Steve Puma: Jared Diamond, James Kunstler, L. Hunter Lovins, Jay Ogily, Nathan Shedroff
My first green heroes were Jared Diamond, Ph.D., author of Collapse, and James Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency. Having not been an environmentalist or sustainability advocate, prior to reading these books, I was shocked to the core to learn what a terrible situation our planet was in. It was not long after that I swore to do something about it, and enrolled at Presidio Graduate School, to get my MBA in Sustainable Management.
It was there that I met some real sustainability heroes, my professors, all sustainability giants, and they include L. Hunter Lovins, J.D., author of Natural Capitalism, Jay Ogily, Ph.D., co-founder of Global Business Network, and Nathan Shedroff, sustainable design guru and author of Design is the Problem. Of course, I should not fail to mention my fellow PGS alumni, many of whom are already influential in the green world, as social entrepreneurs, sustainability executives, media personalities, and many other areas.
I hope that I make a half as much of a difference, in my work, as my teachers and peers do; I especially hope that, with my writing, I might have the same effect on people, that those first authors had on me, which causes some of them to take action.
Steve Puma is a business development and sustainability consultant, who works with Silicon Valley electric vehicle and social media startup companies. He is Director of Business Development for SABA Motors, a development-stage electric car company. He currently writes for the business and sustainability blog, TriplePundit, and his personal blog, BrightPuma.com, about transportation , sustainability, technology, innovation, and the future (where they all intersect). Steve holds an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio School of Management and a BA in Computer Science from Rutgers University. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Cori and his incorrigible pug dog, Miles. You can contact Steve through email, view his detailed profile on LinkedIn, or follow him on twitter.
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg: Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken’s my original green hero… reading The Ecology of Commerce opened my eyes to the potential for business to “do well by doing good”… prior to reading it, I’d bought in completely to the idea that economics and the environment were at loggerheads. I probably wouldn’t have started blogging if I hadn’t read Hawken’s book… it inspired to start thinking about these concepts, and to use a blog as a means to generate discussion on them.
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is the founder and editor of sustainablog, one of the oldest continuously-published blogs focused on environmental and sustainability issues. Jeff also writes for the Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered blog.
Rhonda Winter: Vandana Shiva
Dr. Vandana Shiva is one of my green heroines because she continually fights for the rights of disenfranchised farmers, workers and women. She fearlessly tackles corrupt chemical companies, massive agribusiness infrastructure and destructive monocultures. She is incredibly smart and wise, always speaks the truth about sustainability, and totally kicks ass.
Rhonda is co-editor of EcoLocalizer. She “was raised by wolves; and subsequently has a difficult time interacting with other humans.”
As always, great answers by some great bloggers.
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I enjoyed everyone else’s picks. What a list!
Wendell Berry FO SHO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Zack,
This a a nice article. Thanks for the opportunity to tell who my green heroes were!
Steve
Steve, Thank You much for participating! 😀