Joel Brence — Since 1987 Brence has lectured extensively around the world. He is a doctor of Psychiatry, and holds a diploma in Roman Catholic Theology from the University of Tuebingen. Brence served as the Chair of the Psychiatric Department at St. Joseph Hospital in Lorain, Ohio. He as worked in private practice in Aspen since 1987. He presented the keynote address for the conference on suicide and addiction presented by the Aspen Valley Medical Foundation in 2005. The lecture was entitled The Divided Self: Crisis in Paradise. He also delivered a speech at the same conference Living Courageously in an Age of Anxiety. His work is well-published.

Mark Chase — Mr. Chase is the director of Business Development for GoLoco. He has over ten years of Transportation planning experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Prior to his work with GoLoco, Mark consulted for Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates where he specializes in parking and multi modal transportation planning. Mark also serves on the board of the Livable Streets Alliance, a non-profit advocacy organization in Cambridge Massachusetts. Livable Streets encourages citizens and their governments to demand a balanced transportation system that includes transit, walking, biking and driving in the context of excellent urban design. Mark's employment experience includes helping to launch the car-sharing service Zipcar, running two non-profit advocacy organizations and undertaking regional transportation planning initiatives for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Boston's regional planning agency. As Director of Business Development at Zipcar, Mark worked with state, local and regional governments to design public policies to encourage what was at the time a completely new transportation option. Furthermore Mark designed and set up car-sharing programs at over two dozen universities and hospitals in the Northeast corridor. As Director of the Seaport Transportation Management Association Mark worked with Fidelity Investments and Gillette to realize cost savings through programs that reduced parking demand and improved shuttle service efficiency. Leading the non-profit group, the Alliance for Transportation Choice, Mark helped to design and implement bicycle lanes in Portland Maine. Mark holds an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern Maine.

Elaine Clegg — Ms. Clegg was elected to the Boise City Council in November 2003 and became Council President in January 2007. Clegg has been active in local government in the Treasure Valley for nearly twenty years. She has been Idaho Smart Growth Co-Executive Director since May 1998. An Idaho native, Clegg became active in growth management issues by serving her neighborhood association as a board member and president. Elaine was a leader in the Treasure Valley Futures project which quantified recent growth trends in the Treasure Valley and offered strategies to better manage that growth. The project won a national award for planning excellence. Recently she has been working with a coalition of Idaho organizations to ensure that the reauthorization of our federal transportation law, TEA-21, reflects Idaho interests. Clegg and her husband Brett have five children and one son-in-law. A graduate of Boise's Capital High School, she also has a bachelor's degree in General Art from Boise State University and is a professional graphic designer. Elaine has served on the board of directors of several local, state and national non-profit organizations. Clegg has volunteered as a Girl Scout leader and school Art Parent, and continues to enjoy coaching youth sports.

Tim Davis — Mr. Davis, the Montana Smart Growth Coalition's Director since 2000, grew up in Lander, Wyoming. He has worked on smart growth, community development, and environmental issues for more than a decade including as an organizer with Northern Plains Resource Council, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, director of the Greater Seattle YMCA Earth Service Corps, and with several other community development and environmental organizations in Seattle. He has published several groundbreaking studies on land use planning and transportation reform as well as having written more than a dozen articles and commentaries on conservation, zoning, economic development, and transportation in Montana. He has also assisted in and worked on the development and passage of many of the growth policies, most of the land use and planning legislation, and a wide variety of the cutting edge land use regulations adopted throughout Montana since 2000.

Earl Fisher, Brett Fisher and Logan Fisher — Earl Fisher BioFuels LLP., is a partnership between Brett Earl and Logan Fisher. Brett and Logan are both forth generation Montana farmers. They are concerned about the agriculture economy, but hopeful for their small communities and state. Brett and Logan have education and experience in: production agriculture, chemical engineering, sales, marketing, finance and management and have set out to use these skills for the betterment of their community in and around Chester. The mission at Earl Fisher BioFuels is to create economic growth and employment opportunities by building a biodiesel production facility. This will in turn create a self sustaining industry by creating a market for oilseed crops that can be grown locally, converted to fuel locally, and consumed locally. Their long term plan is to duplicate the process in other small communities throughout the state, making the Chester facility the benchmark and training facility for all future locations. Their production facility will produce 100,000 gallons the first year, but depending on market demand could produce up to 275,000 gallons .The final production goal for this location will be 1,000,000 gallons per year. They have acquired and installed biodiesel production and storage equipment and are in the process of acquiring oilseed crushing equipment which will be installed in Summer/Fall of 2007. Earl and Fisher are committed to producing a high quality, ASTM-6751 certified B100 to be used as a blending stock. In order to ensure quality control of their product they have just finished installation of an in house lab were Brett Earl (chemical engineer) will formulate and test fuel as well as conduct research and development trials of new products.

Gloria Flora — In her 22-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, Gloria Flora became nationally known both for her leadership in ecosystem management and for her courageous principled stands. When she was in charge of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in north-central Montana, she made a landmark decision to prohibit natural gas wells along the spectacular 356,000-acre Rocky Mountain Front near the Bob Marshall Wilderness, a place often described as an American Serengeti for its abundant populations of elk, deer, grizzly bears, and fish-filled streams. The oil and gas industry appealed to the Supreme Court, but she was ultimately victorious when, on the same day the story of her struggle was being televised nationally on PBS' "NOW with Bill Moyers," the Department of Interior announced a decision reached "at the highest levels" not to approve drilling along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. For her courageous stewardship of public lands, she received the Murie Award from the Wilderness Society, the Environmental Quality Award for exemplary resource decision-making from the Natural Resources Council of America, and the Environmental Hero Award from Sunset Magazine. In 2004, she was selected as one of the nation's top environmentalists by Vanity Fair Magazine. Today Flora is the Director of Sustainable Obtainable Solutions, a nonprofit dedicated to the sustainability of public lands and of the plants, animals and communities that depend on them.

Todd Graham — Todd Graham is the President of Aeroscene Land Logic, a Montana-based firm providing ranch management, grazing planning, and rangeland health monitoring services to landowners and livestock producers. Born and raised in Wyoming, he obtained a degree in rangeland science from the University of Wyoming and has been focusing on management of land ever since. He managed two ranches with partners in central Wyoming for improvement of land health and wildlife habitat. Simultaneously, he provided ranch management consulting services to landowners on roughly 2.5 million acres in Northern Rockies states. Graham is past manager of the Sun Ranch, a 25,000-acre operation in Montana's Madison Valley that strives to run its livestock in concert with growing populations of wildlife and large carnivores. He is actively involved with the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group's Wildlife Working Committee that helps landowners, hunters, and the community deal with complex wildlife-related issues. He currently serves as board chair to the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a 12,000-member conservation organization based in Bozeman, MT.

Ralph Grossi — Since August 1985, Ralph E. Grossi has served as president of American Farmland Trust (AFT), a national nonprofit organization working to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. During his tenure, AFT has become the leading national non-profit organization focused on farmland protection. Grossi, a third-generation Marin County, Calif. farmer, graduated from California Polytechnic State University in 1971, and since then has been managing partner of Marindale Ranch, a family partnership that has been in the dairy and beef business for more than eighty years, spanning four generations. He holds a number of national awards in his field, including the 1976 Outstanding Young Farmer and Rancher of the California Farm Bureau Federation, the 1985 Feinstone Environmental Award and the 2002 Man of the Year in Service to Agriculture presented by Progressive Farmer magazine. Grossi was a co-founder and chairman of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, which protects Marin County, Calif. agricultural land by acquisition of conservation easements. From 1979 to 1981, he served as president of Marin County Farm.

Fritz Haeg — Fritz Haeg - Like a system of crop rotation, Fritz Haeg works between his architecture & design practice at the Fritz Haeg Studio, the happenings & gatherings of Sundown Salon, the ecology initiatives of Gardenlab. Each initiative is a direct response to an observed need. Collectively they seek to support innovative art and design, cultivate and nurture communities, improve the natural-human environment. Born in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 1969. He studied architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and Carnegie Mellon University, where he received his B.Architecture in 1992. He has been a faculty member in the furniture and product design department at Parsons School of Design in New York, the U.S.C. School of Architecture and the environmental design department at Art Center College of Design. Since establishing Fritz Haeg Studio in 1995 in New York City and later moving the practice to Los Angeles in 1999, a wide range of his architectural, landscape and design projects have been realized. Recent projects include Soon to begin construction are a retreat for a surfer in Costa Rica, a new residence for an extended family in the foothills of Altadena and a pair of climate responsive weekend residences in the high desert of Joshua Tree, CA, among others.

Daniel Kemmis — Daniel Kemmis is a senior fellow at The University of Montana's Center for the Rocky Mountain West. A past director of the Center, Mr. Kemmis was formerly Mayor of Missoula, Montana, and a former Speaker and Minority Leader of the Montana House of Representatives. Mr. Kemmis is the author of 3 books: Community and The Politics of Place; The Good City and the Good Life; and This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West. He was recognized by the Utne Reader in 1995 as one of its "100 Visionaries." In 1997, President Clinton awarded Mr. Kemmis the Charles Frankel Prize for outstanding contribution to the field of the humanities. Also in 1997, he was the recipient of the Society for Conservation Biology's Distinguished Achievement Award for Social, Economic and Political work. In 1998, the Center of the American West awarded him the Wallace Stegner Prize for sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West. In the fall of 1998 he was awarded a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.

Wes Jackson — Jackson, President of The Land Institute was born in 1936 on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. Dr. Jackson's writings include, Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place, and Becoming Native to This Place, and New Roots for Agriculture, and many others.
The work of The Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Life magazine named Wes Jackson as one of 18 individuals they predict will be among the 100 "important Americans of the 20th century." In the November 2005 issue, Smithsonian named him one of "35 Who Made a Difference." He is a recipient of the Pew Conservation Scholars award (1990), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), and Right Livelihood Award, known as "Alternative Nobel Prize" (2000).

Jaime Lerner — Lerner was trained as an architect and urban planner. He was elected as the mayor of Curitba, Brazil for three terms, and enjoyed a 90% approval rating. Under his leadership, Curitiba developed into a city of worldwide renown for sustainability. During his first term as Mayor, Lerner consolidated the city's urban transportation system and implemented the Integrated Mass Transit System — studied internationally for its efficiency and efficacy. Elected Governor of the state of Parana in 1994 and reelected in 1998, Lerner promoted the greatest economic and social transformation in history. He is a United Nations consultant on urban issues.

David Orr — David W. Orr was born in Des Moines, Iowa and was raised in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. from Westminster College (1965), a M.A. from Michigan State University (1966), and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania (1973). He and his wife have two sons and two grandchildren. David Orr is currently Professor and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College.He is perhaps best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and his recent work in ecological design. He raised funds for and spearheaded the effort to design and build a $7.2 million Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin College, a building described by the New York Times as "the most remarkable" of a new generation of college buildings and selected as one of 30 "milestone buildings" in the 20th century by the U.S. Department of Energy. He was awarded a Bioneers Award in 2002, a National Conservation Achievement Award by the National Wildlife Federation in 1993, a Lyndhurst Prize in 1992 awarded by the Lyndhurst Foundation "to recognize the educational, cultural, and charitable activities of particular individuals of exceptional talent, character, and moral vision," the Benton Box Award from Clemson University for his work in Environmental Education (1995). He holds three Honorary Doctorates and has been a distinguished scholar in residence at Ball State University (1995) and Westminster College in Salt Lake City (1996). In a special citation, the Connecticut General Assembly noted Orr's "vision, dedication, and personal passion" in promoting the principles of sustainability. The Cleveland Plain Dealer described him as "one of those who will shape our lives".

Jay Schaffer — Jay Shafer is a designer specializing in sustainable architecture and urban planning. He has lectured extensively on these subjects for such venues as the Eco-Dwelling program at New College, the Boston Architectural Center and the University of Iowa's School of Art and Art History, where he served as Adjunct Assistant Professor for more than a decade. Jay's designs and essays have appeared in a number of periodicals and books including "Fine Homebuilding", "The Wall Street Journal" and "This Old House". Awards include selection for the American Institute of Architect's 2005 Sustainable Design Symposium (Dee Williams, collaborator), and Natural Home's Home of the Year Award for Innovative Design in 2000. He currently lives in a one hundred square-foot home of his own creation in Sebastopol, California.

 Katrin Scholz-Barth — Scholz-Barth is a nationally recognized expert in Green Roof technology. Her book Green Roof Systems: A Guide to the Planning, Design and Construction of Building Over Structure, coauthored with Susan K. Weiler, is scheduled for publication by Wiley and Sons in 2007. Ms. Scholz-Barth is trained in masonry and bricklaying and received her Masters of Science in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Rostock, Germany in 1992. Her work demonstrates that Green Roofs are an integral and functional building element and a cost effective measure for stormwater control and pollution prevention in urban areas. Ms. Scholz-Barth teaches a full course on green roofs from design to specification and installation at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Prior to starting her own business, she was Director of Sustainable Design for the HOK Planning Group, a business unit of Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum (HOK). Ms. Scholz-Barth practiced civil and environmental engineering in Minneapolis, Minnesota for seven years, where she gained design expertise in constructed wetlands and in bio-remediation. Ms. Scholz-Barth's services range from conducting green roof design charrettes to construction administration. Noticeable projects include the O'Hare Airport in Chicago, the National Institute of Health, the World Bank headquarter office, Johns Hopkins University, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in Charlotte, NC and Queens Botanical Garden in New York.

Katie Selby — Katie Selby Co-Founder of South Main. Katie sees in New Urbanism a perfect fusion of environmental sensitivity, social responsibility and economic vitality. She is passionate about SmartCode advocacy and the benefits of regional planning. Katie graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Fort Lewis College School of Business in Durango, CO. She is a sponsored professional freestyle kayaker and also enjoys snowboarding, flying planes, telemark skiing, road trips and cooking.

Josh Slotnick — Slotnick helped to form the Garden City Harvest project, P.E.A.S. (the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society, and has been farming in Missoula since 1992 when he co-founded Clark Fork Organics. This 6.5 acre vegetable farm produces food then sold to restaurants, farmers markets and to the local natural food store in Missoula. He serves on the board of homeWord a non-profit that works on housing, home ownership and asset building for low-income people. E. B. White said, "Farming is 10% agriculture and 90% fixing whats got busted". To Slotnick, this means diversity, and the value of doing a lot of different things. He holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Montana, a certificate in Ecological Horticulture from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Masters Degree in Agriculture Extension and Adult Education from Cornell University. He is an adjunct Environmental Studies professor at the University of Montana.

Hans-Juerg Spillman — Spillmann works currently as the Senior Advisor of Swiss Federal Railways Consulting Group. His posts in past have included work as the Chief Operating Officer of Infrastructure for the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB), and on the SBB Board of Director, as well as Head of Planning for the Marketing of Goods Transport, and Head of Marketing for Passenger Transport. Recently he was named President of the Board of Rhaetian Railway, a tourism and commuter based train system in the south eastern part of Switzerland. www.rhb.ch. Spillmann also acts as the Managing Director of Railplus, an association of Swiss metergauge railways operating in suburban areas as well as in the alps, www.railplus.ch.

Randy Udall — Randy Udall has directed the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), a nonprofit organization that promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy since 1994. CORE Director Udall also serves on the Board of Directors of Solar Energy International and Colorado Renewable Energy Society (www.aspencore.org). CORE promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency in partnership with Holy Cross Energy, a rural electric utility serving 40,000 customers. Holy Cross leads the U.S. in the percentage of its customers who buy wind power. In 1998, CORE started the first "solar production incentive" program in the United States; the program pays customers who install PV systems 25¢/kilowatt-hour for their energy. Holy Cross has more grid-connected photovoltaic systems than any of the 930 rural electric utilities in the nation. Holy Cross' wind, solar, and hydropower programs will keep 500 million pounds of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere over the next 20 years. In 2000, CORE started the nation's first Renewable Energy Mitigation Fund, which has collected $1,000,000 in building permit fees to install renewable energy systems. From 1982 until joining CORE, Randy Udall was a free-lance writer specializing in the environment and related scientific topics, including energy efficiency, green buildings, acid rain, groundwater depletion, energy, clean air, global warming, and biodiversity. He also edited the quarterly newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Institute, the world's foremost energy think tank. As a freelancer, Randy contributed articles to more than a dozen newspapers and magazines, including: National Wildlife, Audubon, Outside, Sierra, the Denver Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Peter Werwath — Peter Werwath is a Vice President of Enterprise Community Partners (formerly The Enterprise Foundation). He leads a team of housing experts who provide consulting services to state and local governments, focused on advancing community-wide efforts to build and preserve affordable and mixed-income housing. In other positions at Enterprise since 1983, Mr. Werwath helped to establish a number of new organizations and programs that have provided affordable homes for thousands of low- and moderate-income families. He has helped government agencies design and implement inclusionary zoning programs, homebuyer assistance programs, and large-scale mixed-income land developments in communities such as Fort Worth, Texas; Santa Fe and Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has also designed housing trust funds, pre-development loan funds, and new rental housing development operations. In addition to his consulting work, Mr. Werwath oversees grants and technical assistance for Enterprise's Green Communities' Initiative and the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowships. Recently, an Enterprise team led by Mr. Werwath helped government agencies and nonprofits design housing recovery programs for the Hurricane Katrina and Rita disaster areas. He is based at Enterprise's Columbia, Maryland headquarters.

Courtney White — Courtney White is co-founder and Executive Director of The Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building bridges between ranchers, conservationists, public land managers, scientists and others. They call their approach The New Ranch. Elements include progressive ranch management, scientifically-guided riparian and upland restoration, land health assessment and monitoring. The principles of The New Ranch are promoted through workshops, Outdoor Classrooms, lectures, publications, site tours, consultations, collaborative demonstration projects, awards, newsletters, and an Annual Conference. His essay "The Working Wilderness: a Call for a Land Health Movement" was recently published in Wendell Berry's collection of essays entitled "The Way of Ignorance." He writes an online column for Headwaters News, entitled "A West That Works" (www.headwatersnews.org).A former archaeologist and Sierra Club activist, Courtney voluntarily dropped out of the "conflict industry" and now considers himself to be a restorationist. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his family and a backyard full of chickens.

John McBride always loved the West and moved permanently to Colorado in 1962. He was involved in the initial development of both Vail and Snowmass. Later, as an entrepreneur, he created the Aspen Business Center and the North Forty employee housing project. He cares deeply about preserving community and open space, and commits his time to agencies that promote this vision. He lives on a working cattle ranch and is a longtime pilot. Such activities give him an unusual perspective to ponder the future of the West. As a developer, he knows how easy it is to screw it up; as a rancher how hard it is to protect; and as a pilot how easy it is to see the difference.