Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Tracy is the CEO and Founding Partner of Technical Green - a green industry career site focused on clean tech and green research and development.
Tracy's professional experience are in the recruitment advertising and non-profit sectors and she has for many years maintained a sustainable lifestyle.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Nathanial Manning works for the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) as a Regional Analyst for Asia. He focuses on two programs for CCI, the Green Building Retrofit program and the Waste Management program. Nathaniel recently graduated from Brown University as an Environmental Studies Masters student, specializing in sustainable design and international carbon policy. Nat also completed a Bachelor of Arts in World Religions at Brown, focusing on the philosophy of ethics and the intersection between religion and politics. He is completing his Masters thesis on clean-technology-transfer within the UN's carbon credit mechanism (the CDM), which allows developed countries to invest in carbon mitigating technologies in developing countries with the purpose of promoting sustainable development.
Nathaniel has a long history of involvement in environmental development work ranging from waste-to-energy entrepreneurial ventures to designing sustainable homes for the Guatemalan chapter of Habitat for Humanity, to working for a tidal energy engineering firm in Singapore. Nat's passion is in how intelligent innovative solutions and technologies can be applied to create a sustainable and free world. When Nat thinks of the word "green" he does not just think of the word "environment" but how we as humans can design systems and solutions that create win-win situations.
Robert Cowin is a political consultant for environmental NGOs. His nomadic childhood reveals a world-class carpetbagger, but he masks as a Texan-New Yorker hybrid. Formerly with the National Environmental Trust (now the Pew Environment Group) in DC, he’s spent time on Capital Hill advocating for Kyoto ratification, clean air, renewable energy technology, and green energy policy.
Robert has also worked on marine conservation issues, directing the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy coalition in the Mid-Atlantic States which successfully worked to help strengthen and reauthorize the Magnuson Steven’s Act. He now happily lives in Southern California, flying back east often as he finishes his Masters in International Relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
We have heard there will be hundreds of thousands of jobs created from initiatives contained in the economic stimulus plan. But let us be concerned with the job creation within the green or cleantech sector of business and industry.
Obama laid out plans to rebuild our energy grid and has a focus on increasing U.S. dependence on renewable energy (RE) sources for our energy use over the next few years.
This means that there will be an increase in jobs within the RE sector. Jobs in RE are fast becoming a focus of interest for jobseekers. Many who have no previous experience in energy want to be a part of the RE fields and they want it bad!
Main areas of RE job creation are currently coming from:
Solar
Solar is one the broadest of the RE categories in terms of career specialties.
Photovoltaic (PV) Engineers design PV cells that convert sunlight to electricity. PVs are a well-established system but there is constant work in redesign for better efficiency, so PV Engineers are in high demand. Most companies looking for PV Engineers want at least five years of design experience and an engineering degree.
PV or solar panel installers – There is a broad range of experience levels wanted for this position. Some job descriptions read that candidates must only be willing to learn PV installation. Others request one or two years of experience, while yet others want certification with many years of experience.
Sales – obviously the easiest category to get into for someone who has no experience in the field.
Wind
Wind energy is fast growing and there are many opportunities to be had in this sector of RE.
Research – there are numerous areas of research within wind energy to include: analysis of wind patterns, turbine research, wind and weather meteorological forecasting, integration of wind energy into the utility grid, storing the wind energy to use as electricity.
Sales
Manufacturing
Environmental Consulting – typically requires an environmental degree and experience.
Biofuels
This is heavily science-based and includes research in not only corn-based ethanol, which is a highly contested form of energy extraction, but also in photosynthesis-types of energy creation by studying algae and other microbes.
This is an exciting and innovative arena and research mostly comes from small research firms focusing on biofuels or university research. There is high-need for microbiologists in these fields.
Other areas of RE include geothermal energy and ocean energy (tapping the energy from waves which is pretty cool), but currently not creating a lot jobs but definitely worth watching.
Interestingly, big oil companies like Exxon have the capacity for tapping geothermal sources for energy and they will probably be the ones taking advantage of big growth in this industry.
While geology degrees are especially useful, most jobs in geothermal are for project engineers who may or may not need experience in geothermal energy.
Another big area for job creation is in clean IT. Cleantech IT is a darling for VC funding and these jobs are basically the same as any IT position one would find in any high tech company.
For those seeking to move into a green career, the key is focus and research. Focus on the career track you want to take, and research the best avenues to get there. This may mean taking entry-level positions for mid-level individuals.
Taking an internship or getting certification within a specific field. Or, you may even need to go back to school for an advanced degree or for that degree you never got around to getting in the first place.
The jobs will be coming, so let’s get prepared for them.
Great info. I’d love to switch careers into this but haven’t found any good job listing sites with green jobs. Any direction?
Gerald Michael Rolfe
March 20, 2009 8pm EDT
A former employee of mine, who left me last year to go back into the oil industry, was just laid off by that industry today — unfortunately, I couldn’t hire him back due to downturns in our own industry — but I wonder — maybe RE is the way for him to go right now? Are things really picking up in RE right now?
Sue Holt
March 27, 2009 9am EDT
Where is information on obtaining windmills for electric power for private homes? Or renting land for windmills for the community?
Stay current on the latest policies and progress government is making on addressing green issues. Find out what is going on off-camera and in the discussion chambers of government. Advocate your thoughts and ideas.
![[ X ]](http://www.ecomii.com/blogs/wp-content/themes/WP-Ecomii/images/close_btn.gif)
Great info. I’d love to switch careers into this but haven’t found any good job listing sites with green jobs. Any direction?
A former employee of mine, who left me last year to go back into the oil industry, was just laid off by that industry today — unfortunately, I couldn’t hire him back due to downturns in our own industry — but I wonder — maybe RE is the way for him to go right now? Are things really picking up in RE right now?
Where is information on obtaining windmills for electric power for private homes? Or renting land for windmills for the community?
I love that, I wish I could go and see it!
Regard
http://www.jobz.pk