Billy Parish, Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Energy Action Coalition, has brought together over 40 diverse, youth-led organizations into a joint campaign to catalyze the transition to a clean energy economy called The Campus Climate Challenge. 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 recently named a "Fellow" by Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. A co-author of the report "New Energy for Campuses," a guide for colleges and universities on how to cost-effectively cut their greenhouse gas emissions, Bill works to train students and equip them with the tools they need to implement local climate solutions. Billy has taken four years off from Yale, where he was co-chair of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition and was majoring in Ethics, Politics & Economics. Born in New York City, Billy now lives in Flagstaff, AZ.
Jessy Tolkan - Campaigns Director
Jessy is a rock star of youth voting and empowerment. At UW-Madison she worked to organize student vote coalitions in 2000 and 2002, helping to elect Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin to office, and engaging students in local politics through her own bid for the Madison City Council at age 19. After graduation, Jessy worked as the Wisconsin State Director for the New Voters Project, helping to produce one of the highest youth voter turnout rates in the country. She is coordinating Energy Action Coalition's organizing efforts to make Power Shift the best conference yet of the new century and the coolest gathering of young people working for change anywhere.
Kassie Rohrbach - Operations Director
Kassie is one of the co-founders of the Energy Action Coalition. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2003, where she led a student campaign to purchase renewable energy. Today, the college purchases 100% of the campus' electricity from Green-e certified wind power. Prior to joining EAC's central staff, Kassie spent three years at the Center for Resource Solutions working on the Green-e Renewable Energy Certification Program. She's helping spearhead the Power Shift effort to help the youth movement grow and take the lead on transforming our world.
Josh Lynch - Partnerships & Alliances DirectorJosh is Partnerships and Alliances Director for and co-founder of Energy Action Coalition where he works to cultivate relationships with under-represented populations in order to build a powerful and diverse youth network for a clean energy future. He first began work on the issue of global warming at a United Nations Climate Meetings in the Hague, Netherlands in 2000, when Josh and over 200 students from the United States and Africa lobbied international delegates to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and keep nuclear power subsidies out of the treaty. He has been organizing clean energy campaigns on college campuses since 2003. In 2005, in his role as national student organizer with Greenpeace USA, he led a successful campaign to pass a comprehensive green building and clean energy policy at California State University, the world's largest university system. A 2002 graduate in Philosophy from the College of Wooster in Ohio, he now lives and works in San Francisco.
Ragini Kapadia - Field Director
Ragini Kapadia is currently the Field Director for the Energy Action Coalition. Before joining Energy Action, she was the Program Coordinator for the Apollo Alliance, a broad and diverse coalition boldly working to create over three million good new jobs and make our nation energy independent in ten years. She has academic and organizing expertise within the anti-SUV movement, and has previously managed public campaigns to address the economic, social, and environmental impacts of adverse trends within the auto industry through political organizing and strategic communications. Ragini is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a B.A. in the College of Social Studies.
Arthur Coulston - Digital Organizer
Arthur is the Digital Organizer for Energy Action Coalition and the Campus Climate Challenge. Arthur got his start in organizing at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he worked with the California Student Sustainability Coalition and Greenpeace to push forward an ambitious statewide renewable energy policy. In addition to making sure this website doesn't break, Arthur handles much of the technical and communications needs for Power Shift, and is psyched to be on the team organizing such an awesome gathering of youth from around the country.
Aleli Gapero - Operations Assistant
Aleli is the Operations Assistant for Energy Action Coalition. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a major in Sociology and a minor in History. While attending UCSD, she became passionate about social justice and environmental issues and participated in several research projects. Aleli is bringing her range of humanitarian and justice skills to Power Shift in addition to helping coordinate the Power Shift website and supporting EAC. Aleli looks forward to meeting all the amazing young people in the forefront of the environmental movement and watching them rock on.
Shadia Fayne Wood - Training & ScholarshipsShadia began at age seven as an advocate for justice and the environment, in an eight-year campaign to pass state legislation to take responsibility and act against the cancer clusters and deaths in her community. In recognition of her efforts, she received the Yoshiyama Award from the Hitachi Foundation and the Brower Youth Award from the Earth Island Institute. She has attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development to help create the Official Global Youth Energy Policy Statement, and the Second National People of Color Summit, where she helped create the Environmental Justice Youth Platform. She is a member of the Environmental Justice Climate Coalition Youth Committee and is on the Kids Against Pollution National Board of Trustees. Shadia graduated from West Canada Valley High School and has worked for the last two years as a leader of the youth climate movement.
Sam Karlin - Logistics
Sam is from the beautiful state of West Virginia, where he developed a deep connection to the environment and the need for more sustainable practices. A recent graduate of Brandeis University, he majored in Sociology and has worked for numerous social justice and community projects. A love of travel has kept him on the move, and before his current work at Energy Action Coalition, he spent the spring in Nicaragua working as part of a sustainable micro lending building and education project, La Esperanza Granada. Sam wants everyone who can come to Power Shift to have a ride and a bed and is working hard to make this a conference and a weekend to remember.
Whit Jones - Sponsors / Career Fair Coordinator
Whit recently graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he majored in International Relations and minored in Political Economy and Environmental Studies. While on campus, he and his friends worked to make Carleton carbon neutral by designing a Sustainability Revolving Fund, studying the feasibility of bringing new wind turbines to campus, and participating in Minnesota Campus Wars. He spent his summer organizing the March to ReEnergize Iowa, and is currently preparing for upcoming international climate negotiations in Bali as the Partnerships Coordinator for SustainUS.
Peter is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a recent graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. There, he participated in Midd's stellar student climate campaign known as Sunday Night Group, filming a 20-minute video of the 2005 World Climate Summit in Montreal, engaging the College administration on socially responsible investment practices, co-organizing to make Middlebury carbon neutral, and more. After graduation, he interned for a year at The Orion Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and acted as website coordinator for the Marches to ReEnergize Iowa and New Hampshire before joining the Energy Action Coalition staff in Washington, DC to organize Power Shift. Peter is excited to be part of the youth movement for change and looks forward to making DC his new home.