For the past 18 months, Rhys Roth, Climate Solutions' co-founder and Director of Strategic Innovation, has served as lead staff to the Northwest Biocarbon Initiative (NBI). After 15 extraordinary years at Climate Solutions, Rhys is heading out for new career adventures and exciting changes are in the works at NBI and Climate Solutions.
Rhys is delighted to report that Eileen V. Quigley, who has led Climate Solutions’ New Energy Cities (NEC) program since 2009, is stepping in as the new Director of Strategic Innovation to oversee NBI, NEC, and our Sustainable Advanced Fuels (SAF) program.
In a solemn Ascension Ceremony, Rhys Roth bestows the Tiara of Strategic Innovation upon his successor, Eileen V. Quigley.
Prior to joining Climate Solutions, Eileen ran RealNetworks’ Nonprofit Affairs Division, which helped nonprofit organizations use the Internet for social change. Since moving to the Northwest in 1988, Eileen also edited a quarterly journal of Northwest public policy, economics, and culture; ran the Municipal League of King County; and served on numerous Puget Sound nonprofit boards and civic taskforces. A graduate of Columbia and Yale, Eileen spent five years as a magazine and newspaper journalist in Washington, DC and New York City.
Further evidence of Climate Solutions’ robust commitment to supporting the Northwest’s biocarbon movement, the organization has launched a hiring process for a talented Coordinator to lead the NBI program. The new NBI Coordinator, expected to start work in September, will work in close consultation with Eileen, who will supervise this position, as well as with the NBI Steering Committee, which includes several key partner organizations.
Top priorities for NBI’s new Coordinator are:
- Engage and lead a diverse range of partner groups in communications activities connecting their work to Northwest leadership on the global biocarbon imperative, and to overcome key barriers to biocarbon solutions;
- Increase public understanding and the visibility of biocarbon as the second major solution to the climate crisis;
- Frame current scientific knowledge on biocarbon for public understanding, and identify key gaps in knowledge to help shape the research agenda going forward; and
- Educate policymakers—local, state, and federal—on the biocarbon imperative, and on specific policy actions they can take to support biocarbon innovation and Northwest leadership.
As the June 10, 2013 Northwest Biocarbon Summit and the recently released Natural Infrastructure: A Climate-Smart Solution amply demonstrate, the Northwest biocarbon movement is dynamic and rich with possibilities. “As I move on to my next adventure,” says Roth, “I am exceedingly confident that Climate Solutions has put the right pieces in place to help NBI ramp up to the next level.”
