Board of Directors

William Borges  wborges@ocsustainability.org
Interim Chairman and Treasurer
In his technical field, environmental sustainability, Bill Borges has successfully directed more than 100 sustainability, environmental management, public policy, impact assessment, research and analysis, and pollution-control projects.  As a principal scientist, he led the sustainability/environmental management system consulting practice at Midwest Research Institute, operator of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

In his organizational transformation work, Bill designs and implements highly successful solutions tailored to the unique strategic, tactical and operations issues facing rapidly growing and crisis-plagued technology-based organizations.  Notable beneficiaries of this work include regional healthcare systems, a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winning medical imaging company in Silicon Valley, and a major West Coast military base.

Further, as an educator, he teaches undergraduate and graduate level business management courses.   He also designed two new undergraduate green business management courses – “The Sustainable Organization” and “Environmental Management Systems” – for a large university system serving mid-career professionals.

In addition to a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography with an environmental management emphasis, Bill holds an MBA with a thesis on the design and implementation of corporate environmental management systems

He is the author of “Planning the Creation and Implementation of World Standard Environmental Management Systems” (1995) and “Performance Improvement for Healthcare Managers” (2005).  He also writes the blog, “Creating Hospital Sustainability Programs” at http://hospitalsustainability.blogspot.com/

Volunteer work includes service as an examiner for a state-level Baldrige Award program.  And, just for the fun of it, he serves annually as a Grand Award judge in the environmental management category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Bill Conley  bconley@ocsustainability.org
Chief Governing Officer
Bill Conley CFM, CFMJ, FMP, LEED AP, IFMA Fellow is owner/CSO of CFM2, a Facility Management & Sustainability Consulting company based in Orange County, California.  Bill has more than 35 years of experience in the facility management profession and has been a proponent of sustainable operations for almost 20 years. He has managed facilities for both large corporations and smaller companies. He has worked on LEED projects as well as assisted businesses in implementing and benefitting from sustainable practices.

Bill received his Certified Facility Manager (CFM) designation from IFMA in 1992 and achieved LEED professional accreditation through the US Green Building Council in 2002.

In addition to his induction as an IFMA Fellow, Conley is a past member of the IFMA Board of Directors, a recipient of IFMA’s distinguished member of the year award and has twice received the associations distinguished author award. Additionally, Conley helped develop the Orange County Chapter of the US Green Building Council.

Bill ’s focus is to help businesses achieve the benefits of sustainable operations that includes operating efficiency, cost savings and a reputation for Corporate Social Responsibility.

Teresa Nersesyan  tnersesyan@ocsustainability.org
Director
With a passion for sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) – plus, a commitment to reduce the impacts of manufacturing and consumption – Teresa is an accomplished executive with over 20 years’ experience in textile- and garment-manufacturing and private-label specialty retail.

Teresa has held numerous executive roles in supply-chain management, CSR, and regulatory and industry-standards compliance.   She completed her long-time career at Pacific Sunwear, a teen retailer headquartered in Orange County, as Vice President of Global Logistics and Trade Compliance.

As a transformational leader in the apparel industry, Teresa has held directorships on the Cotton Board, the American Apparel Producers Network, California Fashion Association, and the United States Association of Importers of Textile and Apparel. She is also an instructor at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.

Her extensive experience in developing corporate social responsibility and environmental programs – as well as successful completion of more than 500 factory audits and 25 supply chain security audits around the world – enabled her to start and grow her own company, Tradeface Consulting LLC.  TC-LLC is a boutique consulting firm that helps textile companies, garment brands and retailers define and implement CSR, sustainability and supply-chain-optimization strategies, programs and performance-improvement projects.

She is a recent graduate of the Executive Program in Sustainability from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco and holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Management.

Christina Hall  chall@ocsustainability.org
Director
Christina Hall has extensive leadership experience in both corporate information technology and community environmental and social responsibility programs.

In her professional role she is a client technology manager for a premiere global advertising agency.  The firm specializes in the development and implementation of digital marketing strategies for leading corporations in the automotive, healthcare and pharmaceutical, luxury product, technology, financial service and utility industries.

In her role as a community leader in southern California, she has and continues to serve as:

• Founder of Sprouting Justice in Garden Grove
• Web and Systems Consultant to East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice in Commerce
• Ambassador Troop Leader for the Girl Scouts of the USA in Long Beach
• Sustainable Communities Researcher for The Grain Project in Santa Ana
• Member and Researcher for Orange County Food Access Coalition
• Mentor for the Youth Health Ambassadors Program of TeenSpace in Santa Ana
• Collaborator with Orange County Community Action Partnership on the implementation of a new community garden in the Tina Pacific neighborhood of Stanton.

This community work includes:
Teaching and mentoring, basic literature and field research, information systems development and operation, staff and intern management, and business process development, performance tracking and improvement.
Christina holds:

A Masters of Arts degree in Urban Sustainability from Antioch University, and

A Bachelors of Arts degree in Biology from the University of La Verne with Cum Laude and Departmental Honors.

Katie Schmitz-Eulitt  kschmitz-eulitt@ocsustainability.org
Director
Katie Schmitz Eulitt is a highly qualified sustainability professional with an unusual mix of industry and international experience across a wide range of sectors in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, including: • Financial Services • Energy – Oil & Gas and Renewables • Cleantech • Water, and • Non-profits

She is currently the Associate Director for Stakeholder Engagement at the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ( http://www.sasb.org/sasb/about/ ).  SASB develops and disseminates industry-specific accounting standards for material sustainability issues so that sustainability performance can be evaluated alongside financial performance.

Her other notable work includes:

Systematic CSR strategy and tactics consulting to produce triple-bottom-line results for organizations ranging from non-profit startups  to Fortune 100 corporations, and

Co-development of a revolutionary business model to serve base-of-the-pyramid markets with safe drinking water.  The model tapped into CSR programs of Fortune 500 companies to help fund special projects at the WaterHealth International (WHI).

Kirsten Anderson  kanderson@ocsustainability.org
Secretary
Kirsten Anderson is currently pursuing a Master of Environment degree with a focus on Natural Resource Management at the Australian National University.

Prior to Kirsten’s mid-career change, she held the position of Library Manager for the Newport Beach office of O’Melveny & Myers LLP and was a dedicated bike commuter.  Kirsten is interested in looking at ways to build public and private partnerships to assist in establishing a bike share program within Orange County.

John Grosskopf   jgrosskopf@ocsustainability.org
Board Advisor
John Grosskopf  is an accomplished and award-winning environmental and sustainability professional with over 34 years engineering, health and safety, quality, security, and sustainability management experience in the private and public sectors, nationally and internationally.  He is a Professional Engineer, Board Certified in Hazardous Waste Management and served for 15 years as an environmental executive for General Dynamics Corporation and several national consulting firms including most recently as TRC’s V.P. of Strategic Initiatives and Sustainability, leading their national efforts in sustainability, climate change, and corporate best practices.

John is a pioneer and leader in sustainability and corporate best practices who specializes in implementing strategic and tactical solutions that have successfully helped hundreds of private and public sector organizations dramatically improve their environmental performance, compliance and triple bottom line through a combination of integrated management systems, corporate best practices,  collaboration, and partnering.

John is a passionate spokesman for sustainability and is the Co-Founder of the OCSC and the San Diego Sustainability Partnership and currently serves on the Sustainability Advisory Committee to UCI-Extension where he also teaches a course on sustainability.  John has been an ardent promoter of sustainability for over two decades and specializes in the difficult but important practice of “operationalizing sustainability” in organizations of all kinds.

Educated as an Engineer (BSCE, The Ohio State University) John is also a published author, adjunct faculty/guest lecturer at UCSD La Jolla, UCI-Extension, the OSHA Institute, the University of Colorado and others and is a speaker at national and international venues.

Montgomery Norton   mnorton@ocsustainability.org
Board Advisor
Montgomery Norton graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a BA in Social Ecology & Education, and an MA in Urban & Regional Planning, specializing in community sustainability and collaborative development.  Mr. Norton served as the graduate student representative to the Sustainability Steering Committee for the University of California, 10-campus system and the UC Irvine Sustainability Committee.  Montogmery co-founded the UC Irvine chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition.  Montgomery founded the UC Responsible Investment Campaign and Coalition.

Montgomery served as an Advisory Board Member for the nonprofits Solar the Sign and Ecofficiency.  Mr. Norton served as an Executive Assistant to Irvine Councilmember, Beth Krom, where he developed large-scale community sustainability collaborations and initiatives.  This role informed the initial development of the Orange County Sustainability Collaborative.  He is the founder of Paradigm Solutions Development, a Sustainability Incubation and Orchestration Services firm.  He is founding board member of the Orange County Sustainability Collaborative, as well as serving as an advisor to many other organizations.  Montogomery has a 20+ year background in both food & beverage service and holistic medicine.  Mr. Norton recently moved to Napa, CA where he is contributing to the growing development of another rich sustainable community.