Finally, after months of screening questions and some minor adjustments to our services description, Green Gurus has been approved by Co-op America.
We’re very thankful to join the ranks of approved businesses, non-profits and other entities enrolled in their ranks of Do Green Gooders 
and look forward to our first appearance in their National Green Pages, coming soon to the online version and in the Fall for their print version.
We’ve added their seal of approval throughout our site (and will be adding it here to our blog soon).
Again, we’d like to extend our thanks publicly to Co-op America for approving us and look forward to the changes this process has inspired us to take.
First off a quick, Green Gurus team update on current events…
Last week while Shena was prepping for her time at the South By Southwest festival, Ryan continued working on one of his new solar flower designs, Elizabeth continued pouring over the latest Plan Check plans for one of our clients, Doug continued work on his thesis draft, Brent worked on the latest fabrication plans, Evonne carried on in Second Life, and I hit up Greg Wendt, Jeff Hayes, Sarah Shewey, Kipp Stroden, and Ferris Kawar’s Green Business Networking monthly night.
This was the first night that I had been able to make it out since hearing about it several months back. I ran into several great people I’ve been talking with recently and many more great faces, all from around the LA startup and sustainable business circles.
Several previous contacts included Michael Moss / Founder Green Nectarine, Jenn “1luv” Breckenridge, and Ben Clayton / Gliving, Watts Up America, etc. I also got to put some names to faces we’ve been hearing more about recently, like Scott Badenoch / Founder Creative Citizen and Melanie StJames / Executive Director of Empowerment Works. Other new faces included Olivia Kuhn-Lloyd / Cause + Capitalism Blog Author, Laura Beatty, Kacy Palmieri / Earth Day LA, Kristofer Youngstrom / Engineer at Digital Housing & Administration, and the Heart Beet Gardening gaia’s.
A few people were asking after more networking nights at this event and the LA Green Drinks was mentioned more than once, which we posted about last year here. Others range from Lunch 2.0 to Dealmaker, to LA’s Largest Mixer to Mashable’s return with “MashMeet LA 2.0“, and many, many others.
Some handy online resources include LA Times “Emerald City” blog, Siel’s “green LA girl“, the Green Group, etc….you just have to keep at it, digging around online, joining various social networking groups, meeting up at the local business mixers in person, and all the rest. Whatever the case may be, we’d love to meet up with you in person at the next LA Green Drinks or other event of your choosing…
Feel free to contact us here if you need help figuring out what to hit up next, carpooling arrangements or any other details.
We look forward to meeting up with you sometime soon!
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is really, truly unconscionable.
It blows my mind that nearly every single article I’ve come across in my research states that “There’s nothing we can do about it now…” (Eriksen, October 19, 2007). What kind of asinine, uncaring and lazy response is this?
In case you haven’t yet heard of this man-made atrocity, there is a collection of human waste (mostly plastic trash), that has piled up into a floating island (some say two islands), twice the size of Texas, about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco. What’s even more astounding to me anyway, is that this has been known to exist for the better part of half a century now (though it was until the last few decades that it’s neared its current size).
An article from the San Francisco Chronicle states:
“Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.”
This is just totally unacceptable.
Having just learned of this recently and then really took a hard look at it today, I can no longer, in good conscience, continue to write off this horrendous creation and let it continue unabated. To that end, I have just registered a domain which I hope to evolve into the official, leading source of information, activism and action against this atrocity. In the coming months, I hope to raise funds to start dismantling this floating island of trash, generate significant publicity, donate hundreds if not thousands of hours and dollars, both of my own and others, to turn the tides on this.
The GreatPacificGarbagePatch.com will serve as my central focus on what I hope grows into a massive wide effort to eradicate this abysmal by-product of our global industries. I hope that you will join me in my efforts, in whatever way you can.
Stay tuned for more info on this including a website, blog, donation system, and much more.
What in the world is Arnold thinking? Below is Environment California’s brief but urgent news:
“In a move that has stunned nature-lovers across the state, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal would shut down 20 percent of the state’s parks, as well as cut down on lifeguards at state beaches. Of course, we all know California needs to balance the budget. But we’re talking about a step that would save $9 million — less than 0.1 percent of the state budget. Meanwhile, the costs to our environment, our quality of life, and our confidence in state government would be incalculable.”
Please cast your vote online now against this obscene motion attempting to slip past under the radar.
This past week has been a very productive and exciting week for us.
We’ve officially added three new team members (who I’ll announce shortly below), made the most comprehensive set of site updates since we first launched, met with a great, new potential client that’s got some amazing insight into some sorely neglected elements to the current, green wave, scheduled our solar powered, green web hosting server setup (along with a meet and greet of our data center providers), and a slew of other details.
Before I go any further, let me first announce our new team members.
First up is Dr. Ryan Wartena, serving as electrochemical engineer and energy systems designer. Here’s all his relative metadata:
B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCSD with minors in philosophy and psychology; Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in Chemical Engineering with a minor in International Information Business Technology Management, Post-Docs at the Naval Research Laboratory (’01 – ‘03, Advanced Electrochemical Materials Section) and MIT (’04 – ‘07, Department of Material Science and Engineering) developing small battery technologies (3D architectures, bio-materials-based electrodes), energy systems, carbon nanotube structures and nanoparticle assembly techniques.
Co-founded and co-directed the Burn Clean Project that helped create the pathways to bring biodiesel generators and fuel to the Burning Man festival in ’06 and ’07 and successfully advocated for the use of biodiesel fuel in generator sets owned by commercial vendors. Co-organized the Burn Clean Project’s BIOBUS 2007 shuttle between Reno Airport and Black Rock City, NV. Assisted in the development of MIT’s solar house (Solar 7) entry into the 2007 Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. Co-designed MIT’s 1.102 Spring 2007 course on building applied energy generators in the forms of wind turbines, a rowing machine, an exercise bike, a pedal station and a merry-go-round. Co-Developer of Growing Architecture (’97 to Present) Currently designing integrated PV applications as VP of E,R & D at Nano Sol Systems, Inc.
Next is Brent Heyning, our technical energy specialist and builder. All his bits and pieces include:
University of California, Los Angeles CA, Production Design, Art Direction, ’93 – ‘96;
BA Fine Arts: Engineering, Theatre - Technical Arts, University of Memphis, ’85 – ‘92
Technical Director - Toyshoppe Productions, Los Angeles, CA ’04 - Present; Power/stages at LightningInABottle.org, Sound/power at Black Rock City, OYA Energy installation (with Ryan Wartena, Elizabeth Marley, Evonne Heynig), technical robots and craft for film/tv, custom LED design for clients such as Disneyland and the CW Network, television appearances include Monster House (2005) & voice talent for shorts & commercials.
And last but far from least, Evonne Heyning: Green Fairy, Interactive Artist, Writer and Producer. Bringing new worlds together:
B.A., Religion/Chaplaincy, Business, Communication Arts, Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, MA, September ’93 – May ‘98
Post-fire cleanup & sustainability planning for Madre Grande (’07), OYA/Green Man Pavilion, Many international bridge building & resourcing projects with Amoration/International Humanities Center (’04 – ‘07), Founded/organized the first AltWheels festival in New England (’03), Artist/Teacher at Apeiron Foundation (building a sustainable, all-natural ecocenter, 2001-2). Television appearances as an artist for Blind Date, Monster House & Black Rock City documentaries (’05). Frequent speaker on the use of virtual worlds for international gatherings, saving the cost of carbon by interactively working together.
So, our team is becoming even more well-rounded and with its collective, multi-disciplinary experience is eager to dive into its next project. Throughout the course of the last several weeks we’ve been engaging in some very exciting discussions pertaining to the services we currently offer and those we plan to offer.
In the meantime, site work continues with minor content changes, though we’ve just recently hired an experienced programmer to help start tackling various projects, as the company’s finances allow. Current recent updates include the addition of a new page for green, getting started steps that offers several levels of detailed suggestions, questionnaires and even an introduction to the art and science of biomimicry, along with some about and services updates.
Lastly, earlier this past week I met with another highly committed socially conscious entrepreneur to discuss our mutual companies and see how we can best serve each other’s needs. More on this as things develop…
