July 2008: Delivering on the Promise of Green Collar Jobs: Challenges & Opportunities

The Green Building Forum is held on the third Wednesday of each month (except December) @6:30 PM and features presentations by green building practitioners followed by discussion. The events are always free and open to the general public. Delivering on the Promise of Green Collar Jobs: Challenges & Opportunities Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Presentation 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: Pratt Manhattan 144 W 14th St, Rm. 213 This event is co-sponsored and hosted by Pratt. Speakers

• Kris Reed, Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation (Moderator)
• Emmaia Gelman, Center for Working Families
• Rob Crauderueff, Sustainable South Bronx

Kristine Reed is Director of the Initiative for a Competitive Brooklyn, within the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation. BEDC, founded in 1979, focuses on neighborhood and business support to create and sustain living wage jobs for Brooklyn residents; the Initiative for a Competitive Brooklyn identifies specific industry segments with special potential to grow and thrive over the next 5-7 years. She joined BEDC in 2006 after 25 years in financial services, both on staff and freelancing, with a specialty in marketing and product management with Citibank, Chase, and Mellon among others. A graduate of Barnard College, she and her family are long time Brooklyn residents Emmaia Gelman has worked on housing, queer rights and other democracy issues in New York, Palestine and Ireland over the last 15 years. She is currently Senior Policy Organizer at the Center for Working Families, focusing on scaling up New York State’s green economy with mass residential retrofits, green job ladders and tenant affordability safeguards. Her work includes bringing together labor, housing, environmental and community workforce groups to generate greening policy plans. Rob Crauderueff, Policy Director of Sustainable South Bronx, oversees the political advocacy component of SSBx that focuses on creating equitable and effective land use, economic development, and environmental policies. Rob co-founded and chairs the Policy Committee of Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.), a coalition comprised of over 50 organizations citywide that advocates for swimmable waterways throughout NYC through green, cost-effective solutions. S.W.I.M. was instrumental in New York City Council’s passage of Local Law 5, which mandates the city to create a Sustainable Storm Water Management Plan that includes green-collar job training & development. He also spearheaded S.W.I.M.’s successful effort to pass a green roof tax abatment for property owners in New York City. Rob earned a degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University, where he worked for the Columbia Earth Institute. He also performed a program analysis of sustainability initiatives in the “ecological and healthy” city of Loja, Ecuador, voted the 3rd most ecological city in the world by the United Nations.