Dunrie Greiling's Blog, page 2

Mentorship Circle with Lisa McLaughlin

We’re continuing our Cahoots mentoring circle with Workit Health co-founder and former CEO Lisa McLaughlin.

Lisa will lead us in an activity and discussion on how we can lean into our differences in the professional world.

Let’s flip the script with Lisa!

Get ready to ask (almost) anything about career growth, startup life, leadership, or personal development in an open and supportive space.

When: 10-11:30AM on February 12, 2025 

Place: @Cahoots

Please come if you are interested in hearing from Lisa about her journey and perspective.

Bring your questions!

Register

Co-hosted with Ayishwaria Menon. This event is part of a series created by the Cahoots Community Committee and this event is part of the February Cove pop-up. Open to all.

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Argument for Climate Optimism in 2025

Join us February 19, 2025 for the monthly Sustainability & Innovation meetup.

Details

Topic: Argument for Climate Optimism in 2025
How government and private sector innovation are creating a comprehensive portfolio of economical climate solutions

Speaker: Matt Kirsch , Principal Business Development Partner at NorthStar Clean Energy Emcee: William Crane , CEO OrbAid Date: February 19, 2025 Time: 8–9:30 AM Location: Cahoots, 206 E. Huron Street, Ann Arbor

Registration, coffee, tea, and pastries all free of charge thanks to our sponsors.

Register for February Gratitude

Grateful to Cathy Colson for graphic design.

So appreciate Cahoots for providing the space.

Thank you to our sponsors, the Green Business Challenge and Ann Arbor SPARK.

Visit Sustainability & Innovation Events to sign up for our email list or to learn more about this series. Hope to see you there!

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Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility Update

Excited for the January 2025 Sustinability & Innovation Coffee Meetup.

Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility Update

Missy Stults, Ph.D., Sustainability and Innovations Director at the City of Ann Arbor

Wednesday January 29, 8 – 9:30 AM

BrightWorks Coworking, 3027 Miller Road, Ann Arbor

Join us to learn about this groundbreaking initiative!

Ann Arbor SEU

In November, Ann Arbor voters authorized the creation of a Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU). The SEU will be an

opt-in, supplemental, community-owned energy utility that provides 100% renewable energy from local solar and battery storage systems installed at participating homes and businesses in the city

SEU page on the A2gov website

We will hear from Missy and have a chance to discuss and network with the sustainability community in Ann Arbor.

Come for the coffee, pastries, and inspiration, stay for the networking.

Gratitude

Thanks to William Crane for cohosting this series with me. Thank you to BrightWorks for providing the space. Thank you to our sponsors, the Green Business Challenge and Ann Arbor SPARK for the inspiration and support.

Register!

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December 2024 – Sustainability & Innovation Coffee Hour

Join us for the second Sustainability & Innovation Coffee Hour on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, from 8-9 AM at Cahoots!

Ilyse Kaplan will present on Financing our Sustainable Future.

You can find us in the Cahoots Event space. Come in through the Cahoots Cafe: 206 East Huron Street #Suite 2 Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Come to learn, to connect with others in the field, and have coffee and pastries. Thanks to the sponsorship of Ann Arbor SPARK and the Green Business Challenge, the event is free of charge including coffee and pastries.

Register!

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November 2024 – Sustainability & Innovation Coffee Hour

Join us for the first Sustainability & Innovation Coffee Hour on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, from 8-9 AM at Ann Arbor SPARK Central!

William Crane will present on U.S. Policy Shifts and Global Trends for sustainability strategy, innovation, and investment. We’ll also have plenty of time for networking.

Thanks to the sponsorship of Ann Arbor SPARK and the Green Business Challenge, the event is free of charge and we’ll provide coffee, tea, and breakfast pastries.

Register! December Coffee Hour

Can’t make it this time? No worries! This is the first in a monthly series focused on sustainability, innovation, and connections. The next one will be on Wednesday, December 11, from 8-9 AM at Cahoots Cafe.

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Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor

Today I had the pleasure of being the emcee for the first ever a2tech360 Sustainable Future Forum. Laura Berarducci and the team at Ann Arbor SPARK put together a great program of talks from sustainability leaders and innovators.

We learned from Sartorius, Toyota North America, Wacker Chemical, and the University of Michigan. We cheered on four innovation highlights: ThermoVerse, Fourth State, 4M Consolidated Brands, and Next Cycle. We celebrated the Ann Arbor Green Business awardees.

My favorite part was meeting other folks committed to sustainability including students, community members, consultants, and entrepreneurs.

Why Sustainability Matters to Me

Here are my Sustainable Future Forum opening remarks interspersed with images from my slides.

First, let me tell you a little of my story. I’m Dunrie Greiling. 

I am a lifelong Michigander and I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for thirty years. 

Cherry orchard – Photo by Nicole Geri on Unsplash

I love living here – I love the proximity to farmland, both for the open landscape and the fresh high quality food from our local farms. Did you know that Michigan has over 300 agricultural products which puts us with the second most agricultural diversity in the nation, second only to California? 

[image error] Farmers market vegetables – stock photo

I love our open spaces, the eskers, the dunes, the forests, the lakes and rivers.

Kirtland’s warbler – stock photo

I love the birds and their worms, the insects that sing in the trees, and the frogs that gobble them up. 

Michigan lake – stock photo

I love escaping up north, jumping into cold lake water (makes me feel alive in the best way), I love spending time with friends and family next to a beach bonfire or a fireplace. 

I love the four seasons: the spring flowers: trillium, liverwort, trout lily,

Trillium, liverwort, and trout lily – personal photos

the long summer days,

A moth in my backyard in Ann Arbor – personal photo

the gorgeous colors of our fall forests,

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

and the stillness of the woods after a fresh clean snow.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. 

Michigan lavender farm – stock image

Protecting access to all of that requires healthy farms, healthy forests, clean and safe air, water, and soil, biodiversity, and reducing or reversing our contributions to climate change.

Photo by Brad Switzer on Unsplash

At the same time, I love the dynamism of our college town. I appreciate the growth in town–even though sometimes simply getting across town has been difficult because of all of the construction. We need to build to accommodate our community, we need to build to keep people employed, we need to keep the great ideas that originate in this smart, problem solving community here in our region. 

These are the ingredients of what makes Ann Arbor and this part of Michigan so great: nature, growth, and innovation. And these things need to be balanced. How to do it is not always obvious. 

Photo by Michael Loftus on Unsplash

I have a Ph.D. in plant ecology from UM, and I have worked in software startups for the last few decades. The common thread for me has been mission-driven: latest startup experiences have been focused on access to justice, then access to safe drinking water, now I’m working on the sustainability of a biodiversity scientific organization, iDigBio. 

My niece has just started at the University of Michigan and I’m spending more time with her, and I’m thrilled one of her interests is environment. I’m inspired by her environmentalism. The world is in front of her and she’s so talented and she is part of a generation who is idealistic and motivated. They make me want to be a better person, set a better example. They make me want to have, to make, a better world for them to inherit.

Image from Earth Overshoot Day #movethedate

I heard on the radio recently that Earth Overshoot Day – the day of the year when we’ve consumed more than the earth can generate in a year – already happened this year. It was August 1. That means that every day since the beginning of August humanity has overdrawn our account with the sun, the water, and the organisms on our planet. 

The UN recognizes a triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

The triple planetary crisis refers to the three main interlinked issues that humanity currently faces: 
climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. 
Each of these issues has its own causes and effects and each issue needs to be resolved if we are to have a viable future on this planet.

United Nations unfccc.int/news/what-is-the-triple-planetary-crisis

This is a lot, right? We are up against some real challenges. 

We have some choices ahead. Yet not quite the way we might think. We sometimes feel like we have to choose – nature or economy. Housing for people or habitat for plants and animals. This dualistic oppositional thinking is not going to get us where we need to be. It’s not one or the other. We aren’t separate from the world around us. We have to find a way to balance nature and economy, habitat for people, plants and animals, production and protection and preservation, for our shared future.

Beach grass – stock photo

We need entrepreneurship and innovation to solve complex problems so we as a society can learn to grow with balance. We need each other – both to support each other and hold each other accountable. Maybe most importantly, to do all this we need stories. Stories of success, examples of leadership and creativity to light the way to inspire us to recognize solutions and bring them to life. 

Lighthouse Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

That’s why I’m here today – to hear stories from innovators, leaders, and the community about our shared sustainable future. I trust that is also why you’re here. Thank you for coming and we’re going to have a great day.

My Closing Remarks

So on behalf of everyone here, I’d like to thank you again.

Given the complexity of the challenge we are up against we will need more than just the innovations we heard about today. We will also need the innovations that each of you is dreaming about, and to make that happen, we need to come together, like this today, to hear and celebrate progress, to hold ourselves, our community, and our leadership accountable to our commitments, and we need to do the work of socializing and fundraising to implement these changes. 

What’s our call to action? Make sure to connect with people you met today on LinkedIn, over tea, via text. Let’s keep the stories going, keep them alive. Together we can bring about a Sustainable Future.

The post Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor appeared first on Scientific Ink.

Join me at the Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor

Join me at Sustainable Future Forum, a2Tech360’s first sustainability event!

9/24 | 10 – 2:30p@ Venue by 4M https://a2spark.org/SFF24

We will hear about successful sustainability initiatives at international companies (Sartorius and Wacker Chemical), green tech entrepreneurs including Shantonio Burch from ThermoVerse, and cheer the City of Ann Arbor’s green business challenge award winners. I will emcee.

See you there!

The post Join me at the Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor appeared first on Scientific Ink.

Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor

Join me at Sustainable Future Forum, a2Tech360’s first sustainability event!

9/24 | 10 – 2:30p@ Venue by 4M https://a2spark.org/SFF24

We will hear about successful sustainability initiatives at international companies (Sartorius and Wacker Chemical), green tech entrepreneurs including Shantonio Burch from ThermoVerse, and cheer the City of Ann Arbor’s green business challenge award winners. I will emcee.

See you there!

The post Sustainable Future Forum 2024 – Ann Arbor appeared first on Scientific Ink.

Leadership in the Environmental Sector

Rob Pasick, Dunrie Greiling, Lisa Wozniak, Phil Roos, and Timothy Dekker at the Leadership in the Environmental Sector

In late January, I moderated a panel at Rob Pasick’s Leaders Connect on environmental leadership. The panelists included

Phil Roos, the Director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)Timothy Dekker, PhD PE, the CEO of LimnoTech Lisa Wozniak, the Executive Director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters

Each of the speakers shared about their journey to their current leadership positions, their philosophy of leadership, and advice for aspiring leaders. The audience also asked good questions about community involvement and the future and current impact of AI/ML on environmental solutions.

Here’s Rob’s overview of the leadership in the environmental sector panel.

Their advice for aspiring environmental leaders

Lean into what you’re good at and don’t pretend you’re going to be good at everything. Be humble in recognizing where you need to bring in smart people to be part of your team and trust them, give them responsibility that they can own and run with.

Lisa Wozniak, 1:04:50 in video

If you’re a young leader really spend some time learning how to write and if you can pair your scientific expertise or your very technical expertise or your legal or policy expertise with that abiliy to write you really can change the world.

Timothy Dekker 1:07:34 in video

We’re all on a lifelong journey of figuring out why we’re on the planet, what we’re supposed to do, what we’re passionate about, [and] how does that fit with what needs are in the world. And I think it is about constructing for yourself a lot of experiments: ways of trying different things that gradually lead you to that union between who you are and what you’re about, why you’re here, and some pressing issue in the world that needs to be solved.

Phil Roos 1:08:33 in video

Thanks to the panelists for sharing your wisdom and stories. Thanks to Rob for a great morning!

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Now find me at BlueConduit

I am so excited to join the BlueConduit team as their VP of Marketing.

BlueConduit is a water analytics company focused on helping local officials and their engineering partners find and replace hazardous infrastructure, like lead service line replacement and Lead and Copper Rule compliance.

BlueConduit came into being in response to the Flint water crisis. Here’s a short video from PBS Nova on how BlueConduit’s artificial intelligence and machine learning approached helped the city find and remove the lead service lines.

NOTE: As of mid-January, 2022, we are currently hiring for a Marketing Coordinator. Join me!

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