From Springfield, Missouri, I graduated from Missouri State University(MSU) in 2008 with a degree in Biology and a minor in Mathematics.  During my time at MSU, I cofounded Students for a Sustainable Future, a student organization that seeks to raise awareness about climate change and the opportunities of sustainability.

After graduation, I worked two years for Holden Village, an off-the-grid retreat center in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington.  At Holden I was responsible for servicing and operating the 300 kW   hydroelectric power plant, running publicly regulated water treatment facility, maintaining the district heating system and occasionally driving a bus full of passengers down the snow-covered mountain switchback roads.  Working in this unique community was a fascinating learning opportunity which I credit for giving me an in-depth and practical understanding of renewable energy, clean water and energy conservation.   

In 2010, I worked as a BPI trained member of an Americorps weatherization team in Iowa, before moving to Hood River, Oregon in 2011 to work for a green builder there. I went back to Missouri in the summer of 2012 to help my uncle build his green home (www.rockspan.com) and recently returned to Portland, Oregon to work for a window craftsman as I pursue my MBA from Bainbridge Graduate Institute(BGI).

I decided to attend BGI because I want to apply my passion for sustainability in a organizational, non-profit or business setting. I believe that the skills, network and creativity embodied in the BGI learning community will afford the opportunities to do that.  Additionally, the spirit of BGI is one that values constructive creativity as its end goal.  In a society of pressing and grave problems,  I honor this credo of action which, not content to merely call these maladies to account,  also addresses these issues with creative and sustainable solutions.

My primary interest in sustainability involves our transition as a society to a post carbon world.  Though I believe that climate change is a compelling moral reason for such a shift,  I believe the primary impetus for such a change will be scarcity of cheap and available fossil fuels.

We need energy, and as human history has unfolded, the human species has seen a number of transitions in the predominant source of energy. Each transition, from wood, to peat, coal to oil, has marked a successive increase in usable energy, which has resulted in a corresponding rise in population and productivity.

For the first time in collective global history, however, we are faced the finitude of our energy resources.  Our appetites have outstripped the planet's capacity to provide.

Suddenly we are confronted with a world in which tomorrow, either by mandate or scarcity, we will have to live with less.

I do not want to romanticize what will be a difficult transition. My innate reaction to this problem is one of dread, as I envision a bleak and post-apocalyptic world, where like Mel Gibson in the 1980s film Mad Max, I am reduced to wearing animal skins, cage fighting and driving a car like the one I drove in high school.  A grim future indeed.

But perhaps Hollywood, with its dystopian visions does us a disservice.  What if living with less means we live more? Can we begin to imagine a future where finitude gives channel for creative solutions?  Can a world which energy is more expensive force us to live better? Or perhaps  encourage a more community-minded and interdependent populace.  Furthermore, what will  distributed nature of renewable energy do to equalize the power of nations?

If we are going to survive, and thrive in this transition, I believe it necessary to be creative, hopeful and alert.  We must enter this new world with our eyes open, aware of its perils and promises, and to be storytellers that can create a compelling vision of tomorrow.