AGENDA
SWITZER FELLOWS’ FALL RETREAT – CALIFORNIA
September 19-21, 2014
NatureBridge at Golden Gate, Sausalito, CA
Note: Throughout the weekend, all program activities will be held in the Sunset Room, in the Sunset Building.
All meals will take place in the Houston Dining Hall.
Men’s lodging is in the Pelican Dorm.
Women’s lodging is in the Heron Dorm.
FRIDAY, September 19, 2014
(Welcome and orientation for 2014 Fellows. Fellowship Alumni welcome to join for dinner.)
1:30 pm
ARRIVAL AND CHECK-IN (Sunset Room)
2 – 3 pm
INTRODUCTIONS, ORIENTATION FOR NEW FELLOWS. We will introduce ourselves, and basic
information about the Fellowship and the Foundation, as well as present leadership concepts to be explored
throughout the weekend. Fellows should be prepared with ideas for networking topics for later in the weekend
(e.g., issues unique to international work, choosing an NGO or academic career, work/life balance, etc. –
anything you want to talk with other Fellows about).
3 – 5 pm
FLASH TALKS. A great way to share information and seek collaboration among your colleagues!
Presenters will bring four slides and will have four minutes to pitch an idea, seek input into a project or problem
they are trying to solve, or test a message they want to deliver. This is similar to “Pecha Kucha” or other
“lightning talks” that emphasize a concise pitch for feedback on an idea.
5 – 6 pm
DORM CHECK-IN, AND FREE TIME (check in to the dorms and set up your sleeping
arrangements, and then take a walk and check out the beach!)
6 – 7 pm
DINNER
7 – 9 pm
CAMPFIRE (bring stories, musical instruments…)
SATURDAY, September 20, 2014
8 – 9 am
BREAKFAST and check-in for new arrivals
9 – 5 pm
TRAINING: TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP. The Switzer Foundation has partnered with the
Rockwood Leadership Institute to offer a one-day transformative leadership workshop for Fellows. Rockwood
Leadership Institute teaches skills and tools that help social change leaders overcome leadership challenges;
develop collaborative skills; decrease “burn-out”; and create organizations that celebrate sustainability and
diversity. The session is designed to help you understand personal awareness as part of collaborative
leadership, increase your skillfulness in working across difference, and increase your personal sustainability. It
will be a significant opportunity to build community with other Fellows.
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Welcome and Opening by our trainer, Maria Ramos-Chertok
Storytelling – Leadership Journey
Personal Ecology
(12:30 – 1:30 pm LUNCH)
Effective Communication Across Differences
Collective Vision
5 - 6 pm
RECEPTION AND/OR FREE TIME – Join us for a beer or glass of wine to unwind, or take a walk,
stretch your legs (or both!)
6 – 7 pm
DINNER
7 – 9 pm
CAMPFIRE
9 pm
MOVIE (Gasland II or Tapped – we will take a vote!)
SUNDAY, September 21, 2014
8 – 9 am
BREAKFAST
9 – 9:30 am
LEADERSHIP CONCEPTS. Switzer Foundation Executive Director Lissa Widoff will present
concepts of leadership in the context of environmental problem solving. We will tie this back to the Leadership
training from the day before.
9:30–10:15am SWITZER FELLOW LEADERSHIP PROFILES. We will hear from two Fellows working in different
sectors of the environmental field, and on different issues.
Sue Chiang, Pollution Prevention Co-Director
Center for Environmental Health, Oakland, CA
(and Switzer Leadership Grant Recipient)
Alexa Engelman, Assistant Regional Counsel
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco, CA
10:15–Noon
FELLOW NETWORKING / OPEN SPACE. Fellows will break into small groups for networking and
discussion on a range of topics chosen by participants.
12 -12:30 pm
PRESENTATION OF 2014 FELLOWSHIP AWARDS
12:30-1:30 pm BOXED LUNCH
1:30 pm
DEPART
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TRAINER BIOGRAPHY
Maria Ramos-Chertok is an independent consultant, trainer and mediator
specializing in nonprofit organizations and public agencies. Her areas of expertise
include conflict resolution, communication, teambuilding, sexual harassment
prevention, leadership development and multiculturalism. She has extensive
experience as a group facilitator that includes a twenty year history of nonprofit
experience in crisis counseling, advocacy and teaching.
Since 1996, she has also worked with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services doing
organizational development consulting and providing workshops on a wide variety
of topics including, “Advanced Problem Solving for Supervisors”, “Communication
and Conflict Resolution”, “Employee Retention” and “Communication Styles”.
She received her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of
Law (Class of 1987) where she was the recipient of the Fordham Human Rights
Award for the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of individual freedom and human dignity. She
received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley (1984).
In March of 1998, Maria was hired by the Futures without Violence to write a national benchbook for judges.
The Benchbook, "Cultural Considerations In Domestic Violence Cases" was published in August 1999 and shortly
thereafter was nominated for the annual Howell Heflin Award - an award given to State Justice Institute (SJI)
supported projects that have a high likelihood of significantly improving the quality of justice in state courts
across the nation.
Maria was selected to participate in the National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) Year 2001 Fellowship
Program. The program prepares selected Latina women who have demonstrated leadership at the local level for
positions of national influence and public policy impact. As part of the fellowship, she completed a weeklong
session at the Center for Creative Leadership in their Leadership Development Program and a week at the JFK
School of Public Policy at Harvard University.
In December 2003, Maria received a Women to Watch Award from Jewish Women International (JWI), an award
given to “outstanding and accomplished women who are making significant contributions to contemporary life.”
She has also been a part of the training team with the National Indian Justice Center and has worked with
members of numerous tribal communities in an effort to help make tribal court systems responsive to the needs
of families in crisis.
In 2008, she joined the training team of Rockwood Leadership Institute.
Maria’s mediation practice focuses on employment issues and conflicts involving nonprofit organizations. She
has received 92 hours of mediation training from The Center for Understanding Conflict and has assisted Gary
Friedman as a coach in his Fundamentals of Mediation course.
She is bilingual in Spanish.
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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Sue Chiang (1997 Switzer Fellow, and current Leadership Grantee)
Pollution Prevention Co-Director, Center for Environmental Health, Oakland, CA
sue@ceh.org
Sue is excited to be creating and leading a new market-based campaign related to fracked natural gas under
CEH’s Energy and Environmental Health program. For over 7 years, Sue managed CEH’s work to create market
incentives for the electronics industry to design, manufacture, and dispose of their products in a way that
protects public and environmental health. She served as a steering committee member of the national
Electronics TakeBack Coalition, and as a fierce advocate and the leading NGO stakeholder for the development
of strong, credible international environmental standards under the EPEAT eco-label for electronics. Sue has
over two decades of experience in the environmental health field through a variety of organizations including as
a consultant to the San Francisco Foundation where she provided capacity building opportunities for the
Environmental Health and Justice Initiative’s grantees; as Community Health Advocate at Greenaction, she
served as a liaison to the national HealthCare without Harm Campaign and played a leading role in linking
community organizing efforts in Northern California against dangerous medical waste incineration practices to
upstream pollution prevention strategies with hospitals; Sue also spent over four years at Environmental
Defense Fund researching community right-to-know issues, investigating Proposition 65 cases, and conducting
grassroots outreach for EDF’s Chemical Scorecard. Sue received a B.A. degree in environmental science from
Barnard College, Columbia University and completed a double-masters program at University of California
Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and the Graduate School of Public Health, where she was a recipient
of the prestigious Switzer Environmental Fellowship.
Alexa Engelman (2009 Switzer Fellow)
Assistant Regional Counsel, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco, CA
alexa.engelman@gmail.com
A 2009 Switzer Fellow, Alexa graduated from a joint law and public policy degree program at UCLA's Law School
and School of Public Affairs in 2011. She focused her studies on environmental law and policy, especially as it is
applied to climate change and the intersection of environmental issues and social justice. At UCLA, Alexa served
as a board member of the Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, volunteered at a legal clinic on Skid Row and
graduated from the Epstein Public Interest Law Program. A longtime environmental advocate, Alexa worked for
several years before graduate school for the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, CA where she
coordinated public interest litigation to reduce lead in children's products and conducted national media
communication. She has also worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council in both Montana and Santa
Monica on grizzly bear conservation and air litigation, for the CA Attorney General's Environment and Natural
Resources Sections and in the White House Council on Environmental Quality. At Brown University as an
undergrad, she focused on environmental policy and public perception of environmental harm. Alexa has found
connecting her love for the outdoors with her legal advocacy has been a natural fit. She can be found playing
ultimate frisbee, poking around farmer's markets and hiking in local mountains in her free time. She currently
practices environmental law at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9 in San Francisco, CA.
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Grey Hayes (1999 Switzer Fellow)
Coastal Training Program Coordinator, Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Watsonville, CA
coastalprairie@aol.com
For the past 22 years, Dr. Grey Hayes has focused on agroecology and natural systems ecology of California’s
central coast. His project experience includes work with the Ohlone tiger beetle (Cicindela ohlone) and redlegged frog (Rana aurora draytonii), as well as restoration and management of coastal prairie, coastal scrub,
riparian, and maritime chaparral ecosystems. He has co-authored numerous management plans for protected
natural areas and published work in numerous scientific and popular journals. His research experience includes
work with restoration ecology in coastal prairie and arid riparian systems. Dr. Hayes is currently coordinator of
the Coastal Training Program at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. This program focuses
on bridging the gaps between regulators, land managers, and researchers by creating educational programs that
foster dialogue, help build community, and increase ecological understanding. Recent contributions of this
program include improvements in: protection for maritime chaparral, freshwater wetlands, and coastal prairie
throughout the central coast of California; recreation management in protected natural areas in coastal
California, and; independent scientific review of environmental decision making in a number of regulatory
branches of government.
Lissa Widoff (1992 Switzer Fellow)
Executive Director, Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation, Belfast, ME
lissa@switzernetwork.org
Lissa is Executive Director of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, an environmental foundation based in
Belfast, Maine that supports graduate Fellowships in New England and California and a Leadership Grant
Program supporting NGO partnerships with Switzer Fellows to work on critical environmental issues. Lissa began
as Executive Director in 1999 and has overseen the growth of the organization in its program development,
governance structure engaging family and non-family trustees and financial management. Ms. Widoff has
extensive experience in managing philanthropic initiatives in environmental issues and the arts. Ms. Widoff is
trained as an ecologist and has worked for the State of Maine, The Nature Conservancy, the University of Maine,
and co-directed the Land for Maine’s Future Program managing state acquisition of over 40,000 acres of new
public lands from 1989-1992. She has served on the Boards of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the
Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and until September 2011, on the Maine Board of Environmental
Protection. She holds a B.S degree from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and an M.P.A from
Harvard Kennedy School.
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