About Us


Staff




Jenny Clad is the Executive Director of The Climate Project. She was trained as a lawyer and has worked as a consultant for the New Zealand Minister of Justice, lecturer & tutor in law at Hong Kong University, Mediator-Dispute Resolution Specialist at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and Attorney/Mediator in private practice in Washington, DC. She has lived in several countries and traveled extensively for most of her life and continues to do so today. She has a BA in Political Science and Anthropology from Canterbury University and a LLB (JD) degrees from Victoria University of Wellington (NZ).

Sabrina Cowden is Director of Partnership Relations for The Climate Project. A former competitive gymnast, she has a background in human resources and communications. Sabrina holds a BA in Speech Communication from Lipscomb University. She enjoys spending time with her two children.

Alex Carey is the Communications Manager of The Climate Project. Alex holds a BA in American Studies from Cornell University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. Before joining the TCP staff, he spent time as a magazine and newspaper reporter and columnist, an editor with a diverse range of experience, and a writer of mostly unpublished fiction. He is an avid reader, a poker enthusiast, and a diehard Boston Red Sox fan.

Katy Valesky is Executive Coordinator for The Climate Project. Katy has a BA in Psychology from Emory and an MSSW from the University of Tennessee. Prior to working for TCP, the majority of her prior work was with youth in and transitioning out of foster care. She enjoys reading and traveling and is a Sudoku addict.

Marisa Hackemann is Logistics and Event Coordinator for The Climate Project. She graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in History from Sewanee: The University of the South. Previously, she worked in higher education as an admissions representative for Cumberland University, a private, liberal arts university in Middle Tennessee. In her free time, Marisa enjoys traveling, supporting the Florida Gators and Vanderbilt Commodores, and spending time with her family.


Joylette Portlock is Presenter Community Manager for The Climate Project. Originally from Delaware, she has been interested in conservation for as long as she can remember, having started her family recycling while she was in middle school. She studied biology at MIT and earned her Ph.D. in genetics from Stanford University in 2006. A trained TCP presenter, Joylette lives with her husband in Pittsburgh, Penn., where they compost their greenwaste, purchase offsets for the carbon dioxide emitted by their electricity, natural gas, and transportation fuels, and enjoy gardening.


Jeremy Richardson, Science Advisor for The Climate Project, is the 2007-08 Roger Revelle Fellow in Global Stewardship. Before starting his tenure as the Revelle Fellow, Jeremy Richardson was the John Bahcall Public Policy Fellow at the American Astronomical Society. Previously, Jeremy spent more than six years at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where he characterized the atmospheric properties of a planet more than 150 light years away. A physicist and a trained TCP presenter, Jeremy has elected to use the Revelle Fellowship to work directly with TCP to research potential solutions to the climate crisis and to track both state and national legislative developments to inform presenters.


Presenter Leadership

The Climate Project's volunteer leadership consists of Regional Directors, who serve the staff in an advisory capacity, and District Managers, who supervise and coordinate presenters in their area.

REGIONAL DIRECTORS
Bill Bradbury (West)
Tamara Coleman (Central)
Lise Van Susteren (East)

DISTRICT MANAGERS

West
Beverly Duperly Boos (AK, ID, MT, OR, WA)
Camille DeMarco-Hay (CO, KS, UT, WY)
Jeff Mikulina (HI)
Eric Torres (Southern CA)
Aaron Tuley (AZ, NM, OK, TX)
Paul Valva (Northern CA, NV)

Central
Karen Cochran (AL, AR, LA, MS, TN)
Diane Frederick (FL, GA, NC, SC)
Ken Riley (IL, IN, KY, MO, OH)
Lisa Kamil (IA, MI, MN, ND, NE, SD, WI)

East
Paulina Essunger (Upstate NY, VT)
Mary Lou Fox (MD, VA, DC, WV)
Stephen Nodvin (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI)
Katie Scheidt (DE, NJ, New York City and Long Island, PA)

International
Yves Mathieu


History

The Climate Project, a nonprofit organization based in Nashville, TN, began operations in June 2006 with the mission of increasing public awareness of the climate crisis at a grassroots level in the United States and abroad. By April 2007, a diverse group of 1,000 volunteers from throughout the U.S. had been trained by Al Gore himself to present a version of the slideshow featured in the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth. As of May 2008, they had delivered more than 15,000 presentations and reached a combined audience of well more than a million people.

In addition, TCP initiatives have resulted in the training of hundreds of equally committed individuals in Australia, Canada, India, Spain, and the UK. Recent training sessions in India and Canada have brought the total number of TCP presenters worldwide to 2,300.

TCP's U.S. presenters remain linked through an interactive network anchored by our website, which also provides a comprehensive support system. The TCP staff aids presenters by providing assistance with organizing presentations and handling logistics, educational material for distribution to audience members, and promotional materials such as press releases. The staff aims to support presenters in every facet of their work as climate change messengers.

The Climate Project thrives as a result of the commitment, dedication, and passion of presenters to educate, encourage, and promote dialogue about climate change as well as potential solutions.

Contact

TCP welcomes support to continue and expand its work to educate the public about this vital issue. Our organization has 501(c)(3) nonprofit status through its affiliation with The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, and all donations are federally tax-deductible. For more information, contact:

The Climate Project
2100 West End Avenue
Suite 620
Nashville, TN 37203
Email: info@theclimateproject.org

TCP presentations are available for public engagements of any size, free of charge, and may be requested by clicking here.


Donations

You can contribute to the effort by donating to The Climate Project. Your donations will help fund training sessions in Nashville, including training materials, lecture space, and much more. In addition, donations work towards funding web-based resources to ensure the continued growth of this movement.

Partners