Theme: We Can Accelerate Our Path to Net Zero

This event brings together 16 Pacific Northwest climate champions talking about everything from radically inclusive climate tech to carbon capture and biochar to low carbon concrete to regenerative agriculture to individual action.

Magenta Theater
1108 Main Street
Vancouver, Washington, 98660
United States

Alex Gamboa Grand

Alex Gamboa Grand is co-founder of Way of Being and Relationship Specialist at Oregon Entrepreneurs Network. Alex is an entrepreneur, conscious consumerism advocate, and enthusiastic cheerleader of small, local, and mission-driven businesses.

Alison Wiley

Alison Wiley, an Oregonian, is the founder of the Electric School Bus Newsletter. She has worked in low-carbon transportation since 2006, supporting fleets on electric bus adoption since 2016. She is a consultant, writer, and equity advocate, and has cowritten many successful grant proposals for electric school bus and clean energy projects.

David Kirshbaum

David is the founder of Vital Message, a communications consultancy helping climate- and sustainability-focused companies drive growth and amplify their impact. A longtime environmentalist, sustainable living enthusiast, and serial entrepreneur, he is also a member of Climate Vine and #OpenDoorClimate and is a startup advisor for Greentown Labs.

Emmett Wheatfall

Emmett Wheatfall lives in Portland, Oregon. He is a published poet and performs poetry to music. He has 3 books of poetry published by Fernwood Press. They are As Clean as a Bone (2018) which is an Eric Hoffer Award finalist and Our Scarlet Blue Wounds (2019). With Extreme Prejudice, Lest We Forget (2022). His chapbook of poems First Among Beautiful Stars published (2023).

Frank Dick

During his 15+ year tenure, Frank has implemented numerous energy efficiency projects resulting in nearly 20% reductions in electricity consumption at Vancouver's wastewater treatment plants. He is now leading a long-range project to transform the wastewater solids program for resource recovery.

Gina McCoy

In 2020, Gina co-founded a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the pace and scale of forest health restoration. She is now continuing the effort to implement forest restoration and carbon storage through the nonprofit C6 Innovations. She worked for over twenty years in the eastern Cascade Mountains as a hydrologist, landscape ecologist, environmental engineer, and stream processes specialist.

James Metoyer

As executive director and founder of EnerCity Collaborative (ECC), James guides ECC’s work to ensure the financial, environmental, and health benefits of a clean energy economy are fully realized in BIPOC, underserved, and frontline communities. His passions are teaching students about energy efficiency, bridging the gap between the medical industry and the built environment to create healthy outcomes, and working to ensure that historically underserved populations have equitable access to healthy, safe, affordable, and energy efficient housing.

Katherine Rose

Originally from a rural setting on the Oregon coast, Katherine Rose has worked with Depave for over two years as the organization’s Communications and Engagement Coordinator. Katherine studied environmental and urban studies at Bard College, which led to her passion for community resilience through equitable access to outdoor recreation, food sovereignty, stewardship, and aesthetics. Katherine has worked to develop environmental education programs about watershed health and sustainable agriculture and is an experienced trail builder.

Kathryn Latham

Kathryn Latham started a business so she could maximize the impact and joy of her work. Today her consultancy, Latham Business Solutions, helps B2B founders launching disruptive services tame chaos with structural engineering principles.

Sara Tone

Portland-based musician and songwriter Sara Tone shares her love songs for the Earth as a multi-instrumentalist — expressing herself through voice, guitar, baritone uke, kalimba, ocarina, and as a percussionist on cajón and d'jembe. Her style ranges from deep-heart roots soul, world folk, with an undeniable hip-hop approach. She is an active community educator, and watershed-forest activist.

Spenser Meeks

Spenser Meeks works with climate tech leaders to amplify communication, connection, and confidence so they can make a lasting impact on the world. As a passionate mentor, he guides speakers to effectively strengthen and elevate their messaging to new heights.