training.

Tim’s systems work made it clear to this team that several major stakeholders must come together to solve the biological pollution problem – ports, vessels owners, the public interest (as represented by Great Lakes congress people and governors) and shippers. The mapping tool helped them to see “that we would have to craft the solution to serve all the stakeholders”. They are currently building engagement with crafting a solution in each of these stakeholder groups.

Virginia Farley

Director for Leadership Programs, Conservation Study Institute, National Park Service (NPS)
Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Historical Park
Woodstock, VT

Virginia heads the Superintendents’ Leadership Roundtable Program and provides technical assistance to NPS employees and partners in the areas of partnerships, community engagement, leadership development, and best practices in conservation. Virginia is also an occasional consultant to non-profit conservation organizations. She conducts workshops, courses, and seminars on reflective conservation leadership, climate change, land conservation, and sense of place. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resource Conservation and Masters Degree in Environmental Law and Policy.

Virginia applies the work of the Dana Meadow’s Fellowship to her work with National Parks, communities, and land trusts. The program enabled her to better understand change processes and how to be more deliberate and strategic in taking action toward change. For example, she has developed a theory of change for conservation action that integrates values articulation, visioning, inspiration, action, reflection, evaluation, and adaptation. She is using this theory of change to help foster emotional intelligence in dealing with climate change. She also works to develop strategies to ensure that the National Park Service is able to adapt to changing demographics, attract diverse populations, and articulate and interpret stories reflective of diverse cultures. In addition, Virginia has utilized coaching skills developed during the fellowship in her leadership development work.

John Fisk

Director, Henry A. Wallace Center, Winrock International
Arlington, VA

Through the Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Society Initiative, John supported the creation and expansion of community-based food systems that are locally owned and controlled, environmentally sound and health promoting. John organizes the annual Food and Society Networking Conference, which brings together all of WKKF’s Food and Society partners (grantees and others) as well as a broader group active in creating sustainable food systems. This year’s invitees included corporate executives of the food system as well as a professional facilitator, who started each day with a presentation or activity designed to help participants bring their “heart into the room” and not just their analytical mind.

John is also very active in Michigan Integrated Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS): a state wide non-profit organization working to improve the food and farming systems of Michigan–economically, environmentally and socially. One key project is stimulating the purchase of locally and sustainably grown food by Michiganders, a collaborative project with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and some smaller NGO’s. A second project works to redirect existing infrastructure and resources that are held in the public domain (university, agencies, etc.) to assist farmers and food entrepreneurs to move away from solely commodity production to create food based businesses that bring more of the food dollar to farmers and more local and healthy products to consumers.

John’s Fellowship work includes deepening his personal mastery skills as he broadens his base of consulting work. He has also worked with staff at the Kellogg Foundation to apply systems thinking tools to evaluation of their programs.

Ashley Lanfer

Consultant, Barr Foundation
Boston, MA

Ashley Lanfer is leading a campaign to involve low-income Bostonians in use and stewardship of urban parks.

Ashley provides information resources for coordination, integration, and connection between the different parts of Boston’s urban system, including environmental justice, transportation natural systems, greenspaces, education, and public health. A primary focus is on the tremendous underutilized open spaces in the neighborhoods.

Ashley has been applying the fellowship skills of reflective conversation and systems thinking to this work. She has been using these tools to ask questions such as: what factors limit the access of some neighborhoods to high quality open space; what are the common goals that might unite open space groups with groups that haven’t traditionally focused on open space to invest time and energy toward high quality open space. In organizing a team of energetic young people working on a springtime event bringing people into Boston’s open spaces, Ashley has also been drawing on her skills to build and hold out a vision, and to create a team.

Michelle Miller

Associate Director, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems,
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, WI

Michelle is organizing fruit growers, university specialists, and food entrepreneurs to scale up food production in the Chicago / Twin Cities region, home to nearly 20 million people.

Michelle bridges between farmers and a host of other interest groups, such as organic activists, environmental activists (from small grassroots groups to World Wildlife Fund), academics (humanists, scientists, administrators), government officials (elected, appointed and career), and scientists (social and agricultural scientists from both public and private sectors). Since 2000, Michelle has negotiated with leaders in Wisconsin apple production to develop a systematic approach to reducing pesticide use while at the same time expanding their ability to market these eco-apples. Her team developed a way to measure pesticide reduction goals and can document a 57% reduction in pesticide risk over the course of the project. Nearly 50 growers now participate in project work, and similar networks are in development for berry growers and wine grape growers. In the 2009 growing season, the project is expecting to add 26 wholesale apple growers to the project, who intend to certify their production as eco-friendly and market their product as eco-regional. Other interesting projects are in the works to scale up horticultural food production in the headwaters of the Mississippi River, with a focus on developing regional culinary identity and building regional capacity in systems thinking to address development of regional food systems through entrepreneurial business opportunities. Michelle is also helping the UW campus to walk the talk through a food service commitment to local, sustainably-grown food.

The Center is in the process of redesigning itself to better address the overwhelming interest in sustainability work. This will require a transparent, inclusive process and Center staff will be helping this to unfold. Bringing sustainability science and systems thinking awareness to faculty and partners is part of the role Michelle expects to play, thanks to her time as a Fellow. She has a strong commitment to students, helping them find their way through the institutional maze, and finding ways for them to contribute their skills and passion to the sustainability movement. As a student she helped to organize the F.H. King Students of Sustainable Agriculture, and now advises this student group on attaining their goals.

Julia Novy-Hildesley

Executive Director, The Lemelson Foundation
Portland, OR

The unifying theme across Julia’s past and current work is forging multi-stakeholder partnerships to foster innovation as a way of spurring sustainable economic growth. She has worked extensively toward these goals with government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private sector partners in the U.S., Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, India, French Polynesia, and other countries.

Prior to joining the Lemelson Foundation, Julia was the founding Director of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Pacific office where she spearheaded the organization’s strategy for marine conservation and public outreach on the west coast of the United States. A Fulbright and Marshall Scholar, Julia served as Lecturer at Stanford University in the Law School and Earth Sciences, Anthropological Sciences, and Human Biology departments, teaching courses on ocean policy and marine conservation.

Julia earned a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in International Development from the Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University in the United Kingdom, funded by a Marshall Scholarship. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology with a Minor in African Studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University. Julia serves on the John F. Kennedy School of Government Women’s Leadership Board, the Board of the World Affairs Council of Oregon, the Board of Directors of Grantmakers of Oregon and Southwest Washington, the Board of Advisors of the Anwarul Quadir Foundation, and the Editorial Board of Innovations, a journal published by the MIT Press.

Application to Work
Julia has applied a range of tools she learned and practiced through the Fellows Program. She has used an adapted visioning exercise to help her Board of Directors envision the desired results from a program the Lemelson Foundation is initiating.

She is also developing a stock/flow and casual loop map to articulate her foundation’s plan for increasing the rate of invention and innovation towards social ends in the developing world. The stock/flow map outlines the development of ideas to inventions actually in use while the feedback loops show the ways that the foundation’s three strategies – mentoring, recognition, and dissemination – trigger “reinforcing” cycles that could leverage increased results over time.

Julia is utilizing the grantmaking phase of the Lemelson Foundation’s new Invention for Sustainable Development program to maximize advances in learning in the field, as well as have a positive impact on people’s lives. This program seeks to unleash invention and innovation in developing countries in order to advance sustainable development. The research and relationship building for this program culminated in a strategy symposium in 2003 in which 20 leaders from a dozen countries aided the Foundation in developing the framework for this new international program.

Another effort entails building the Foundation as an integrated entity by creating synergies and mutual learning opportunities between the Foundation’s U.S. activities in support of invention and innovation and the work of the new Invention for Sustainable Development program in developing countries. Julia and her colleagues seek to strengthen the new program through the Foundation’s decade of experience with U.S. institutions such as the Smithsonian and MIT, and also plan to increase the emphasis on social and environmental sustainability within activities supported in the U.S.

Christina Page

Head of Sustainability, Yahoo! Inc.
San Francisco, CA

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Chris was a senior consultant on the Energy and Resources Team at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a Colorado-based “think-and-do tank” founded by energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins. In this role, Chris was responsible for assessing energy efficiency opportunities for commercial and industrial clients. She has led regular lectures on sustainable business practices at National Taiwan University, Peking University, and University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. Prior to working at RMI, Chris was a field instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School and a writer/editor for National Public Radio’s “Living on Earth.”

While living in Colorado, Chris was a member of the all-volunteer Mountain Rescue Aspen team, responsible for assisting lost and injured parties in the Rocky Mountains. She is a member of the 2002 class of Dana Meadows Leadership Fellows and has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and Religious Studies from Brown University and a Masters in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Application to Work
I use the systems thinking constantly. Yesterday it helped me to think differently about a tax problem and come up with what I hope will be a win-win approach (encourage greater efficiency, save us money, help a state to achieve its goals in a more cost-efficient manner). I’m itching to build a flight simulator for my current job because I think it would be so helpful to the growth and vision of the company’s efficiency strategy. It also gave me greater confidence and understanding of how powerful visioning can be. I attribute my relationship with my partner, and my current job, in part to the visioning that I started doing seriously at the fellowship. Cobb Hill has become one of those “third places” – not home or work but a place to build community – that I get a little homesick for, especially when I am burned out by work and Silicon Valley and what Phil Rice dubbed “the busy forgetting.”

Friends and colleagues: Even though I don’t talk to them as much as I should or would like, I’m deeply attached to my fellow Fellows. I saw Julia last fall, Ellen has connected me with her California energy colleagues, I root for Drew and Beth as their climate change work gains influence, random Facebook postings from Kathy and Angela make me smile. I talked to a mutual colleague of Lynn and mine’s just the other day about plug-in hybrids and the state of New England’s environmental leadership. [Edie and I were giggling over email Thursday regarding recent developments in my love life.] I wish we all lived closer but I do feel the presence of this network, individually and collectively, almost every day. The Fellowship was a significant enough experience that, with every cohort application cycle, I’ve badgered other folks who are very important in my life to apply, and always rejoice when they get accepted. Selfishly, I want to expand this amazing circle and live vicariously through them!

Cynthia Pansing

Principal, Changing Tastes Consultants
Gaithersburg, MD

Over the course of her professional life, Cynthia has developed and assessed sustainable solutions in the areas of food systems, agriculture, energy, transportation, land use, air and water quality, community health and environmental justice. In so doing, she has worked with farmers, business associations, diverse community organizations, corporations, foundations, regional, state, national and international NGOs and government agencies, universities and other research institutions.

Cynthia holds BA and MA degrees in Anthropology and an MA in Urban Planning (dual concentration in the Built and Natural Environments) from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in Science, the New York Times, National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Record and Raw Vision, among other publications.

Application to Work
One of Cynthia’s recent efforts is to provide strategic planning, facilitation and fundraising support to the Green Lands Blue Waters initiative, a consortium of land grant universities and nonprofit organizations in the Mississippi River Basin. The primary aim of this consortium is to promote the transition to a resilient, perennial agricultural system that strengthens ecosystem services and improves adaptive capacity of environmentally sensitive areas in the Basin. Through her work with this group and others, Cynthia has drawn extensively on the thinking, analytic framework, tools and methods she learned through the Donella Meadows Fellows program. In one example, she developed a visioning and strategic planning framework and process to draw together and integrate the work of the consortium and its working groups. She presented the results of this work to the National Academy of Sciences early last summer.

The Dana Meadows Fellows program has been invaluable to my professional and personal development. Three dimensions of the program stand out for their enormous benefits to my work, clients and colleagues. The analytic framework has enabled me to challenge and expand my thinking about causes, relationships and solutions to a wide range of problems and issues, and to help groups I have facilitated do the same. I have applied the tool set I learned (e.g., causal loop diagramming and stock and flow analysis) in various settings for various purposes, from facilitating workshops with clients to visioning with co-workers to presentations to colleagues. And finally, in inspiring, challenging and supporting me, the wonderful community of Fellows and SI staff has become mentors in all that I do. Through this program, I have begun to marry my mind and heart in my work in ways I did not think were possible. Thank you to all!

Angela Park

Director, Diversity Matters: catalysts for environmental and social change

Consultant on diversity, inclusion, leadership development and organizational change
Hartland Four Corners, VT

Angela Park is a consultant to foundations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and companies and director of Diversity Matters, a project that aims to make diversity and inclusion foundational assets of environmental and social change leaders and organizations. In addition, she serves as a consultant with the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group and Elsie Y. Cross and Associates and is a writer with articles published most recently in Grist Magazine and The Diversity Factor.

As a trainer, consultant, facilitator, and coach, she has worked with clients including the Ford Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, Environmental Grantmakers Association, Yale University, Trust for Public Land, FedEx, United Technologies, Eileen Fisher, and the New England Aquarium.

Previously, Angela worked at The White House in both terms of the Clinton/Gore administration, managed state level sustainable development initiatives at the Center for Policy Alternatives, and was a cofounder and deputy director of the Environmental Leadership Program. Angela has testified before Congress and state legislatures; consulted to community-based organizations, government agencies, and national social and environmental policy organizations; and lectured at universities across the country. Angela graduated from the NTL Institute’s Diversity Practitioner Certificate Program, and was named a Young Woman of Achievement by the Women’s Information Network in Washington, DC.

Angela used the skills and opportunities of the fellowship to launch Diversity Matters. She is integrating systems concepts into the organization’s training curriculum and communications programs. This includes testing assumptions about the root causes of the lack of diversity in the environmental field, mapping impacts and dynamics of interpersonal interactions and organizational policies, and making visible the mental models that can thwart well-intended organizational efforts.

Shanna Ratner

Principal, Yellow Wood Associates
St. Albans, VT

Shanna is creating a cooperative learning community of economic development consultants, incorporating principles of systems thinking and organizational learning.

Shanna has worked for the past 18 years as a consultant in rural community economic development in the United States. Her clients include federal, state, and local government, the non-profit sector, educational institutions, citizen groups, and foundations.

In addition to consulting, Shanna’s current work includes training in a trademarked program called “You Get What You Measure.” The program helps diverse individuals identify shared goals, understand what it means to make progress toward those goals, analyze indicators of progress in a systems context, identify key leverage points, develop measures of change in key leverage points, test underlying assumptions, create and implement measurement plans, reflect on their learnings, etc. Through another project, Green Community Technologies, she and colleagues are developing a service that will assist small rural communities in assessing potential applications of alternative technologies to municipal infrastructure. This begins with assistance in creating an inventory of municipal infrastructure, something most rural communities don’t have, assessing its condition in light of current and anticipated future demand, and prioritizing areas for further work. The further work includes an assessment of applications of alternative technologies, including comparative life cycle costing, and sharing of information with the public. They also help in finding financing and offer technical assistance. Part of the vision of the program is to look at every element of infrastructure in relation to every other element, rather than in isolation, and to consider approaches like source reduction as opposed to treatment.

During the Fellows Program, Shanna decided to work more collaboratively with other businesses that provide community development expertise, and she has recently developed an agreement with a highly respected firm with complementary skills. She is also using stocks-and-flows diagramming to develop a sophisticated theory of community wealth.

Agnieszka Rawa

Senior Project Manager and Sustainable Development Specialist, Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (ERM)
Washington, DC

Since completing the fellowship program in 2004, Agnieszka has utilized systems tools and skills in a variety of ways. In 2004 she used them to test the feasibility of creating a Center for Biodiversity in Venezuela and working as a consultant to ConocoPhillips Venezuela, she facilitated a series of collaborative workshops between this energy Company, not-for profit organizations, community representatives and scientists from several academic and research organizations to evaluate potential opportunities to preserve biodiversity in the Gulf of Paria (part of the Orinoco Delta), Venezuela. As part of this process, she drew extensively on the skill of visioning: What would this center look like? Who would be involved? What would they be doing? She also completed a systems analysis to identify intended and unintended consequences of the Center and helped to identify ways to encourage local community participation and to contribute to the social and environmental sustainability of the region. As of 2007, the Center is still under consideration and communities are being involved and trained to monitor biodiversity in their region.

In 2006 and 2007, Agnieszka also worked on energy development (hydroelectric dam and hydrocarbon development) projects in Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru and Argentina – and she continues to utilize leadership and presentation skills reinforced by the Fellowship. In each case, she is helping to ensure that the complex sensitivities and priorities of indigenous communities in areas of proposed projects are identified, understood and included in the decision making process during project planning.

Throughout her career, and increasingly since completing the Fellowship, Agnieszka contributes to promoting dialogue among the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. For example in December 2006, as part of a conference hosted by the Inter American Development Bank in Salvador Bahia, Brazil she lead a participatory dialogue between a state oil and gas company (Petrobras), a conservation NGO (Instituto BioAtlantica), a re-granting organization (Casa) and the diverse audience that attended the meeting. Similarly, while with Ecology and Environment, between 2003 and 2005, she chaired numerous Sustainability workshops. The small (25-30 people) environment at these seminars promoted close and rewarding interactions between representatives of different sectors, both during the formal presentations, discussions, as well as during the informal dialogue that ensued during hikes, bike rides and other outdoor activities.

Maria Amália Souza

Executive Director, Center for Socio-Environmental Support (CASA)
Cunha, São Paulo, Brazil

Amália has worked with NGOs and the international funding community since the mid-1980s. Her professional experience includes work with indigenous peoples and other rainforest communities, international communication for sustainability, and most recently building more bridges between the private sector and the social/environmental one. She was also Member Services Coordinator for APC (Association for Progressive Communications) for 5 years. Some of Amália’s other recent work includes consulting for AVEDA Corporation to evaluate their 17 year partnership with an Amazonian Indian tribe from which they source some organically grown dyes for their products. She regularly speaks at international conferences about the important impacts and results of small grants to grassroots groups as an important instrument toward social and environmental justice and sustainability.

A larger, lifetime project is to bring to her own community a sense of the global urgencies, and to transform that knowledge into actions toward local sustainability such as food security, watershed conservation, and resiliency and adaptation in times of climate change. This includes a systemic vision that involves supporting local organizations doing each piece of the work, such as helping small family farmers to diversify their production while doing it in a more economically and ecologically sustainable way. Another piece is to build an intentional community in her hometown, Cunha, that can model the most appropriate methods toward leveraging sustainability in the fragile Atlantic Rainforest region. Amália is a board member for IPEMA (Atlantic Forest Permacultue and Ecovillages Institute / Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas da Mata Atlântica), and of NUPEF (ICTs Research and Education Institute).

Amália has introduced Joanna Macy´s “Work that Reconnects” in Brazil, produced and revised the translation of her guidebook “Coming Back to Life,” and organized her first trip to Brazil. She facilitates these experiential workshops founded on principals of systems thinking, eco-psychology and deep ecology.

“The fellowship program has had tremendous influence in my life. My decision to step into my own vision and personal power to create and consolidate CASA is the best example of it. My work in my town, a small mountain town in a fragile ecosystem — the second most endangered rainforest and the top in biodiversity — has made me look at the whole picture and see where both my institution and I, personally, could leverage some substantial new thinking, information and lifestyle changes. My work is a long term one, in every sense, but thanks greatly to this Fellowship, I am more able to identify systems, to recognize leverage points that produce real results; and most of all, to feel supported by a huge network of like-minded people who help me think through and face challenges when they arise, help keep my vision clear despite the drawbacks and difficulties along the way. I am tremendously thankful to be part of this program and this network of experts who really deeply care about what happens to our planet.”

Mark Spalding

President, The Ocean Foundation
Washington, DC

Executive Director, Fundacion Bahia de Loreto
Baja California Sur, Mexico

Executive Director, St. Kitts Foundation
Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis

Mark is the Chair of the Council of the National Whale Conservation Fund. He is former chair of the National Board of Directors of the Surfrider Foundation and of the Board of Directors of both Pro Peninsula and One Earth One Justice. He is the former Executive Director of the San Diego Foundation’s Orca Fund. For 10 years he was a professor of international environmental law and policy at UCSD’s Muir College, Graduate School of International Relations & Pacific Studies, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Mark has been practicing law and acting as a policy consultant for 23 years, and was the chair of the environmental law section of the California State Bar Association from 1998-1999. Mark was general counsel for an executive training firm, a Vietnam venture capital firm, and two Mexican airlines. Throughout the Clinton Administration he was a member of a Presidential and Congressional Advisory Committee on U.S.-Mexico environmental border relations, the Good Neighbor Environmental Board.

He is a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow, SeaWeb Senior Fellow, and a research fellow at UCSD’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. He holds a B.A. in history with Honors from Claremont McKenna College, a J.D. from Loyola Law School, and a Master in Pacific International Affairs (MPIA) from IR/PS.

Lynn Stoddard

Environmental Analyst, Climate Change and Energy Team,
Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Hartford, CT

Most recently, Lynn heads a number of Connecticut’s climate change initiatives, including coordinating inter-agency implementation of the CT Climate Change Action Plan and leading a vibrant network of people and organizations engaged in climate change education and awareness. Connecticut was one of the first states in the US to develop a climate change action plan, set mandatory targets for greenhouse gas reductions, and participate in a carbon cap and trade program. Lynn strives to live her values and raises healthy food (vegetables, chicken, lamb, pork…) with her family on their small farm in CT.

Application to Work
Lynn has applied the tools and skills she learned in the Fellowship in her work and personal life. She has created causal loop maps to analyze and improve climate change public policy. She has gained insight and clarity from work on visioning. During the 2-year Fellowship, Lynn made a practice of starting the work day with readings from Dana Meadow’s writings (especially the Global Citizen articles) and journaling to reflect, learn, and apply. She draws great inspiration from Dana’s writing and from the impassioned stories told by her friends and colleagues. Lynn has had the fortune of being able to bring a few of her Fellow colleagues to Connecticut to collaborate on climate change projects. She is edified by the enduring relationships, intellectual challenge, and supportive network of Fellow friends.

Kathy Tibbits

Strategy Group, Cherokee Nation
Stilwell, OK

Cherokee Nation’s domain is roughly equivalent to the 14-counties of Northeastern Oklahoma, and its population is over 60,000 resident citizens, and 300,000+ total absentee and resident citizens. Of these, about 10,000 are native Cherokee language speakers. For Cherokee Nation, she helped to start the Cherokee Small Farm Project and was in on the beginning of Oklahoma Food Cooperative , which is both a producer cooperative and a consumer cooperative now with about 2,000 members, 125 producers, 2,600 monthly Oklavore products, and some $65,000 monthly in sales of which 95% goes to the farmer producers, and roughly $1 million in sales over 6 years. On the Board of Legacy Cultural Learning Community , she helps to preserve Cherokee ethnobotanical traditions and to give traditional cultural and artistic opportunities to young Cherokees, sustaining intergenerational connectedness to Earth. Through conservation group Save The Illinois River , she produced a 3-day Earth Day Songwriters’ Music Jam, and helped to bring together a CD single that teaches about river protection from a systems view. With her husband Dennis, from rural Stilwell, Oklahoma she co-produced a collaborative album collection of 15 groups of musicians performing 15 original locally-written songs about the Illinois River, and it spans two generations of river culture. As cofounder of Cherokee Film Festival , she was a part of establishing programs to help rural Indian youth learn film-making for the expression of traditional indigenous values.

Application to Work
“Today, much of my work for the Cherokee Nation incorporates SI learning as we become a regional leader as a sustainable government. I don’t take solo credit for it, but we’re a government looking at long-haul revenue streams from green jobs, pioneering rural green growth in economic development and community housing, and managing trust lands under a natural capital concept. We’re stewarding water within our 100-year sovereignty-retention objective, which is called The Declaration of Designed Purpose . And we’re managing trust lands within a natural capital construct. Those are Cherokee Nation policy shifts that we’ve formulated out of SI’s learning opportunities.

I didn’t come in contact with much of it in formal school, but systems learning was an intuitive fit with a nature-wonderment ethic that my parents instilled in me. The SI coursework clicked for me. The enrichment training of SI has been something I use every day in my work, for understanding the implications of current events and in helping my Tribe to get accurate results with our policies, and in directioning our outcomes toward our long term goals of healthy communities, meaningfully enriched lives and keeping the lifeline of our culture. It has been an indescribable fulfillment to find SI and the Fellows. I treasure the insights, and the trust, and the great minds and hearts, the nourishment, and the synergy of these experiences which are now a part of everything I do. These mutual bonds are deeper than friendship and the journey is a lifetime one.”

Ellen Wolfe

Vice President, Resero Consulting
Granite Bay, CA

Ellen’s primary focus has been on participating in energy deregulation market design so as to develop open markets that provide proper incentives. She generally works with generation owners, wholesale energy trading companies, municipalities, or the organizations that operate the electric markets or manage the electric system, to help work through the details of alternative market design scenarios. Lately, she has been developing training seminars to help interested parties over the hurdles of understanding various alternative market structures.

One possible topic she is considering is modeling the infiltration of real-time pricing and end user response.  While fundamental price signals and resulting price response in the electricity industry seem to make incredible sense, virtually no adoption of these programs and practices has occurred, and it is unclear why. Another possibility is to examine the role of regulatory agencies in developing sufficient generating capabilities and in promoting sustainable production sources. Ellen is also interested in the long-run effects of implementing various market designs.  Whereas she has done a lot of work looking at immediate cost/benefit tradeoffs, such efforts usually make gross assumptions about long run feedback results.