Janine Benyus
Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest "Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature". In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests). Since the book's 1997 release, Janine has evolved the practice of biomimicry, consulting with sustainable business, academic, and government leaders, serving on the Eco-Dream Team at Interface, Inc., and conducting seminars about what we can learn from the genius that surrounds us. Her favorite role is biologist-at-the-design-table, introducing innovators to organisms whose well-adapted designs have been tested over 3.8 billion years.

Peter Boyer
Artist and Activist, San Francisco, CA
Peter Boyer was born in New York in 1948, moving to the West Coast with his family in 1960. He studied art in California and Oregon, receiving his BA from San Francisco State University in 1977. He also studied architecture at The Southern California Institute of Architecture. Boyer operated a small design/build business in the 1970's, which acquainted him with the materials and techniques of building construction. Much of this knowledge has been applied to the process he follows in creating his mixed media works.

Boyer's art deals with physical and material elements. He builds paintings by successive applications and deletions of various materials: canvas, muslin, linen, paint, gesso, charcoal and graphite. His is a process of working and reworking the surface by tearing off and reapplying his materials until the work attains what he has described as "presence".

Boyer maintains a studio at the Hunter's Point Shipyard Complex in San Francisco. His work is included in numerous private, corporate and public collections. He has exhibited extensively around the country and in Japan.

Jana Dean
Middle School Science Teacher, Olympia, WA
As an author and educator, Jana Dean inspires her students by drawing on their strengths and examining issues relevant to their lives. In addition to her tireless work in the classroom, she leads professional development for teachers in designing collaborative classrooms, facilitating discourse in mathematics and in the art of storytelling. She writes for Rethinking Schools magazine and also authored "Sound Wisdom: Stories of Place," a book of oral histories about life on the inland sea of Puget Sound.

Jana was the recipient of the Center of Strengthening the Teaching Profession Annual Writer's Fellowship and also accepted a fellowship to to study climate change at the edge of the arctic with the Earthwatch Institute. She is also an organizing member of Olympia Washington's Educators for Social Justice.

Dr. Eban Goodstein
Dr. Eban Goodstein is the author of a college textbook, Economics and the Environment, (John Wiley and Sons: 2007) now in its fifth edition; The Trade-off Myth: Fact and Fiction about Jobs and the Environment (Island Press: 1999); and Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming (University of Vermont Press: 2007) Goodstein's current research focuses on the economics of global climate change, a subject on which he has spoken widely. Articles by Goodstein have appeared in among other outlets, The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, Ecological Economics, and Environmental Management. His research has been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, Time, Chemical and Engineering News, The Economist, USA Today, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Goodstein received his B.A. from Williams College and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He serves on the editorial board of Environment, Workplace and Employment, is on the Steering Committee of the Economics for Equity and Environment: E3 Network, and is a Member Scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform. Dr. Eban Goodstein

Van Jones
Executive Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Van Jones is an eco-visionary, award-winning human rights attorney and powerhouse speaker. He is the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC), a strategy and action center, working for justice, peace, and opportunity in urban America.

He has served on the boards of numerous environmental and nonprofit organizations, including the National Apollo Alliance, Social Venture Network, Rainforest Action Network, Bioneers, Julia Butterfly Hill's "Circle of Life" organization and Free Press.

Van won his first major award in 1998 when he was given the Reebok Human Rights Award. Other significant awards include the international Ashoka Fellowship, selection as a World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader," and the Rockefeller Foundation "Next Generation Leadership" Fellowship.

In the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, Van helped to found ColorOfChange.org, an online advocacy organization. With more than 100,000 members, Color Of Change is now the nation's biggest e-advocacy organization tackling Black issues.

At the national level, Van and the Ella Baker Center worked in 2007 with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-MASS) to pass the Green Jobs Act of 2007. That path-breaking, historic legislation will provide $125 million in funding to train 35,000 people a year in "green-collar jobs."

He is also a founder of a new national coalition that is promoting the idea of a national "Clean Energy Jobs Corps." This multi-billion-dollar federal initiative would put hundreds of thousands of people to work rewiring and retrofitting the energy infrastructure of the United States. The Clean Energy Jobs Corps is designed to be a signature initiative for the next U.S. president.

David Orr
Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College
Dr. David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College. A frequent keynote speaker and expert media source of commentary; he is nationally recognized as a leader in environmental education, ecological literacy, and environmental design. Dr. Orr is the author of The Fifth Revolution: Ecological Design and the Making of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center (2006), Earth in Mind: Essays on Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect (1994), and Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World (1992). He is, or has been, a Trustee of The Aldo Leopold Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation.

Kathleen Rogers
Executive Director, Earth Day Network

Kathleen Rogers President of Earth Day Network, has worked for more than 15 years as an environmental attorney and advocate, focusing on litigation, community development and international issues. Under Kathleen's leadership, Earth Day Network has taken the lead in defining the "new environmentalist" of the 21st century, transforming EDN into a dynamic team of year round activists that is reaching out to new constituencies, including young people and people of color, and integrating civic participation into each of our programs and activities.

During her tenure as Chief Wildlife Counsel for the National Audubon Society, Kathleen directed several programs including its international trade, migratory species and biodiversity policy initiatives. While with National Audubon, Kathleen was Environmental Representative on the United States Delegation-Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). She was also responsible for bringing the first citizen complaint before the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the tri-national agency formed to oversee North American environmental issues.

Kathleen has held senior positions with the Environmental Law Institute, Piedmont Environmental Council, two U.S. Olympic Organizing Committees, and the United Nations Conference on Women. She has also worked for Garth Associates in New York City and the Beveridge & Diamond law firm. Kathleen was editor in chief of the law review at the University of California-Davis, and clerked for the Honorable John Pratt at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Greg Smith
Professor of Education, Lewis & Clark College
Gregory Smith is a professor of education at the Lewis & Clark College Graduate School of Education and Counseling in Portland, Oregon. His work revolves around the practice of place-based education which utilizes local knowledge, phenomena and experience to create the foundation for teaching and learning, thereby connecting youths more firmly to the communities and regions.

He serves on the board of the Rural School and Community Trust, a national organization that has been an active sponsor of place-based educational reforms throughout the United States and is a member of the Education Policy Project based at the University of Arizona. He was also a founding member of the Environmental Middle School and served on the Implementation Resource Team charged with positioning the Portland Public Schools strategic plan. Amongst his many notable offerings as an author or editor are Education and the Environment: Learning to Love with Limits, Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Culture, Education, and the Environment and Public Schools That Work: Creating Community.

Steve Wozniak
Co-founder, Apple Computer Inc.
A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for the past three decades, Steve Wozniak helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple's first line of products the Apple I and II and influenced the popular Macintosh. In 1976, Wozniak co-founded Apple Computer with the Apple I computer. The next year, he introduced his Apple II personal computer, featuring a central processing unit, a keyboard, color graphics, and a floppy disk drive, and helped to launch the PC industry. After leaving Apple in 1985, Wozniak has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, focusing primarily on computer capabilities in schools and stressing hands-on learning and encouraging creativity for students. Making significant investments of both his time and resources in education, Wozniak "adopted" the Los Gatos School District, providing students and teachers with hands-on teaching and donations of state-of-the-art technology equipment. Wozniak founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and was the founding sponsor of the Tech Museum, Silicon Valley Ballet and Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose.