I grew up in a small lumber-mill town in Oregon. After Oregon State University, I enlisted to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan.
There, I met a biologist studying how declining snowpack was affecting animals and farmers. The encounter crystallized that one of the biggest forces shaping humanity is climate change.
I resolved to focus on climate solutions and went to pursue an MBA at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, studying under Greg Unruh, who developed the theory of carbon lock-in.
In 2007, I joined Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to work with the world’s largest companies to improve sustainability practices.
I launched BSR’s first dedicated climate program, leading research, consulting, education, and coalition-building to help companies move from making modest gestures to serious investments—directly, across their value chains, and through public policy.
We also developed a new renewable energy industry practice to help climate solutions providers be sophisticated about sustainability early on.
That work helped catalyze a new generation of practices across industries and public policy, including climate disclosure laws passed recently in California.
While at BSR I became drawn to policy—the rules that shape markets—and also the domain of transportation, which sits at the heart of climate solutions and quality of life.
I went to become Policy Director at CALSTART, where I led legislative and regulatory initiatives to de-risk, fund, and organize transportation electrification in California, which sets U.S. policy in its role as leader of the “section 177” states. The aim was to catalyze national markets for electric cars, buses, and trucks while centering transit, bicycling, and multimodal connectivity in transportation systems.
Once at a meeting of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), I watched board members grapple with the deep, persistent obstacles to reducing vehicle miles traveled, which climate experts say is crucial. Board members concluded that meaningful control over transportation on the ground lies largely with local governments.
I adjusted my focus and worked with CALSTART’s CEO and board to launch a mobility program that would elevate local initiatives and provide life-improving alternatives to car dependence.
To start, I proposed that CALSTART administer a new CARB investment program for equity-centered community mobility projects, Clean Mobility Options,. Our proposal was selected.
I led the development of a 20-person team with national partners, and over the following years we invested more than $50 million in 70+ communities statewide—about half for direct services like e-bikes and microtransit, and the rest for community transportation needs assessments to seed future projects.
In 2019, my wife and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, to raise our kids with a car‑lite lifestyle and be in the mountains. I joined local efforts to expand housing options and advocate for safer streets, which led to my appointment to the Transportation Advisory Board and, later, to my election to City Council.
Today, I serve as a City Councilmember working to secure and accelerate new climate, transportation, housing, and electrification solutions.
I’m also helping elevate the opportunities of “urbanism”—the interplay of mobility, housing, and the physical fabric of cities—that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other experts show needs to be a core climate strategy. Through Moreworks, which I founded, I create actionable guides and provide advisory support to help changemakers turn ideas into on-the-ground progress.
Some ideas that have guided me in recent years and today looking ahead:
- Building a climate-compatible future and improving people’s well-being are two of the most important things that need work. And, much of what’s required for both reinforce one other. The exciting opportunity is to organize to make that happen.
- To effect large-scale changes, combine public policy with organizational management to build compelling services. “Services” is a package that unites a tangible value proposition, a concrete approach, and accountability for delivering. Policy sets the structures and systems that enable—or hinder—how markets for services work. Management drives the action on the ground, innovation, and testing and refinement of policy to deliver more for the public interest.
- A powerful driver is local communities, the places where things come together, where most people live, and where major decisions about housing, transportation, and other systems that shape society are made. From climate to broader social and economic issues, towns and cities touch nearly everything and they are engines of action. They are also where state and federal commitments play out, and cities can crucially influence those commitments.
Here is more on my contributions over the years.
On most days you can find me riding a bike around town with my two elementary-school-aged daughters.
