Protecting Nature Panel & Workshop
- Ballroom @ HI NYC 891 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY, 10025 United States (map)
What's our responsibility as leaders? Are there specific challenges being based in New York City? This panel will address major challenges and opportunities for conversation, creating sustainable initiatives and driving our followers/customers towards responsible action.
This session is part panel and part workshop so come ready to be actively involved in workshopping solutions!
PROTECT WHAT IS PRECIOUS
FOUNDER
Susan Rockefeller is an entrepreneur, conservationist and filmmaker. She’s the CEO and Founder of Protect What Is Precious, a niche consulting company that advises businesses on how to improve their products and processes in a way that contributes to a better future for the planet, while enhancing the value of their brands.
Susan's films have explored a range of contemporary issues such as ocean acidification and the future of ocean health, PTSD and the use of music to heal, the confluence of race, poverty and illness; and global food sustainability. Her films have aired on HBO, PBS, and the Discovery Channel.
Susan sits on the boards of Oceana, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, We Are Family Foundation, and is a member of the Natural Resources Defense Council Global Leadership Council. She received her undergraduate degree from Hampshire College, a certificate in ecological horticulture from University of California Santa Cruz and her master's degree from NYU.
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
New York Executive Director
Bill Ulfelder leads The Nature Conservancy in New York with approximately 75,000 members. Since joining the Conservancy in New York in 2009, The Nature Conservancy has conserved over 100,000 acres and launched in New York City the Conservancy’s first-ever comprehensive urban conservation program, focused on the role of nature and natural defenses in making the city’s people and wildlife more resilient in a climate changing world.
Bill joined The Nature Conservancy in 1995, working on community-based conservation in the Peruvian Amazon and Ecuadorian Andes. In 1997, Bill was appointed Peru Program Director, where he oversaw the conservation efforts with Peruvian public and private partners and helped negotiate a $10.5 million debt-for-nature swap to provide $10.5 for Peruvian protected areas in exchange for Peruvian debt relief. In 2003 he moved to Flagstaff, Arizona where he served as the Conservancy’s Northern Arizona Director, overseeing landscape scale forest conservation and restoration efforts with the US Forest Service. Subsequently, as the Conservancy’s Eastern Colorado Director, Bill oversaw grasslands conservation of the Western High Plains and led numerous partnership efforts with ranchers, state agencies, the US Army and Air Force and other NGOs. Additionally, Bill served as the Conservancy’s interim Central Caribbean Director, leading conservation efforts in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico for much of 2008, including launching a free trade and conservation project, at that time the Conservancy’s largest project in the region. He holds dual master’s degrees in Forest Resource Management and Natural Resource Economics & Policy from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, is a Fulbright Scholar and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship.
LOOMSTATE
Sustainable Design Leader & Co-Founder
Sustainable Design Leader and Loomstate Co-Founder, Scott Mackinlay Hahn has dedicated his career to cultivating human health and just socio-economic design and trade systems, transforming supply chain practices and empowering small farmer communities.
In 2001 Hahn co-founded the iconic fashion company ROGAN, redefining denim culture and markets around the world. As popularity increased, Hahn a committed environmentalists, pioneered fashion forward sustainable textiles and responsible methods of production. In 2003, he co-founded Loomstate, a casual clothing brand dedicated to 100% certified organic cotton and the communities that grow it, and in 2004 he partnered with Ali Hewson and husband Bono, to create EDUN, the socio-economic and trade focused company, ushering a more promising chapter for the Sub-Saharan continent of Africa. In 2010 he partnered Loomstate with Chipotle Mexican Grill to design and source Chipotle’s uniforms and apparel, he continues to build on the food + clothing wellness theme to innovate branded culture and performance.
Scott is active on the advisory boards of the NRDC’s Clean By Design Initiative, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, the Council for Textile Recycling, and the Sprat Theatre Company.
Hahn grew up on Long Island NY, where his family built and managed the Sailors Haven Marina at the Sunken Forest. Scott’s social and environmental initiatives and activism stem from his various roles in managing the socially diverse and ecologically delicate national park concession. His creativity and business background spans the realms of communications media and design.
USGS
AMPHIBIAN BIO-TECHNICIAN
Jesi is a scientist, conservationist, outdoor enthusiast and dedicated student. She is currently one of the lead field technicians for the USGS’s North-East Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative Team and has been with the team since April 2013. The team’s work focuses primarily on documenting population densities and disease presence in amphibian species throughout National and State Park land from Virginia to Pennsylvania. The crew works with various endangered species including the Shenandoah Salamander (Plethodon Shenandoah) documenting their current population level and health status.
Jesi also has a passion of being involved in the non-profit world. In 2014 she held a yearlong internship with the Jane Goodall Institute where she assisted the development department in grant research and writing. She has also served on the Outdoor Nation Collegiate Advisory Board. She is a scientist who believes change comes from a passionate and educated public, not just from a small group of “experts”. She hopes to spread her knowledge and passion to others to make real change for species in the future.