Cara Robechek is the Executive Director of the Vermont Energy Education Program, whose mission is to build a deep understanding of energy through education, encouraging choices that result in sustainability in our communities, economy and environment. Cara has been with VEEP since 2014. Cara has worked in nonprofit development and management at the Center for While Communities in Waitsfield, served on the board of Planting Hope, as an elected Parks Commissioner for the City of Montpelier, and as a member of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. She has a BA in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College, and an MS in Renewable Natural Resources and Development form the University of East Anglia. She lives in Montpelier with her husband and two children.

Skyler Perkins currently works in Washington DC as Project Manager for the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy. He joined that organization in June, 2018, following his completion of his Masters program in Community Development and Applied Economics from the University of Vermont. Skyler also received a certificate in Ecological Economics from the Gund Institute at UVM. Skyler’s research focused on ecological economics and sustainable food systems.

Libby is the Montpelier / Roxbury School District’s superintendent. Prior to that, she was Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Franklin Northwest Supervisory Union. She also has experience as a consultant, adjunct professor, teacher development coordinator, co-principal, principal, and teacher. She holds master’s degrees from Michigan State University and Columbia University’s Teachers College and a bachelor’s degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She resides in Jericho with her family.

Michele Braun is the Executive Director of the Friends of the Winooski River. Michele has a Master of Science in Natural Resources Planning from the University of Vermont. She has worked as an environmental policy analyst, responsible for managing projects, designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder meetings and workshops for city and state governments, US EPA, watershed organizations, environmental health associations, and multi-partner collaborative environmental planning projects.

Tom is an award-winning high school teacher, leading sustainability educator, prominent local food activist, and most recently the founding executive director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. He is a chief architect of a model of service learning that integrates curriculum through a school greenhouse and gardens that provide food for the school system’s lunch program, using soil derived from the cafeteria food scraps.

David Zuckerman is the co-founder of Full Moon Farm, a NOFA-certified organic farm in Hinesburg, Vermont. Inspired by then Congressman Bernie Sanders, David first ran for the Vermont House in 1994 while enrolled at the University of Vermont. David served for fourteen years (1997-2010) in the Vermont House of Representatives. David served in the Vermont Senate as a Progressive/Democrat since his election in 2012. In 2016, David was elected as the 80th Lt. Governor of Vermont.

William Alexander writes fantasy, science fiction, and other unrealisms for young readers. His novels include Goblin Secrets, Ghoulish Song, Ambassador and Nomad. His latest novels are the companion set A Properly Unhaunted Place and A Festival of Ghosts. He currently serves as the faculty chair of the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Jim Birmingham is the Food Service Director of the Montpelier Roxbury School District. He is a graduate of Johnson State College and attended culinary school at Le Cordon Blue, London, UK. He is an American Culinary Federation Certified Executive Chef who spent several years working in resort hotel kitchens around Stowe, VT and more than a decade as a Chef Instructor at New England Culinary Institute in Essex and Montpelier. Jim lives in Waterbury with his wife and two teenage sons. He enjoys gardening, hiking and is an avid alpine and backcountry skier.

Walt Poleman is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Ecological Planning Program at the University of Vermont. He specializes in natural history, place-based landscape analysis, and education for sustainability. He teaches courses in natural history and human ecology, landscape inventory and assessment, and conservation science.

Ryan Geary is the owner the of The Hive, and co-owner of Rabble-Rouser. He works in a variety of mediums and disciplines, including wood carving, furniture making and painting, but his preferred art form and main focus over the past 5 years has been 2D and 3D collage.