Sharon Joy Kleitsch - Editor
Sharon Joy Kleitsch is a meta-networker, weaving local with global by sharing what’s emerging and what’s working. She inspires communities, organizations and individuals to partner “outside the box” in conversations that matter and actions that make a difference. A former Citigroup executive with a masters in spirituality, she applies the new sciences to large living systems like St Pete and Tampa Bay.
email: [email protected]
Katie Machol — Editor
"Katie Machol didn't exactly start out "green"- she graduated from culinary school last Fall and wanted to pursue a career in food writing and styling, thus ending up at Creative Loafing as a food contributor. Now she's turned "green" and is editing the Green Community site, as well as contributing articles of her own. She has always been into healthy eating/lifestyles and is interested in the organic, sustainable, and local food movements, as well as the many new green ideas and practices that putting this site together has opened her eyes to."
email: [email protected]
Katie's Complete Daily Loaf Archive
Lindsay Kingdon - Contributor
Lindsay is a southern girl from NC transplanted to the Sunshine State who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006 with a degree in Communication Studies. She is back in school at the International Culinary School at the Art Institute pursuing her true passion: cooking, with an emphasis on health. After graduating from Carolina, she worked in catering and event planning. She hopes to use her degree from Ai, and her knowledge and experience to pursue a career in nutritious cooking, developing recipes, and writing about how to make healthy food delicious and accessible. She eats to live, but certainly enjoys the occasional splurge, and loves flavors from the South, Latin American, and Asia.
email: [email protected]
Jessica McCormick - Contributor
Jessica has been a lean, mean, recycling machine since elementary school. She even started an individual recycling program at college, collecting plastics in her hall before the school even started a campus-wide plastic-recycling program. From simple steps to wacky ideas, she can get behind pretty much any method of living a greener lifestyle.
email: [email protected]
Linda Saul-Sena - Contributor
Linda is an at-large member of Tampa City Council, serving her fifth four-year term. As an elected official, she is involved in urban planning, transportation, the arts, and protection of the environment and sustainability. Attending Tulane University created her interest in historic preservation. She serves on the Preservation Roundtable, Public Art Committee, Tourist Development Council, Livable Roadways Committee, River Roundtable, Arts Council, Tampa Bay Estuary Board, Tampa Theatre Board and the Athena Society.
As a Council Member, Linda’s public service initiatives include the development, naming and plan for the Channel District, the plan for West Tampa, the development of the Tree Ordinance, the strategy and support of the Streetcar & Light Rail Plans. She also initiated a twelve-year effort to underground utilities, the protection, refurbishment and blueway for Sulphur Springs Tower & Park, the redevelopment with an overlay plan and FDOT improvements of Kennedy Boulevard and the creation of the Café Ordinance.
A Tampa native, Linda originated the Ybor City Ghost Walk, Inc., an actor-guided walking tour to share her enthusiasm for local history. Linda and her husband, Mark Sena have two daughters.
Justin Goff - Contributor
Justin Goff loves anything to do with technology, and truly believes it can be a greater friend than foe to the planet. You might also catch him surfing the net on his laptop anywhere where the wi-fi will take him. An avid gamer, he needs to refocus on his degree in Information Technology at USF while keeping his current job.
email: [email protected]
Carrie Webb - Contributor
My favorite color is green! The color green reminds me of the beauty of nature always putting me in a peaceful state of mind. I'm a positive, happy, fun-loving gal who is reducing her carbon foot-print by embracing a more simple and green lifestyle. I'm also a long-time foodie who enjoys and prefers natural ingredients. I'm excited to share my green knowledge and learn more ways to be green!
VIDEO: How to be green at work
email: [email protected]
Alexa White - Contributor
Alexa has logged hours upon hours ogling the eco-smart, off-the-grid, modern houses featured in magazines like Dwell. Until she can find just such a residence to call her own, she’s happy to help the environment in more apartment-friendly ways. Her favorite green activities include reducing energy consumption, finding ways to reuse materials, and recycling.
email: [email protected]
Lisa Montelione - Contributor
Lisa has been talking about green building to anyone who will listen, believing energy efficient new construction and green renovations is not an option; it is a requirement. She builds energy efficient, green, affordable homes without sacrificing style or comfort along with her partner, Josh Geary of Rising Force Construction. She worked with the organizing committee and was a sponsor of the first annual Going Green Tampa Bay Expo, was a facilitator at the first Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Symposium and has been on the Tampa Bay Builder’s Association Green Committee since its inception. A serial volunteer Lisa participated in the All-American Cities 2008 conference, Tampa City Council’s work sessions to develop its Green Ordinance, is volunteering her time at the 2009 Florida Green Cities conference, is working with a start-up nonprofit training ex-offenders for green jobs and is secretary of the Terrace Park Neighborhood Association.
email: [email protected]
Heidi Lux - Contributor
Heidi Lux is a writer/comedienne with a BFA in drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She studied and performed improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and Magnet Theatres in New York City. Her first feature length film, A Big Production, was produced her senior year of college. Currently, Miss Lux writes for The Tampa Bay Informer and performs weekly with Got Jokes? Improv.
email: [email protected]
Karl Simon - Contributor
Karl Simon has earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from USF and currently works at a 3D rendering firm for home builders. In his spare time, he has started a home garden to grow his own organic fruits and vegetables, and even has names for all of his plants! He was drawn to write for the Creative Loafing green site in an effort to become more involved in the green movement in Tampa and, hopefully, in his ideal career field of sustainable design and construction.
email: [email protected]
Cory Brennan - Contributor
Cory is a certified permaculture designer, writer and educator who recently relocated from Los Angeles to Clearwater. In LA she worked with the Economic Alliance of San Fernando Valley and neighborhood groups to implement sustainable solutions; she supported a magnet educational program and campus food forest at Crenshaw High School in S Central LA; and co-created her own community project food forest on private land in Sunland, CA. In Clearwater, she founded the group Create Clearwater, a volunteer, educational organization created to assist individuals and organizations to live more sustainably. She is currently writing a book on permaculture, publishing a “Green Directory” for the Tampa Bay area, and does marketing and education with The Permaculture Guild, which gives permaculture courses and related training throughout the state of Florida.
email: [email protected]
Michelle Schenck - Contributor
Michelle Schenck works works the regular 9-5 during the day as a law firm administrator and a realtor with Century 21 Beggins. In her free time, she enjoys free-lance writing about travel, movies and her new passion: writing about “going green”. She is also a member of the Tampa Bay Derby Darlins, an all girls flat track team that has recently boosted their green efforts with recycling projects, planting trees and starting a green team within the group to offset their travel gas emissions.
email: [email protected]
Linda Taylor - Contributor
Linda M. Taylor founded It’s Our Nature®, Inc. in March of 1996 after 18 years in the commercial fitness industry. The company’s focus blends the enrichment of one’s mind with the wellness of one’s body and the spirit of our earth. Another aspect of her company is “Healthy-Wear for People Who Care®” which reflects a wide selection of organic cotton and hemp clothing. All items are screened for environmental responsibility and fair trade. She’s also the author of Great Women Exploring Nature …. How Wild Florida Influenced Their Lives
e-mail: [email protected]
Chris Hrabovsky - Contributor
Long time activist, and former Democratic Party candidate for State House Dist. 45, Chris Hrabovsky has taken on the challenge of reforming our energy policy-at the local level. In 2000 Chris’ interest in alternative fuels for vehicles led him to convert a truck to run on hydrogen. In 2006, he re-invigorated an environmental fight to save the Anclote River, from the grips of Wal-Mart, by taking on a lawsuit “pro se”, after the other activists had fled. He also lends his help to Pasco’s Citizens for Sanity, as they help protect the Cypress Creek, Seranova Preserve, and the newly proposed destruction of wetlands by T.Rowe Price. Today, Chris has focused on the effects of 2006 Senate Bill 888. He has a plan to prevent new coal and nuclear plants from being built, and promotes de-centralized solar and wind power.
email: [email protected]
Paul Messerschmidt - Contributor
Paul brought his twenty years of policy-shaping and engineering skills developed in New England to Tampa Bay nearly eight years ago, where he now hopes to advance the conversation and contribute to the technological innovations which will shape a post-carbon economy. While in Boston, Paul was a consultant to the Grand Council of the Cree of Quebec, the native peoples of Quebec whose lives — already disturbed by the construction of mega-dams on their ancestral lands — were to be further disrupted by a proposed multi-billion-dollar hydro project. His work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had him oversee energy efficiency projects in 60 million square feet of state-owned commercial and institutional real estate. A love of astronomy, academic studies in astrophysics, and work as sky-host at several planetaria led him to draft what has become a model for dark-sky legislation in Massachusetts, implementing energy efficient and responsible lighting design throughout the state. Paul still enjoys gazing up at the night sky and helping others locate and identify stars and planets.
email: [email protected]
Linkedin | Twitter: @focuscarbon, @clntechgrntech, and @greenlending
Wayne Davis - Contributor
Wayne is a native ”burger” who was initiated into the sustainability subculture in 1975 when he consumed “Other Homes and Garbage” – Designs for self-sufficient living. He is licensed as an architect in CA and FL w/ NCARB certification, is a member of the Florida Green Building Coalition and holds a FL contractors license. His current passions include New Urbanism/New Ruralism, Peak Oil, Post-Carbon scenario speculation, trough concentrating parabolic solar collectors, photo-realist pencil drawing, philosophy, and Kurt Vonnegut.
email: [email protected]
Michèle Young - Contributor
Michèle Young is enthusiastic about inspiring authentic, sustainable relationships, with oneself, in the community and with the Planet. She is part of a web of facilitators fostering conversations that encourage hope, leading, to transformative action around the green economy. Current focus includes multi-dimensional health, integrative healing options, restorative justice, eco-preneurship and living on purpose. Degrees in industrial psychology, theatre and an MBA sparked explorations into 33 countries on five continents, so far. With career paths in NASA, USF Faculty, MOSI and Patel Conservatory for the Performing Arts, Michèle illuminates possibilities.
email: [email protected]
Cathy Harrelson - Contributor
Cathy is a St. Pete transplant from western New York and has worked in the financial services industry throughout her career. Her intro to Green started on Earth Day 1970, where she lobbied her small town to actually put trash cans on street corners to control litter. She’s been actively involved with the Suncoast Sierra Club in Pinellas since 1992, ran for St. Pete City Council in 2007, and continues to enjoy lively discussions of blue water and green energy with our pesky local and state officials. She formed the Coastal Task Force of the Suncoast Sierra Club in 2005 after Red Tide caused a dead zone the size of Rhode Island off our shores. Since then, fertilizer ordinances have been passed from Lee county north to St. Pete – Pinellas and Hillsborough are next.
email: [email protected]
Lisa Assetta - Contributor
Lisa “makes offices work” for her clients by helping them create an organized, functional and productive workspace that saves money, time and the environment. As an “ecopreneur”, Lisa offers green office services (makeovers, organizing and virtual assistance) that reduce expenses by optimizing space and resources and utilize green business practices.
email: [email protected]
Carol L. Roberts - Contributor
Carol L. Roberts, M.D. - Founder and Medical Director of Wellness Works located in Brandon, Florida. She graduated from Harvard University and the University of Texas Medical School and practiced Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) for ten years, followed by ten years of Emergency Medicine. During much of that time, she practiced and taught the principles of healthy living. In 1994, she opened her private practice, Wellness Works, so that she could devote her career to the integration of conventional medicine with the natural and holistic techniques. She also has a radio show in the Tampa area on WMNF 88.5 on alternate Mondays from1-2 p.m.
email: [email protected]
Patricia Kiesylis - Contributor
Eight years ago, Pat joined Defenders of Wildlife as the Florida Program Coordinator. She is also a long time leader in the Suncoast Sierra Club. Currently, she is co conservation chair. She also serves as the contact for public education programs and interns and volunteers.
Pat has successfully owned and then sold a series of businesses including a NY Restaurant that was reviewed in the NY Times. She has been an activist and grassroots volunteer/ leader for over 35 years.
The highpoints of her volunteer work in Florida’s schools was the Point of Light Award given by the Point of Light Foundation established by Pres. George H. Bush. Also, after receiving four different education awards, she was awarded the Honorary Life Membership in the Florida State PTA. Pat continued to participate in various community endeavors including the Citizen Review Committee of the City of St Petersburg. One of her strongest skills is the ability to empower the people to taken action. My dream is to be able to hold our decision makers accountable for their decisions.
email: [email protected]
Kelly Rothwell - Contributor
Kelly Rothwell is an Intuitive Consultant and Healing Facilitator who offers assistance with balanced health and wellness, through training, education, and energetic healing. She offers courses and healing facilitation. Learn more at www.findurlight.com.
email: [email protected]
Eric Haase - Contributor
Eric is a lifelong environmentalist. His appreciation for nature came from a childhood spent hiking the woods of the Hudson River Valley. A clinical death experience in 2004 reconnected him to his ecological roots and he began publishing www.consciousconsumers.net, a website concerning the individual consumer’s role in earth’s environmental situation. He recently published the book “Apocalypse Near”. Eric holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Miami. Upon graduating from their film school he worked on commercial film sets in Miami and wrote feature films in his spare time, one of which was optioned by the Sci-Fi Channel. He next toured the country with a band he played drums in after they were signed to a development deal with Capitol records. He discovered Tampa while on tour and decided it would be his home in 2001.
email: [email protected]
