On this episode, I speak with Judith Enck, who is currently the Senior Advisor at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and visiting faculty at Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action. Judith began her work as an environmental activist when she was a student at State Rose College and her concern and work on environmental issues has continued to this day. In 2009, she was appointed Regional Administrator of Region 2 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by President Barack Obama. She stepped down from her EPA position on January 20, 2017. 

She is an esteemed environmentalist with roots in activism and in civil service. Her passion and determination to fight for those most affected by pollutants guides all of her work including teaching courses in CAPA at Bennington College, sharing her wealth of knowledge with the next generation fighting for climate justice.

Judith Enck

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On this episode, I speak with Lauren Ruffin, who is Vice President of External Relations for Fractured Atlas, a national organization which empowers artists by eliminating practical barriers to artistic expression.

This past fall, she spearheaded the Artist’s Campaign School - an intensive training for artists to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to run for political office andwin.

Prior to joining the team at Fractured Atlas, Lauren served as Director of Development for DC-based organizations Martha’s Table and the National Center for Children and Families. She has also served in various roles at and various positions at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Children’s Defense Fund, New Leaders, and AAUW. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Lauren held the position of Assistant Director of Government Affairs for Gray Global Advisors, a bipartisan government relations firm. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.

Fractured Atlas

Artists Campaign School

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On this episode Robert spoke with Mary Powell, Chief Executive Officer of Green Mountain Power in Vermont via Skype. Mary grew up in New York City with two parents who were artists and attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. After working for America’s first money market fund in New York City as the operations manager, she decided to move to Vermont for quality of life issues. In 1998 she accepted an offer to work at Green Mountain Power and in 2008, she stepped into the Chief Executive role.

Since that time, Mary has transformed the company into what she has called an un-utility, introducing innovative products and services that help customers reduce costs, along with their carbon output. Under her leadership, Green Mountain Power has more than doubled its size and became the first utility in the world to attain Benefit Corporation status--embedding into the companies structure the belief that energy can be a force for good.

In 2014, Mary was recognized by Powergen as the Woman of the Year, in 2015 The Burlington Free Press named her Vermonter of the Year, in 2016 Fast Company named Mary one of the 100 most creative people in business, and in 2017, Mary was named one of the top 25 Most Influential Women of the Mid-Market by CEO Connection.

Green Mountain Power

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CreateNow team members Chloe Shelford and Anna Saldinger spoke with multi-disciplinary artist Cannupa Hanksa Luger last fall, when he was at Bennington College as part of the Visual Arts Lecture Series. Cannupa was born in North Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation and his work engages deeply with environmental issues and complex Indigenous identities coming up against 21st century challenges.

Cannupa is a storyteller and he uses many media including ceramics, steel, fiber, sound, and video, along with other less traditional recycled materials for his work.

During the Standing Rock Protests, Cannupa launched The Mirror Shield Project, which invited members of the public to create lightweight mirror shields for water protectors, to great success. 

Cannupa Hanska Luger works from New Mexico and has work in the permanent collections of The North America Native Museum Zürich,Switzerland; The Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Santa Fe, NM; and The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Norman, OK. 

Cannupa's website. 

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Robert spoke with John at the first Regenerative Futures Summitin Boulder Colorado about his work at the Capital Institute. John founded the organization in 2010 to explore and affect the economic transition to a more just, regenerative, and thus sustainable way of living on this earth through the transformation of finance. He is the author of “Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape the New Economy.” 

Previously, John was a managing director of JPMorgan where he worked for 18 years overseeing various capital markets and derivatives business around the globe. After the merger with Chase Manhattan and witnessing 9/11 first hand, John retired from the bank in 2001.

Producer: Anna Saldinger

Engineer: Rohan Edwards

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On this episode, Robert spoke with Ben Hall, a Bennington College alum who received the 2017 Elizabeth Coleman Visionary Leadership Award this past fall for his work as co-owner of Russell Street Deli in Detroit, Michigan. Ben and his business partner Jason Murphey started as dishwashers there in the 1990s, and bought the deli in the early two thousands. They’ve recently expanded their business to include making organic soups with no preservatives which are currently available in select Whole Foods stores and on the menus of detroit’s public schools.

Their commitment to integrity, high wages, good employee benefits, and sustainability have put them on the map as exemplars of how ethical and responsible businesses practices can positively impact local communities.

Ben Hall is also a sculptor and composer who creates installations incorporating durational performances, existing objects and indeterminacy. His practice includes curating Baptizum.com, the world’s largest online Black American spiritual collection. Hall also produces new American improvisation on his LP label brokenresearch, including the last small group recordings of visionary trumpeter and composer Bill Dixon. Hall has written for The Wire and BOMB and has performed at INSTAL in Glasgow, Scotland; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; and kunstenentrum BELGIE in Belgium.

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Robert spoke with artist Stephanie Dinkins this fall about her work creating platforms for ongoing dialog about artificial intelligence as it intersects race, gender, aging and our future histories. She is particularly driven to work with communities of color to develop deep-rooted AI literacy and co-create a more culturally inclusive and equitable artificial intelligence.

Recently, Stephanie has been talking to Bina48, a sophisticated social robot. We talked about Bina and Stephanie’s other projects when she visited campus in October as part of the Bennington College Visual Arts Lecture Series.

Learn more about Stephanie's work at her website.

Producer: Chloe Shelford

Audio Engineer: Rohan Edwards (with additional support from Dylan O’Hara)

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Robert spoke with Kate Raworth at the first Regenerative Futures Summit in Boulder Colorado about her book Doughnut Economic: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. 

They also discussed the power of images, her upbringing in a home with a photographer father, jazz singing and how she collaborated with animators to communicate her economic ideas.

Kate trained at Oxford University as an economist, before leaving the discipline in the 1990’s to work supporting small business owners in Zanzibar, co-authoring the Human Development Report for the UN and researching for Oxfam. Most recently, Kate returned to economics to explore the mindset needed to address some of the most challenging social and ecological problems of the 21st century.

Producer: Chloe Shelford

Engineer: Rohan Edwards

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Ruby Lerner, Founding Executive Director, Creative Capital

Robert spoke with Ruby Lerner at Bennington’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action this fall about the trailblazing organization she founded in 1999, Creative Capital. Bringing a venture capital model of support to artists, Creative Capital provides long-term financial support and training for artists in order to help them realize their visions and build sustainable practices.

Ruby stepped down from her role at Creative Capital in 2016, and has since been working in consultation with many art schools and organizations, along with serving on a variety of advisory groups and boards of directors.

Producer: Anna Saldinger

Audio Engineer: Rohan Edwards

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Donna Morton, CEO of Change Finance

This past May, Robert spoke with Donna Morton at the first Regenerative Futures Summit in Boulder Colorado about her background in the performing arts and how this foundation informs all of her work.

After many years working as an activist in the environmental movement, Donna decided to shift her approach from one centered on resistance to one that is generative and focused on creating the conditions that give rise to a more equitable, fair, and just future.

Most recently, Donna has turned her attention to the world of finance as a place to confront the status quo and work towards creating an economy in service to life through financial activism. At Change Finance, her team is building accessible products that promote ethical investing. Their first product, an entirely fossil fuel free exchange-traded fund, has recently become available on the New York Stock exchange.

Donna and the Change Finance team will be ringing the stock exchange bell this Tuesday, November 7th, 2017 in New York.

Producer: Dylan O’Hara

Engineer: Anna Saldinger

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