Sponsors
P.C. Morrell Family Foundation
National Life Insurance Company – Peace & Justice Center – Vermont Community Foundation
Winooski Hydro – VCAM - RETN - Channel 17/Town Meeting Television
GNH 2010: Changing what we Measure from Wealth to Well-Being Click for PDF
As of April 20, 2010
Dr. SUSAN ANDREWS is the Founder of the Future Visions Institute and Ecological Park in Brazil where she has created a demonstration center and conference facility for sustainable development, training teachers to teach biofilia and education for peace. Susan and her team teach Bio-Psychology in practice – combining traditional teachings in Ayerveda and Yoga with Neuroscience and Psychology for health and well-being.
An Anthropologist, Transpersonal Psychologist and Bio-Psychologist, Susan has just completed a book on Happiness Research. Susan was the Organizer of 5th International GNH Conference in Brazil 2009 and has been involved in implementation projects for GNH indicators and in building community involvement in GNH and social policy. http://www.felicidadeinternabruta.org.br/
Dr. Ronald Colman is founder and Executive Director of GPIAtlantic. Previously, Dr. Colman taught for 20 years at the university level and was a researcher and speech-writer at the United Nations. He has researched and written many reports on indicators of population health, community wellbeing, natural resource health, and environmental quality. Ron advises governments and communities both in Canada and internationally on indicator work, and regularly speaks on the subject to interested groups.
“Over a period of 13 years, GPI Atlantic constructed a full Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia with 20 components and more than 100 detailed reports. Ron currently lives in Bhutan, where he works with the government to bring GNH principles, values, and practices into the education system, to introduce full-cost accounting methods, and to set up a new GNH Centre.” www.gpiatlantic.org
Amy Miller (Ven. Losang Chodren) first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in the spring of 1987 and was ordained as a Buddhist nun in June 2000 by the great Tibetan master, Ven. Choden Rinpoche, and has been teaching extensively since 1992. Presently, Amy is the director of the Milarepa Center in northern vermont
Gwendolyn Hallsmith, the founder and Executive Director of Global Community Initiatives (GCI), has over 25 years of experience working with municipal, regional, and state government in the United States and internationally. She has worked in state and local governments and she served as Deputy Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and as an international specialist on sustainable community development with the UN Environmental Program, the UN Development Program and several other organizations.
Dr. Robert Costanza is the Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. Dr. Costanza is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and was chief editor of the Society’s journal: Ecological Economics from its inception until 9/02. He currently serves on the editorial board of eight other international academic journals. Dr. Costanza’s research has focused on the interface between ecological and economic systems. This includes landscape level spatial simulation modeling; analysis of energy and material flows through economic and ecological systems; valuation of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and natural capital; and analysis of dysfunctional incentive systems and ways to correct them.
Cornelius (Con) Hogan of Plainfield, VT, who served as Secretary of Human Services under the Snelling and Dean administrations, is an international consultant on children’s wellbeing and author with Dr. Deb Richter, of Gridlock a new book on the difficult politics of health care in Vermont.
Stuart Comstock-Gay was named President & CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation beginning in January of 2009. Prior to joining the VCF, he served as director of the Democracy Program at Dēmos, a New York-based “think and action tank” Stuart also spent 14 years with the ACLU, the last ten as executive director of the Maryland affiliate. From 1997 to 2004, Stuart worked for the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, as vice president for Programs, and later as chief operating officer.
John de Graaf is the national coordinator of TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, an organization challenging time poverty and overwork in the U.S. and Canada (see www.timeday.org). John is the co-author of the best-selling AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC. John has written two other books and numerous magazine articles and has been active in promoting GNH. John has worked for 33 years as a filmmaker with 15 films shown in prime time on PBS. His latest film, What is an Economy for, Anyway? will be shown at the GNH 2010 conference.
An American environmentalist and writer, Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign. Time recently called him ‘the world’s best green journalist.’ A former staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine, he has many important books to his credit, including The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, Deep Ecology: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and many other books and articles. Bill is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. His newest book, just out is EAARTH.
Vicki Robin is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the national best-seller, “Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money & Achieving Financial Independence,” available now in ten languages. Robin is President of the Seattle-based New Road Map Foundation, an educational and charitable foundation teaching people tools for sustainable living. Vicki Robin has lectured widely and appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Good Morning America” and National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition”; she has also been featured in People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Mirabella, Woman’s Day, Newsweek, Utne Reader and the New York Times. Vicki is co-founder of the internationally popular Conversation Cafes (drop-in public conversations), and of Let’s Talk America, healing political polarization, one conversation at a time.
Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of the Gross National Happiness Commission of Bhutan. The GNH commission is responsible for strategic GNH planning, administration of surveys and studies, 5 year plans, and long term planning. The GNHC shall ensure that GNH is mainstreamed into the planning, policy making and implementation process by evaluating their relevance to the GNH framework of:
developing a dynamic economy as the foundation for a vibrant democracy;
Harmonious Living – in harmony with tradition and nature
Effective and good governance; and
Our people: investing in the nation’s greatest asset.
Eric Zencey is a visiting associate professor of historical and political studies in the Graduate Programs and Center for International Programs at Empire State College. An internationally acclaimed and nationally best-selling novelist, he is also a contributing editor to the North American Review and a contributor to the online Encyclopedia of Earth. Eric has lectured on many aspects of sustainability and has written provocative pieces in the New York Times and The Nation on the problems with GDP.
Lisa Ventriss
A native daughter, Lisa hails from Middlebury, shire town of Addison County. She received her post-secondary education at the University of Vermont, earning a B.A. in Political Science and a Master of Public Administration. Lisa currently serves on the boards of Champlain College; Chittenden Bank; Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation; Maine Mutual Group; Mercy Connections; and University of Vermont Regional Advisory Board. On the home front, Lisa enjoys the varied activities that surround the lives of her three sons and husband, as well as knitting, historical biographies, skiing, and gardening.
Martha Maksym, has been the Director of Community Investments at United Way of Chittenden County since September 1994. Martha provides direction and management of all allocations, fund distribution processes and community investment strategies as they relate to meeting the Impact agenda of the organization. After a seven-year career at the Howard Bank in Burlington, Martha returned to graduate school and received her Masters in Public Administration from UVM in 1991. She then served as the Executive Director of Green Mountain Prevention Projects until joining United Way. She is a 2002 graduate of the Snelling Center’s Vermont Leadership Institute and a 2004 graduate of the Creating Healthy Communities national fellowship sponsored by the American Hospitals Association. Martha is chair of the Leadership Champlain Board of Directors, a member of the Boards of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce Board and the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger and is a Steering Committee member of the Champlain Initiative and the Burlington Legacy Project.
