Sierra Club Green Home

Recently, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope set out to “green” his home and discovered a problem: even for him, this wasn’t so simple. Plenty of information was available, but widely disparate and sometimes conflicting sources made things confusing. When meeting with some top donors, the idea of Sierra Club launching a special website to address this problem seemed like a good solution.

Sierra Club Green Home was developed with a simple mission in mind: to help Americans make their homes more energy efficient, environmentally sustainable and healthy. We do not sell products or services. Instead, we educate consumers on how to improve their home health and connect them with Providers that can help them achieve their goals. Our screening process ensures that all Providers listed on our site can help you create a greener, healthier home by reducing:

• your use of energy
• your use of renewable natural resources
• the presence of toxins and chemicals in your home.

While our education contains some fairly sophisticated content, we focus primarily on “non-green” and “newly-green” citizens.  Research indicates the vast majority of Americans are not taking even simple steps to reduce their impact — things like installing CFLs, turning off the water when brushing teeth, recycling cans, bottles and newspapers, or looking for organic produce options.  We believe this is where SCGH can have the greatest benefit, by influencing people to take those simple first steps to practice environmental responsibility at home.  And of course, we offer vast amounts of education and products for the already-green who are looking to do even more.

All content found on our site is original unless otherwise noted. Our education is developed by a dedicated writing staff with tremendous experience and credentials in all things green. We have tried to deliver an honest, balanced perspective and will continue to update our articles as new issues and solutions arise.

Below is a brief description of each of our key team members. But first, we’d like to thank Gary Rappeport. Without his imagination, this project would never have happened.

OUR STAFF

Jennifer Schwab, Chief Sustainability Officer/Co-Founder

As Chief Sustainability Officer, Jennifer is responsible for all environmental information, education, and initiatives at Sierra Club Green Home.com.  She developed the SCGH “GreenCheck” validation program for green suppliers.

After graduating from the University of Arkansas with an accounting degree, Jennifer worked in the Chicago office of Ernst and Young.  She then found her life’s calling in the green world, and moved west to study environmental design and sustainability at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.  She then earned a Masters in Urban Planning and Sustainable Design at the University of California — Irvine.  Jennifer is a LEED Accredited Practitioner and served on the USGBC Education Committee in Orange County.

Jennifer consults on energy efficiency and sustainability for various corporate clients.  She is a sustainability consultant to Eye-R Systems, a technology company originated at MIT which uses high-throughput infrared imaging, geo-spatial data integration and highly scalable predictive analytics to identify energy leaks in commercial and residential structures.  She is a member of the Board of Advisors for Source 44, a carbon footprint assessment company based in San Diego.  Jennifer also serves on the Board of Advisors for BlogWorld Expo, America’s largest social media conference and tradeshow.

Jennifer is a frequent speaker at a wide variety of environmental conferences and forums.  She served as co-host at Opportunity Green, among seven other major podiums in 2011 alone.  She is a widely quoted media analyst that has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Dwell, CNBC, Fortune, Forbes, Consumer Reports, among others. She has also appeared on NBC-U, CBS, and Fox News. Jennifer has appeared numerous times as a green expert on abc’s Good Morning America.

Away from work, Jennifer follows art and design avidly and is also a trained Cessna pilot.  She serves on the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Photography acquisitions committee in Los Angeles.  In her spare time you can find Jennifer in the bikram yoga studio or running trails around her house. You can find her innermost green thoughts as a weekly contributor to the Huffington Post, LOHAS, BlogHer, Healthy Home Institute, Intent.com, as well as on the home page of www.sierraclubgreenhome.com.

Gordon Wangers, Chief Marketing Officer
Gordon serves as lead marketer and chief editor at Sierra Club Green Home (SCGH). He is also responsible for SCGH’s brand image. Gordon believes that together we can impact climate change with each person doing their part to live greener. He became a hardcore recycler more than 25 years ago while working at Alcoa, Inc., which created one of the first aluminum can recycling programs, and has expanded his environmental efforts ever since.

Previously, he spent three decades in marketing communications, with PR agencies Burson-Marsteller and Golin Harris; sports marketing firm Advantage International (now known as Octagon); and the marketing and promotion firm, AMCI, which he ran for 20 years before selling the business to advertising conglomerate, Omnicom.  Gordon studied journalism and business at the University of Illinois and University of Missouri.

In his spare time, Gordon can be found exercising or jamming the blues on harmonica.

William Gallios, Manager of Information Technology

As Manager of Information Technology, William is responsible for SierraClubGreenHome.com’s website maintenance, development, servers, and IT services. William has a bachelors degree in Software Engineering from the University of Phoenix, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in information systems.

Previously, he has worked as a software engineer for several companies including ActionCOACH, the world’s number one business and executive coaching firm which has more than 1,000 office locations in 26 countries as well as American Kiosk Management (Proactiv Solution) which has over 1400 employees, and over 300 locations in the United States and Canada.

Away from work and programming William is a young car enthusiast, and greatly enjoys audio production. He has a home studio and enjoys making modern pop and hip-hop music with his friends.

Heather-Leigh Logan, Operations Assistant

As Operations Assistant, Heather-Leigh is responsible for Sierra Club Green Home’s daily operations, including the Green Directory, advertising, customer service, office operations, event coordination, and collaborative newsroom and social media efforts. Heather-Leigh is finishing up her Bachelors degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration on Ocean Conservation from Prescott College. She will continue on to pursue a masters degree in Social Entrepreneurship.

Growing up along the Florida coast sparked an insatiable passion for Heather-Leigh to conserve our beaches and our environment. This passion for the ocean has become her life’s work. Inspired by her family’s non-profit organization, Sacred Lands, Heather-Leigh began organizing campaigns and events working towards environmental conservation from a young age. Heather-Leigh has volunteered for a wide array of environmental organizations, from Sierra Club to Greenpeace. Her experience and involvement in the field led her to work for Sierra Club Green Home.

In her free time, Heather-Leigh enjoys preparing raw, vegan meals, traveling, drum circles, gardening, hula hooping, and reading.

 Juliet Blalack, Editor and Social Media Manager

As Editor, Juliet oversees newsroom operations from catching typos to recruiting and coaching writers. She also manages SCGH’s social media networks. Juliet has written for Curve Magazine, New America Media, and Change.org, as well as ICT Business, an English-language publication based in Cairo. She previously coordinated online advocacy for the nation’s largest Planned Parenthood affiliate, and is optimistic about the Internet’s ability to further social justice movements. In her free time, Juliet enjoys learning languages, throwing theme parties, and hiking outdoors.