ADVISORY BOARD
COMMONGROUND CHICAGO | MAY 6-8, 2020
MARGE ANDERSON
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF SLIPSTREAM
Marge is the Executive Vice President of Slipstream, a non-profit that accelerates deep energy savings in buildings through innovative programs, technology deployment, research and education. Marge’s career experience spans grassroots organizing, non-profit leadership and governance, program development and technical education. She has dedicated her career to championing a low-carbon built environment, energy efficiency, and the power of human innovation to create a greener, healthier and more just future. Marge was the 2015 Chair of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Board of Directors. She chairs the buildings working group for Dane County, Wisconsin’s climate action plan team, and serves on Illinois Green Alliance’s Carbon Drawdown Advisory Committee. Marge also serves on the Board of Directors for the New Buildings Institute. She chaired the Corporate Social Responsibility Task Force for the global meeting and events industry when she served on the board of Meeting Professionals International. Marge inherited her love of nature from generations of outdoorswomen, and her commitment to social justice from her working class childhood in an American Rust Belt city. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College. Marge is a birder, an amateur naturalist, and a storyteller. Her personal mantra is Tony Juniper’s quote: “it’s too late for pessimism.”
SANDRA HENRY
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, ILLINOIS, CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, WALKER-MILLER ENERGY SERVICES
CINDY KLEIN-BANAI
ASSISTANT VICE-CHANCELLOR AND DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY, THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
Dr. Klein-Banai served as the Associate Chancellor for Sustainability at UIC since January 2008. She founded the Office of Sustainability where her team promotes sustainability as part of campus culture and enhances UIC’s mission of student success, improving public health, and serving the communities of Chicago. She guided the Chancellor’s Committee on Sustainability and Energy to develop the UIC Climate Action Implementation Plan to achieve the goals of Carbon Neutral Campus, Zero Waste Campus, Net Zero Water Campus, and Biodiverse Campus. In December 2019, the Sustainability function was merged into the new Office of Planning, Sustainability and Project Management.
Her proudest accomplishments include launching a Sustainability Internship Program that has provided on-the-job training in sustainability, along with a weekly educational seminar. She led the Sustainability Strategic Thinking process for the campus that resulted broad campus engagement and a report “To Green and Beyond: Excellence through Sustainability at UIC” with recommendations for integrating sustainability into UIC’s core function of teaching, research, and practice.
Under Dr. Klein-Banai’s leadership UIC received four Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award, the 2011 Illinois Recycling Association Award for Outstanding College and University Recycling Program, the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus USA recognition, Bike-Friendly University recognition, the 2018 US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools Postsecondary Award, and the Illinois Green Alliance 2019 Emerald Award
She received her doctorate from the UIC School of Public Health in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and holds an adjunct assistant professor appointment there. She serves as secretary to the Association of Advancement in Higher Education Board of Directors.
MIKE NICHOLUS
GALACTIC OPERATIONS ENVIRONMENT DIRECTOR FOR ACCENTURE
Mike is responsible for promoting programs to measure and manage Accenture’s environmental impact across operations on all planets in the cosmos on which Accenture conducts business (currently, only Earth). Collaborating with talented and passionate individuals around the world, he drives Accenture’s ISO 14001 program and broad strategy to decarbonize Accenture's 400,000+ employee footprint, focusing on buildings and business travel. Mike graduated from the University of Illinois with a dual focus in Finance and Marketing and currently lives in Chicago. He has served on the Corporate Advisory Boards for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project Business Working Group. He is a semi-retired stand-up comedian.
CRAIG SCHILLER
MANAGER FOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE
Craig is a Manager for Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) who has worked on diverse number of projects focused on decarbonizing the aviation industry including the scalable implementation of sustainable aviation fuels and carbon offsets. In addition, Mr. Schiller has over 6 years of experience in energy efficiency, project management, energy efficiency, and net zero energy buildings.
Since joining RMI in 2012, Mr. Schiller has had a unique cross-sectorial experience in managing and delivering innovative projects and the net-zero-energy buildings, higher education, transportation electrification, and aviation sectors. Mr. Schiller is currently working with sub-national actors on developing impactful and scalable programs that accelerate the decarbonization of the transportation industry. He has managed a Superefficient Affordable Housing Design Challenge for university students, cohosted deep energy retrofit conferences with the General Service Administration, and helped formulate a new sustainable campus initiative. Mr. Schiller has also been a core design team member for RMI’s new net-zero-energy headquarters where he managed the implementation of an industry-leading renewable energy and energy storage system, including developing an innovative funding solution for the system.
Since joining the RMI’s Sustainable Aviation program in 2016, Mr. Schiller has helped support the advancement of sustainable energy solutions for both domestic and international airports. In 2017, Mr. Schiller has been the Chief Operating Officer of the start-up and airport-based carbon offset program, The Good Traveler, which RMI manages. Lastly, Mr. Schiller is a Manager for America’s Pledge where he manages the creation of philanthropic campaigns to accelerate non-federal actors to take climate action within the U.S.
DAVID SOUTH
SENIOR PRINCIPAL IN THE ENERGY AND UTILITIES PRACTICE, AND SUSTAINABILITY LEAD AT WEST MONROE PARTNERS
David is a Senior Principal in the Energy & Utilities Practice at West Monroe Partners and leads its Sustainability practice. He has more than 40 years of power generation, distributed energy resource and emissions control technology and related market, strategic, policy and regulatory assessment experience. At West Monroe David works on market, regulatory and business operation/transformation issues at utility and private companies. David joined West Monroe Partners from Technology & Market Solutions, LLC. He was founder and president of this consultancy, which provided analytic, strategic, economic, and regulatory advisory services on technology, market, operation and environmental mitigation issues encountered by electric, water, and gas utilities, and industrial and transportation companies.