Sustainability Network
2024 Conference
Keynote Speaker
Auden Schendler
Auden Schendler is the Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen One, where he champions large-scale, impactful solutions to the climate crisis through activism, movement building, and replicable projects. A critical voice against superficial corporate sustainability efforts, Schendler emphasizes the necessity for systemic change and political engagement. His innovative work at Aspen includes groundbreaking clean energy initiatives, such as the Elk Creek coal mine methane-to-electricity project, and significant contributions to the nonprofit Protect Our Winters as a long time board member. Schendler’s latest book, out in November, “Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering our Soul,” offers a compelling exploration of climate action and corporate responsibility.
Guest Speakers
Anne Sebanc, PhD
Anne Sebanc is the Associate Director of Faculty Scholarship Development and Research Compliance at Southern Oregon University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Sebanc was previously a professor of Child Development and Education and Director of Sponsored Programs at Whittier College. She has helped faculty (and sometimes nonprofits) find funding for their sustainability projects and research.
Colin Bishopp
Colin Bishopp is the CEO of Allectrify, a climate finance company. Earlier in his career, Colin was an Obama appointee at the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2016, he received a Fulbright to lead a seminar on clean energy finance at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.
Becs Walker
Becs Walker is the Director of Sustainability at Southern Oregon University and the Campus Operations Director for the Institute for Sustainability. Becs moved to the U.S. from Scotland in 2019 after working for 15 years at the Scottish EPA. As Head of Waste and Resources at the Scottish EPA, Becs worked with the Scottish Government developing world-leading climate change policy and circular economy policy.
Blake Blackwell
Blake Blackwell is the Director of Platform Architecture at Persefoni, a leading Carbon Management Accounting Platform. He has over 20 years of experience leading technology initiatives, building analytics practices, and helping implement the latest approaches to help solve key business challenges in the Energy and Climate sectors. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family, being active in his community, and being physically active outside through activities like cycling and hiking.
Jamie Trammell, PhD
Jamie Trammell is an Associate Professor and the chair of the Environmental Science, Policy, and Sustainability department at Southern Oregon University. He has over 20 years of experience using geospatial science to help communities identify and conserve the resources most important to them in regions across the western US, Alaska and Australia. In his free time, he enjoys birdwatching, fishing, and bicycling with his family.
Samantha Smith
Samantha Smith is a small business owner, who previously spent 17yrs leading small and large teams across different manufacturing sectors. Waste reduction and sustainability were at the core of many of her projects, and she brought that mindset to her small business as well. In her shop she has prioritized more sustainable products and vendors with visible metrics on their footprint reductions. She has also worked to minimize her own shops waste, and found ways to repurpose items that would normally be discarded, and turned them into sellable retail items. Sustainability is more than just work for Samantha it’s her main passion. It has been the driver behind building her own Tiny Home, growing more of her own food, prioritizing second hand items, and building usable things, like furniture, from “trash”, to name a few.
Ian Ingram
Ian is a veteran, business owner, and SOU computer science student that is leading AI initiatives in Southern Oregon. He is the founder of the AI consulting firm Neuraven, and is utilizing his background as a non-destructive inspector and program manager in Marine Corps aviation to bring new AI strategies to organizations.
Annie Valtierra-Sanchez
Annie’s personal, academic and professional experience on equity, racial and social justice builds on cross-sector collaborations for long-term systemic change that prioritizes populations historically, and currently, most impacted. Annie holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Anthropology, and a Regional Studies Applied Research Certificate from Southern Oregon University; she is an appointed member of the Governor’s Racial Justice Council and ACLU of Oregon Board member.
Riah Safady
Riah Alyssum Lekere Safady (she/her) has two decades of experience in equity, education, and advocacy within the healthcare and education sectors. Currently, she is the Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Manager at Jackson Care Connect where she leads Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) and health equity initiatives across the organization and its partner networks. She comes from a large family in Southern Oregon, where she now lives with her partner, raising her daughters and growing her garden.
Erik Stiemle
Erik brings more than 20 years of experience in new renewable energy development in the United States, Canada, and South America. He is the Chief Development Officer for Rye Development, the leading development platform for new low-impact hydropower and energy storage in the US. Erik is a lifelong Oregonian and has B.S. in Environmental Biology from Southern Oregon University.
Fletcher Beaudoin
Fletcher Beaudoin is the Principal of Bridas Consulting. He has over 15 years of cross-sector experience developing teams and organizations that make significant and sustained progress on complex organizational and societal challenges. He holds a master’s degree in public administration in Environmental Science and Policy and Energy Policy from Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs and is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach.
Maud Powell
Maud is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Small Farms Extension program at Oregon State University. For the past seventeen years, she has designed and delivered educational programs for farmers and ranchers in Southern Oregon. Additionally, she and her family have owned and operated a vegetable seed and produce farm, for twenty-five years in the Applegate valley.
Sierra Garrett
Sierra (she/her) is an undergraduate student in the Honors College at Southern Oregon University, where she majors in Sustainability. Her academic and professional goals include increasing equity in food production and access, promoting circular economic and agricultural frameworks, and using eco-social art as a vehicle for change. Sierra has experience studying and observing sustainability in five of the Nordic countries and has taken a recent interest in Arctic environmental change, particularly in Indigenous Sámi communities. As the Student Engagement Coordinator for the Institute for Applied Sustainability, Sierra works with SOU’s student population to foster engagement and elevate sustainability-based leadership opportunities. Sierra also serves as SOU’s Zero Waste Coordinator, helping to develop campus infrastructure and waste education on campus.
Kathy Bryon, MPH
Kathy Bryon until recently, served as the founding executive director for the southern Oregon regional philanthropy known as the Gordon Elwood Foundation. The foundation trustees realized that the greatest impact of a small (under $10 million) foundation would be to leverage its resources, talent and treasure with others. One of the key strategies was to support Kathy to catalyze and nurture collaborative work with many different stakeholders and interests on an array of regional issues. Using a Learning Community model of organizing, a number of these collaboratives continue to impact thousands of residents of southern Oregon, if not the entire state: Jefferson Regional Health Alliance, Rogue Valley Food System Network, and Jefferson e Funders Forum.
Kathy’s ongoing curiosity and passion to improve the world around her has been fueled by multiple decades of working and volunteering in the non-profit sector, as well as her academic degrees in Public Health (UC Berkeley) and Biology (UC Santa Cruz.) Her collaborative engagement with Southern Oregon University began with then President, Steve Reno, and continued as adjunct faculty and a member of the President’s Advisory Council until the governance structure changed in 2016. Throughout her career, Kathy has facilitated organizations and their people through personal and systemic transformation, creating opportunities for leadership development, successful collaboration, strategic thinking and improved client-centered outcomes. She is a Fellow of Oregon’s American Leadership Forum, Class 17.
Questions about the Sustainability Conference?
Logistics Coordinator:
Dee Fretwell: fretweld1@sou.edu
Event Coordinator:
Jenny Chynoweth: chynowethj@sou.edu
Speaker Coordinator:
Pavlina McGrady: mcgradyp1@sou.edu
Contact the IAS Team
Vincent Smith: smithv3@sou.edu
Becs Walker: walkerr6@sou.edu
Kira Welch: welchk1@sou.edu
