Meet the Team!

Sandra Dudley
I am the owner of SALULE LLC, an Advertising Specialty Institute dealership that specializes in providing environmentally friendly marketing/promotional products and sustainable fabric apparel. I have been in the printing/promotional product/apparel industry for 17 years.

I have lived in Anne Arundel County, MD, most of my life and have raised two sons here. My oldest son is a fisheries biologist in a PhD program at Oregon State University. My youngest son is a senior at University of Maine pursuing an undergraduate degree in International Environmental Studies.

I am an avid organic gardener and dog fancier. I have been living the organic/”green” lifestyle since the late 70’s when I began eating and gardening organically. When my oldest son was born, I lived on a small farm with six dogs, several chickens, six ducks, eight geese, two sheep and one goat.

I enjoy volunteering in the community and at my church, Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church in Severna Park. I currently participate in the Family Partnership Program with Arundel Habitat for Humanity where I have two family partners in the Brooklyn area. This program partners mentors with Habitat families at the inception of their process to become Habitat homeowners. We nurture relationships to help them succeed, continuing the partnership after they move into their new homes. I am also involved with the Care of Creation Task Group of the Baltimore Presbytery where we are involved with creating opportunities at our churches to educate the congregation regarding environmental issues and to make our church property more environmentally sound.

V.K. Holtzendorf
V.K. Holtzendorf recently retired after 22 years with Hewlett Packard (HP), as Director of Advanced Research for Life Sciences and Technical & Scientific Computing. She led the Life Science strategic programs team, representing HP engineering and HP Labs in collaborations with leading genomics research institutions.

V.K., in her post retirement life, is the founder and owner of West River Cruises, which offers charter and tour boat services on a classic Chesapeake built, 110-passenger vessel. As a licensed 100 ton boat captain and private pilot, V.K. advocates for the Chesapeake Bay and West/Rhode river watershed. She is active volunteer in the community and board member of the West and Rhode Riverkeeper organization.

I am looking forward to participating in the Earthwatch Institute Climate Partnership Stakeholder Workshop at SERC. I live in the watershed on the West/Rhode Rivers in Maryland. I intend to use what I learn as a citizen scientist in the work we do with the West/Rhode Riverkeeper organization. With the impact of climate change, our low lying, environmentally sensitive, coastal area is an early indicator of the changes that need to be made in conservation and sustainability efforts that have to be applied in our community.

Laura Kimes
Laura Kimes is a Program Associate at the American Council On Renewable Energy, where she wears many hats, including working on outreach to state renewable energy programs, convening the renewable energy industry in meetings and conferences, and administering a committee on sustainable energy from biomass. Laura joined ACORE in 2007 after completing her environmental science and policy degree at University of Maryland-College Park (UMCP). During her studies, Ms. Kimes spent five years in federal internships with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) building her expertise in environmental issues. Laura is participating in the workshop because she believes that renewable energy is a key part in finding solutions for climate change, and would like to work with other leaders in the space to find common solutions. She looks forward to learning as much about the new climate science as possible, talking about climate change and sustainable solutions with the workshop participants, getting her hands dirty doing fieldwork, and having fun.

Lindsay Leiterman
A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Lindsay Leiterman graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with majors in Biology and Urban and Environmental Affairs and a minor in Environmental Ethics. While a student at Marquette, Lindsay worked part-time for The Conservation Fund where she assisted the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District in acquiring undeveloped properties containing hydric soils in order to reduce future flooding and allow for wetland construction. In 2005, Lindsay received her Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences with a concentration in conservation science and policy, focusing on both coastal and terrestrial issues. Throughout graduate school Lindsay served as the Wildlife Projects Manager for Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. As Projects Manager, she was instrumental in earning the Wildlife and Industries Together certification through the North Carolina Wildlife Federation for the 7,000 acre research park. Lindsay’s master’s thesis involved researching Puerto Rico’s remaining undeveloped beaches and producing a management plan for the protection of nesting sea turtles. Upon completion of her Master’s degree, Lindsay accepted a NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship working with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Coastal Zone Management Program in Annapolis. At the end of the two year fellowship, Lindsay became an Environmental Planner with Howard County Government in Maryland. Here, she works for the Office of Environmental Sustainability and the Resource Conservation Division on green building and green neighborhoods legislation, implementation, and outreach throughout the County.

Danielle Lucid
Education, research and career have focused primarily on nitrogen cycling research (in tropical regions) and nitrogen pollution control through watershed planning and policy development (in temperate regions). Present work concentrates on preparing coastal communities for impacts associated with climate change, such as sea level rise and increased storm events.

Playing the cello, rowing on the Severn River, practicing yoga, walking, and occasionally backpacking with friends, fills my time. I love to cook for friends and family. I am also a beekeeper.

I am grateful to the HCSB and the others in the Climate Change Partnership for the opportunity to learn more about climate change, including the balance and tracking of global carbon, the areas where behavior changes at personal, institutional and global scales can or cannot have an impact in climate change, and how the present awareness in climate change may be transformed into actions for mediating negative impacts.

Ryan Pleune
I am an educator dedicated to public school reform in my community. My background in Wilderness Therapy and Outdoor/Environmental Education trained me to view my primary role in education as a generalist, and my specialty in Life Sciences allows me to help students think critically with a scientific mind. I taught High School life sciences in Utah for 4 years and am currently working as the Outreach Coordinator for the Alice Ferguson Foundation. Through leadership efforts within and outside the classroom I help facilitate a school structure and culture of leaders that allows more flexibility for “place-based” education. At East High School in Salt Lake City, UT, I helped initiate a federal grant application to create Small Learning Communities and facilitated a contract with Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound for the Science Academy. I also worked as ninth grade Dean of Students and advocated for change in the structure of the large high school.

As the Outreach Coordinator for the Alice Ferguson Foundation (AFF) I help facilitate a culture of education where various organizations contribute to public schools by providing services that the schools can not provide themselves. My primary responsibility with AFF is to foster and develop school partnerships in area schools and help teams of teachers create School Yard Classrooms. My organization and the schools I work with are all within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and have a core value of educating students through “place-based” environmental education. We fundamentally believe that this is the key to promoting active learning, responsible behavior, and environmentally and socially aware citizens. I hope that the HSBC workshop will provide me with ideas and support for the work we do in the Schoolyard Classroom Program.
I chose to apply to the Earthwatch fellowship because over the next five years I am developing a career portfolio that will help place me in a role where I can work with a team of educators to start an outdoor science campus for local public schools. I think the skills and contacts I will gain as an Earthwatch fellow will help me on this path. I hope that the HSBC Climate Partnership Stakeholder Workshop will give me new knowledge about the effects of climate change and new tools to evaluate the impact in my local area. I want to learn about the tools and techniques that scientists use, so that I can share them with the schools I work with.

In addition to my role as an educator, my personal role in becoming more sustainable and decreasing the impacts of climate change is to lead by example by maintaining a small household carbon footprint. I ride my bike and use public transportation to travel short distances, I make biodiesel fuel for our car to travel long distances, and I choose recreation activities that have little or no use of fossil fuels.

Kurt Riegel
Dr. Kurt Riegel is his second term as president of the Severn River Association (SRA), a federation of 57 community associations plus many individuals and other organizations working to preserve and restore the Severn River watershed.

His original professional background was as a physical scientist, with early research and teaching in astronomy and astrophysics with an emphasis on observations of our Galaxy at radio wavelengths. He later became a senior federal executive, with appointments in science/engineering/policy positions in the Department of the Navy, National Science Foundation (NSF), Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Energy. At the NSF he was head of the national astronomy centers, and at other federal agencies he led programs concentrating on environmental protection, environmental technology and energy efficiency.

In addition to his civic work with the SRA, he is an instructor in Environmental Compliance Management at the Johns Hopkins University, and a consultant in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies at the Antares Corporation.

Gary Stiewing

Ray Sullivan
I have always been interested in preserving and experiencing the environment. Since moving to the Annapolis area I have served as the community rep on growth issues which effect the environment and our quality of life. I have worked on oyster gardening, rain gardens, planting native plants and other like projects. I currently serve on the Hillsmere Community where we are working with the South River Federation and government organizations to install and living shoreline and do other stormwater projects to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

Jennifer Tabola
Jennifer H.F. Tabola works with nonprofit and socially responsible organizations to identify the resources and strategies needed to address critical public sector issues. From serving as the Director of Training and Education for the National Civilian Conservation Corps, to helping establish a statewide early literacy initiative in Minnesota, to coaching social entrepreneur grantees, Jennifer's career has bridged the nonprofit, government, and philanthropic sectors. Inspired by her passion for civic engagement, and her experience as a program officer during the start-up of AmeriCorps, Jennifer and her husband served with the United States Peace Corps in Quito, Ecuador, where she helped develop the country's first environmental youth service corps and collaborated with international and local NGOs to establish a community mobile clinic serving residents transitioning from subsistence agriculture to urban communities. Jennifer grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She earned a Bachelor's in Social Ecology, magna cum laude, from the University of California, Irvine, and served as an Executive Fellow focused on welfare to work policies within the Office of the Governor of California. She holds a Master's in Education from Harvard University, with a concentration in Administration, Planning and Social Policy. An ardent lover of the natural world, Jennifer serves on the Sierra Club's National Committee for Sustainable Consumption and Chairs the Outdoor Classroom of her sons' elementary school.

Danielle Williams
I was born and raised in Sacramento, California, spending my formative years on the banks of the American River, participating in “scavenger” hunts to pick up trash, or collecting soda cans for local fundraisers to take advantage of California’s consumer-deposit recycling program. That was where I was exposed to the rise and fall of the river, enjoyed observing crawdads on the clay banks, and realized that there is so much life on earth that we take for granted, and so many ecological processes and players that we don’t yet understand.

Nature has always come naturally to me, but I didn’t study it directly. I gravitated toward Political Science and Japanese, perhaps because I am very analytical and interested in public policy issues and the international realm. But regardless, my choice to study at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) was tied to my desire to maintain a connection with special natural places, so I spent time observing the bird and fish interactions around the lagoon, or looking at what was crawling around in the seaweed on the beach. At other times, I would drive several miles to explore the hiking trails of the Santa Ynez Mountains and gain a sweeping view of the microcosm of Santa Barbara and the coastline from a perch along the trail. All the while, I recognized that there is so much more to learn about the human impact on the environment and climate change. My experiences at Santa Barbara heightened my curiosity about the natural world and how people and businesses viewed themselves in it.

I graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Japanese from UCSB in 2002, after finishing my last quarter of college in Washington, DC as a student in the UCDC program. My UCDC experience included an internship with the National Geographic Society. As an intern, I researched sustainable tourism issues related to a new approach to tourism called “geotourism.” After my internship, I worked for two years with a Japanese foundation focused on US-East Asia relations, but was soon looking back to National Geographic to concentrate on my increasing interest in environmental issues, science and conservation. Climate change has been an underlying theme of many of National Geographic’s funded grant projects and subsequent stories and programs, thus I was attracted by the opportunity to participate in the HSBC Climate Change Stakeholder Fellowship as a way to further my understanding of how climate change is perceived and discussed across other organizations.

I applied to the HSBC Climate Change Stakeholder Fellowship program because I believe in National Geographic’s mission of increasing and diffusing geographic knowledge and inspiring people to care about the planet. The stakeholder workshop, with its fieldwork training, team-building exercises, and climate change discussions, will give me some of the tools necessary to contribute to our mission, particularly in my regular communication with scientists and explorers, media representatives, and through my participation on the Employee Practices subcommittee of our Green Initiative. I hope that the workshop will be an opportunity to share ideas and best practices as we all work to reduce our impact on climate change and make our organizations stronger environmental leaders in the community. Finally, as a stakeholder, I look forward to building upon the great professional contacts I will make to strengthen my long-term career goals of supporting conservation of our natural resources and managing their sustainable use for continued economic development.