1Sky Staff [1] | 1Sky Board of Directors [2] | Consultants [4]

In Formation, in alphabetical order

Jessica Bailey, Secretary of the Board of Directors, is the Program Officer for the Rockefeller Brother Fund's global and domestic Sustainable Development program, where she focuses on climate change. She also directs a newly launched cross-programmatic initiative on energy, which explores the security and sustainability dimensions of the United States' energy policies. She joined the RBF as Special Assistant to the President, a position that involved her in all aspects of the Fund's operations. Prior to joining the RBF, she completed her master's degree in International Relations from Yale University, where she concentrated on International Security Strategy primarily focusing on issues of U.S. foreign policy. Before attending graduate school, she was awarded the Herbert Scoville, Jr. Peace Fellowship to work in the Nuclear/Security Program of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Ms. Bailey interned in the Developing Policy Planning Office of the United Nations in 2003 and conducted a research project on the border of Colombia and Ecuador in 2001. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Bracken Hendricks is a Senior Fellow with American Progress where he works on issues of climate change and energy independence, environmental protection, infrastructure investment, and economic policy, with a focus on broadening progressive constituencies and message framing. Hendricks served in the Clinton Administration as a Special Assistant to the Office of Vice President Al Gore and with the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he worked on the Interagency Climate Change Working Group, the President's Council on Sustainable Development, and the White House Livable Communities Task Force on issues of public safety, electronic government, oceans policy, trade and the environment, and smart growth. Hendricks was the founding Executive Director and is currently a National Steering Committee member of the Apollo Alliance for good jobs and energy independence, a coalition of labor, environmental, business and community leaders dedicated to changing the politics of energy independence. Hendricks served as a Consultant to the Office of the President of the AFL-CIO and as an Economic Analyst with the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute. He has been a member of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's Energy Advisory Task Force, the Cornell University Eco-Industrial Round Table, and the Energy Future Coalition. He is also a philanthropic advisor to the Wallace Global Fund on matters of Civic Engagement and Democratic Participation. Hendricks serves on the board of Green HOME, a Washington DC based non-profit promoting green building in affordable housing and has worked on political campaigns in the private sector. Hendricks is widely published on economic development, climate and energy policy, national security, and progressive political strategy. Bracken received his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts with a Minor in Sociology from Mary Baldwin College, and holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy and Urban Planning from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Van Jones, Interim Treasurer of the Board of Directors, is working to combine solutions to America’s two biggest problems: social inequality and environmental destruction. In 1996, Van and Diana Frappier co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which is now headquartered in Oakland, California. Named for an unsung civil rights heroine, the Center promotes positive alternatives to violence and incarceration. In 2003, the Center’s “Books Not Bars” campaign helped block the construction of a costly and controversial “Super-Jail For Youth” near Oakland. Since that victory, Books Not Bars has helped reduce California’s overall youth prison population by more than 30 percent. As an advocate for the toughest urban constituencies and causes, Van has won many honors. These include the 1998 Reebok International Human Rights Award, the international Ashoka Fellowship, selection as a World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader," and the Rockefeller Foundation “Next Generation Leadership" Fellowship. Over the past five years, Van has also emerged as a national environmental leader. In recent years, he has served on the boards of the National Apollo Alliance, Social Venture Network, Rainforest Action Network, Bioneers and Julia Butterfly Hill’s “Circle of Life” organization. In 2005, Van produced the “Social Equity Track” for the United Nations’ World Environment Day celebration. UNWED 2005 drew dozens of mayors from around the world to San Francisco, where they developed policies promoting the concept of “Green Cities."

Van’s dual roles have given him a unique perspective on the country’s problems and its potential solutions. Under the slogan “green jobs, not jails,” Van Jones today is calling for green economic development in urban America. Van’s visionary efforts are already meeting with practical success. In June 2007, the City of Oakland adopted a proposal from the Ella Baker Center and the Oakland Apollo Alliance to create a “Green Jobs Corps.” The Corps will train youth for eco-friendly “green-collar jobs.” Now the Center is working with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) to create the country’s first-ever Green Enterprise Zone, to attract environmentally sound industry to Oakland. At the national level, Van and the Ella Baker Center helped to pass the Green Jobs Act of 2007, as Title 1 of the U.S. House energy package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) championed the bill. When signed and authorized, this path-breaking, historic legislation will provide $125 million in funding to train 35,000 people a year in “green-collar jobs.”

Van is also a founder of a new national coalition that is promoting the idea of a national “Clean Energy Jobs Corps.” He is also the founding president of Green For All, a national campaign partnering with 1Sky to promote green-collar jobs and opportunities. A 1993 Yale Law graduate, Van is also a husband and father.

Bill McKibben, scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is an American environmentalist and writer. He is the author of eight books, including The End of Nature (1989), the first book for a general audience about global warming, and, most recently, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007), which addresses what the he sees as shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise. He is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including Grist Magazine, where he also serves as a board member.

Beginning in the summer of 2006, he helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont to demand action on global warming which some called the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. Beginning in January 2007 he founded Step It Up 2007 to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With the help of six college students, he organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across all 50 states of America and gained the support of environmental, student and religious groups. Step It Up 2007 has been described as the largest day of protest about climate change in the nation's history. A guide to help people initiate environmental activism in their community coming out of the Step It Up 2007 experience entitled Fight Global Warming Now will be published in October 2007.

Bill has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He has honorary degrees from Green Mountain College, Unity College, Lebanon Valley College and Sterling College.

Billy Parish dropped out of Yale in 2002 to help build a youth movement for climate solutions. As Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Energy Action Coalition for four years, Billy brought together over 50 diverse, youth-led organizations into a joint campaign to catalyze the transition to a clean energy economy called The Campus Climate Challenge. One of the lead architects of the Clean Energy Corps program to create 5 million new green jobs, Billy now works with Green for All, 1Sky and Black Mesa Water Coalition on advocacy for green job creation. Billy was a 2004 Brower Youth Award Winner, 2005 Rolling Stone magazine "Climate Hero," Mother Jones magazine's 2006 "Student Activist of the Year," and was named a "Fellow" by Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Born in New York City, Billy now lives in Flagstaff, AZ with his wife, Wahleah Johns, and their daughter, Tohaana.

James Gustave (“Gus”) Speth is the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr., Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy. B.A., Yale University; M.Litt., Oxford University; J.D., Yale University. Dean Speth assumed his current position in 1999. From 1993 to 1999, Dean Speth served as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chair of the UN Development Group. Prior to his service at the UN, he was founder and president of the World Resources Institute; professor of law at Georgetown University; chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality; and senior attorney and cofounder, Natural Resources Defense Council. Throughout his career, Dean Speth has provided leadership and entrepreneurial initiatives to many task forces and committees whose roles have been to combat environmental degradation, including the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment. Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America’s Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Blue Planet Prize. He holds honorary degrees from Clark University, the College of the Atlantic, the Vermont Law School, and Middlebury College. Publications include Global Environmental Governance, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment and articles in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Environmental Science and Technology, the Columbia Journal World of Business, and other journals and books. Dean Speth currently serves on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council, World Resources Institute, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Population Action International, and the Center for Humans and Nature.

Betsy Taylor is a co-founder and President of the Board of Directors of the 1Sky Education Fund. During 2006 and 2007 she worked as an advisor to the Energy Foundation, Garrison Institute, Quixote Foundation, and several philanthropists concerned about climate change. From 1998 until early 2006, Betsy served as founder and President of the Center for a New American Dream, where she grew this sustainability group to a staff of twenty-five and a grassroots base of 100,000 citizens. In this capacity she helped convene two White House bipartisan conferences on institutional procurement. These gatherings resulted in the launch of the Responsible Purchasing Network, an association of federal agencies, cities, states, companies and public institutions that spend billions of dollars on goods produced with sustainable and socially responsible criteria. Prior to founding the Center, Ms. Taylor spent twenty years as a leader in the philanthropic and non-profit sector. She helped found the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a group of over 350 foundations and donors, and served as its Vice-President. In her role as executive director of the Stern Fund, Ottinger Foundation and later the Merck Family Fund, Betsy played a leadership role in supporting successful campaigns to promote energy conservation, community building and economic justice. Earlier in her career she served as lobbyist, PAC deputy director and international representative for the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in the early to mid-80s. More recently, Betsy helped launch the Iraq Peace Fund – a coordinated philanthropic response to the threatened invasion of Iraq that was the primary funding vehicle for pre and post-war advocacy for peaceful conflict resolution. In early 2003, she helped convene forty progressive leaders who together launched the National Voice – a short-term effort to maximize progressive non-partisan voter registration and participation in the 2004 elections. She is the author of three books, appears frequently in the national media, and is on the board of the Center for a New American Dream, CERES, Town Creek Foundation, Ottinger Foundation and the Garrison Institute. She has an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA in psychology from Duke University. She is a member of Adelphi Friends Meeting and is married with two children in Takoma Park, Maryland.