- Doug Fine

- Auden Schendler

- Hillary Mizia

- Dave Newport

Doug Fine

After being raised on Dominoes Pizza and Brady Bunch re-runs, Doug Fine's method of journalistic investigation was to strap on a backpack and travel to five continents; to the nooks where the world's monied media venues weren't sending their people. These venues tended to be delighted to have a whippersnapper beam back colorful dispatches for poorly-remunerated publication as long as he didn?t identify himself as an employee of said venues. Complicated insurance ramifications for torture treatment might ensue.

As a young freelancer, Fine reported in this manner for the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra, Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and other venues from little-visited jungle war zones like Burma, Rwanda, Laos, Guatemala and Tajikistan. He became a world-class adventure writer and investigative journalist, writing culturally-insightful and funny dispatches. One of these, about democracy efforts in Burma, was read into the U.S. Congressional Record.

During this time, his 20s, Fine recognized that he lived on an actual planet, and that he felt most alive while living and loving in wild ecosystems. Following this impulse in contradiction to all the suburban values with which he was raised (which can be summarized as, "if you?re not going to be a doctor, you can at least be a lawyer"), he moved to extreme rural Alaska to see if a former suburbanite could survive away from Costco. Happiness and self-awareness were the goals. This resulted in his award-nominated first book, Not Really An Alaskan Mountain Man, a wildly-humorous and meaningful adventure narrative, which is now in its third printing.

Realizing that living in sync with his ecosystem is indeed where his own inspiration and personal happiness reside, Fine for his second book decided to embark on a "Hypocrisy Reduction Project," to see if he could truly live a sustainable lifestyle, rather than borrowing from Babylon to live in an ecological Zion. He moved to a beautifully-obscure valley in Southern New Mexico to write Farewell, My Subaru, to quite simply see if a Digital Age Human can live without Petroleum but without giving up any of his Digital Age Comforts. His conclusion? He can, once he figures out how to keep the coyotes from eating his chickens, his solar panels from electrocuting him, and his vegetable oil truck exhaust from giving him a bad case of the munchies (it smells like Kung Pao chicken).

Farewell, My Subaru has been translated into Chinese, Korean, and other languages, and has earned Fine an appearance on The Tonight Show.  It debuted on the Boston Globe Bestseller List in September, 2009. Fine now travels around the world speaking about his sustainability realizations and is a regular contributor of adventure and investigative features to National Public Radio. Despite all the accolades, he still milks his goats one teat at a time like all former suburbanite, neo-Rugged Individualist Organic Cowboys.

Auden Schendler

Auden Schendler is Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company. He worked previously in corporate sustainability at Rocky Mountain Institute. Auden has been a trailer insulator, burger flipper, ambulance medic, Outward Bound instructor, high school math and English teacher, freelance writer, and Forest Service goose nest island builder. An avid outdoorsman, Auden has climbed Denali, North America?s highest peak, and kayaked the Grand Canyon in winter. His writing has been published in Harvard Business Review, the L.A. Times, Slate, Scientific American Earth 3.0,  and Salon.com among other media, and his work has been covered in Outside, Fast Company, Travel and Leisure and Businessweek. In 2006, Auden was named a global warming innovator by Time magazine. Auden has testified to congress on the impacts of climate change and speaks widely on sustainability. His book Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution was called "an antidote to greenwash" by NASA?s James Hansen. He lives in Basalt, Colorado with his wife Ellen and their children Willa and Elias.

Hillary Mizia

Hillary has over 10 years experience in the field of sustainability.  A graduate of both Prescott College, with a BA in Experiential Education, and Antioch University Seattle, with an MA in Environment and Community, Hillary has explored sustainability in many ways.  In the business sector, her experience includes creating the first sustainability position at New Belgium Brewing Company, and as such created many of the systems and foundations for growth at the brewery.  In the non-profit sector Hillary has served on the board of directors for various organizations, all of which have sustainability at their core.  In the government sector, Hillary has both been hired as an expert and volunteered her time on various groups, including two appointed seats in different committees. Hillary is constantly re-examining her own daily living practices as she works to balance her time as a mother, wife, and dedicated sustainability professional.  Hillary has appeared on both television and radio, has toured the country speaking to audiences about sustainability, co-authored the 2006 book 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Sustainabili t y , and has written various articles.  Hillary currently sits on the Community Sustainability Advisory Board for the City of Golden and the Advisory Board for the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Association .  

Dave Newport

• Dave Newport was appointed Director, Environmental Center, CU-Boulder, in December 2005. Dave's background is in environmental and sustainability research, teaching, publishing, and public service.
• Dave comes to Boulder from his previous post as the University of Florida?s first Director of the Office of Sustainability. At UF, he researched and published higher educations' first sustainability report compiled to global business standards, led global efforts aimed at unifying sustainability reporting in higher education, sheparded a plan to make the nation's fourth largest university "a global leader in sustainability," launched a zero-waste program that has since become UF?s 2025 target for all operations, and published carbon-neutrality research and planning designed to make the university climate-neutral. Dave also taught UF's Honors Program Sustainability course, community leadership courses, and lectured extensively on campus greening and transparency. At CU, Dave also teaches a Campus Carbon Neutrality Planning Course in the Environmental Studies Department, and Chairs CU's Carbon Neutrality Working Group.
• Dave was a county commissioner from 1998-2002 and elected Chairman of the Alachua County Commission (Gainesville, Florida) in 2000. As Commissioner, he championed renewable energy and energy conservation efforts and sustainability policies for the county. Dave remains a board member and Strategic Policy Director for Cross Creek Initiative, Inc., a Florida-based non-profit that works with public and private sector clients on green building, energy, and sustainability planning.

• In 1985 he founded Florida Environments Magazine, a regional environmental news publication. From 1985 to 1997 Florida Environment' staff and Dave won many awards including Florida Audubon Environmental Journalist of the Year and the 1000 Friends of Florida Al Burt Award for Environmental Journalism.
• He's active in national sustainability as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Prior to joining AASHE's Board, Dave helped create the Sustainability Tracking and Ratings Systems (STARS), a set of campus sustainability metrics--and dubbed by the Chronicle for Higher Education as the "gold standard of campus sustainability metrics."

• Previously, Dave was laboratory director and instructor in the Environmental Science Technology department at Sanata Fe College in Gainesville, Florida where he taught advanced environmental analytical techniques. From 1976-1981 Dave was a research technician with the National Council of the Paper Industry and as an EPA contractor where he helped develop analytical methods for isolating and quantifying air and water pollutants.
• Dave is completing a Masters of Science degree in Energy Resource Management and Policy from the University of Maryland, University College. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Syracuse University, management and communications, and an Associate of Science degree from Santa Fe College in Environmental Science Technology. Dave is also a Fellow of the American Hospital Association's Healthy Community Leadership program, a LEED accredited professional for green building by the US Green Building Council, and a Stephen Covey-certified leadership trainer.

• Dave has written, published, and presented widely on the topics of sustainability reporting, campus greening, and the practices and principles of sustainability and leadership. Dave has served on dozens of related boards and committees including US Environmental Protection Agency Higher Education Sector Performance Monitoring Task Force (current) and ULSF-UNEP-GRI Sustainability Indicators Working Group.
• A beekeeper and fisherman, recumbent bicycler, and combined-driving horse-carriage competitor, Dave also plays the pedal steel guitar. He is married to Nancy Lockhart Newport and together they have five children ages 15-30.