- U.S. Green Building Council, Cascadia chapter - Urban Affairs Association - American Planning Association - Community Development Network - Association of Oregon Community Development Organizations

A commitment to learning and on-the-ground results defines my experience in green building. For the past 3½ years, I have helped the Pacific Northwest build green, affordable housing as Enterprise Community Partner’s Green Communities Initiative Regional Coordinator. In addition to facilitate green investment in affordable housing projects through the Green Communities Initiative, I have facilitated conferences, trainings, one-on-one consultation, and technical assistance for affordable housing development teams. These efforts have been led to the adoption of green building practices in buildings that have 60-year affordability commitments. As a LEED Accredited Professional, I am helping to lead Enterprise’s strategic partnership with the USGBC. A background in Urban and Regional Planning (Master’s Degree, Portland State University) and Environmental Science (Bachelor’s Degree, Messiah College, in Pennsylvania) has led me to my current dream job bringing the benefits of green building to the under-served.

Enterprise Community Partners and the U.S. Green Building Council have been collaborating over the past 3 years to strategically link green building programming to affordable housing development. I have played an important role in connecting the experience and expertise of Green Communities projects to LEED-H and LEED-ND pilot programs. Additionally, I represented Enterprise on the USGBC LEED for Homes Affordable Housing Working Group, which met for several months prior to rolling out the LEED-H pilot program. Within Enterprise, I also work as a champion in aligning our internal practices and protocols to our green building efforts within the affordable housing industry. I have worked closely with our headquarters in Maryland to track energy use, recycling, and waste reduction in local offices across the nation. Our next step will be to improve indoor air quality, reduce production waste, and conserve water and energy at a national scale across the organization. Training, technical assistance, and presentations at a national, regional, and local scale, have also given me ample opportunity to work as a leader in more effectively connecting affordable housing development to integrated design processes, sustainability within community, and a host of green building strategies that do not add cost to tight budgets. I have also been leading efforts with the Portland marketplace and at the state level to align public efforts to establish more stringent green requirements for commercial and residential developments. In the past, public funding agencies have separated affordable housing from the conversation, citing cost as the motive for exclusion. However, it is imperative that as we seek to establish Living Communities, that housing for all community members be held to a common standard as it relates to energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and material durability, in addition to a host of other environmental considerations.

I have been actively involved with USGBC and the Cascadia chapter for the past several years. Regionally, I have volunteered and attended many different events hosted by Cascadia. At the national level, I have represented Enterprise on the USGBC LEED-H Affordable Housing Working Group, as well as participating in the Home Depot pre-conference Affordable Housing sessions of GreenBuild for the past two years. Before working with Cascadia and USGBC, I was actively involved with several nonprofit organizations that sought to link social and environmental justice in communities across the globe. These efforts included work in Far North Queensland, Australia; Belmopan, Belize; Quito, Ecuador; and Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

I have pursued environmental and community sustainability throughout my professional career. As the green building industry has shifted and grown over the past five years, I have been actively engaged in linking integrated design strategies and environmental sustainability to community development efforts. ‘Community development’ can include many different aims – including advocacy, education, empowerment, and collaboration. I bring to the table significant experience and passion for representing those with small voices within our community (such as the homeless, disabled, and low-income populations), and I see this representation being closely linked to the pursuit of Living Communities, the next iteration of the Living Building Challenge. Sustainability of a building, a neighborhood, a city is dependent on the linkages among the stakeholders and the pursuit of a common vision which will enable the entire community to achieve health and well-being. In the case of Cascadia GBC, the stakeholders include people with a wide array of backgrounds, experiences, goals, and pursuits. There are many ways to consider building design, system efficiency, and material durability, and I will work to represent the disenfranchised in the conversation. This increases the effectiveness of Cascadia as an organization – opening up opportunities of collaboration with national partners, including Enterprise, and linking the efforts of the organization to a wide array of new exposure within the region. I am an enthusiastic and adept collaborator, engaged in many forms of intentional compromise and dialogue with others about strategic vision and purpose. Working with others in Cascadia will be an encouraging exercise in expanding my knowledge and understanding of others' within the "sustainable community" field - connecting environmental, social, and economic development and engagement in dynamic ways. The greater diversity of voices and perspectives Cascadia can gather for this process, the more important the vision and programming will become for effective change within our community.

I am committed to the mission of Cascadia, and am looking forward to being engaged in strategically exploring the direction the organization is headed. I believe I could effectively link the work of Cascadia to new regional partnerships within the community development field and bolster many efforts simultaneously. I am encouraged and inspired by others' experiences and ideas about using green building to positively impact our community, and I see Cascadia as a leader in the field of sustainable community. I am a consistent and committed individual, and I see this as a service opportunity to be engaged with my colleagues and peers in crafting a strategic vision, implementing specific programs, and affecting important change around green building, community development, and sustainability.