Staff Bios
Erika Croxton, Development Director
Growing up on the banks of a river in Indiana, Erika spent her childhood climbing trees, chasing chickens, and running away from goats. After studying in Minnesota and Japan, Erika rebelled against her rural roots and moved to New York, where she found she had a knack for city life and for helping nonprofits raise much-needed moola. She held various development positions at the New York Asian Women’s Center, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, before a desire to return to all things green brought her to Seattle and to Grist. When not working with Grist’s generous donors, Erika loves to cook in her kitchen, swim, indulge in her love of pop culture, and occasionally chase chickens.
Wade Fasano, Designer
This was Wade before moving to Seattle from Las Vegas:
Que Music
Is it worth it can you even hear me / Standing with your spotlight on me / Not enough to feed the hungry / I’m tired and I felt it for awhile now / In this sea of lonely / The taste of ink is getting old / It’s four o’ clock in the F*#&%ing morning / Each day gets more and more like the last day / Still I can see it coming / While I’m standing in the river drowning / This could be my chance to break out / This could be my chance to say goodbye / At last it’s finally over / Couldn’t take this town much longer / Being half dead wasn’t what I planned to be / Now I’m ready to be free.
Now this is Wade after moving to Seattle:
[Chorus]
So here I am it’s in my hands / And I’ll savor every moment of this / So here I am alive at last / And I’ll savor every moment of this.
Chip Giller, President and Founder
Chip founded Grist in 1999 to lighten up a movement known for taking itself too seriously. He was named a TIME Magazine “Hero of the Environment” in 2007, and was awarded the 2006 National Conservation Achievement Award by the National Wildlife Federation. Chip has been featured for his work in such outlets as Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and Outside, and has appeared on broadcast programs including the Today show and PBS’s NOW. In 2004, he received the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy from the Tides Foundation, in recognition of the vital role Grist is playing in increasing environmental awareness.
Before launching Grist, Chip was editor of Greenwire, the first environmental news daily. He is a senior fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program and a three-time journalism fellow with the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources.
A native of Massachusetts, Chip graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in environmental studies. (Yes, he is an obsessive Red Sox fan.) When Chip’s not pondering the future of online environmental journalism, he likes to spend his time with his wonderful wife, Jenny, their daughter, Ellis, and their son, Sebastian, at their home on Vashon Island, near Seattle.
Twilight Greenaway, Food Editor
Twilight has been writing and editing for the web since 2000, covering topics ranging from student organizing to public health to — most recently — the local/sustainable food movement. Before Grist she worked for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) and her writing has appeared in the numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Bay Citizen, Civil Eats, the Bold Italic, and Edible San Francisco. She was raised on a farm in Hawaii and now calls Oakland, California home.
Judy Halls, Development Manager
A native of Southern California, Judy fled the Golden State for the Emerald City and has never looked back. She graduated from Whittier College with dual majors in Sociology and Gender Studies, and a minor in Muckraking. When not minding her post at the venerable Grist offices, she’s usually off dabbling in local politics, perfecting her backcountry culinary skills (bacon s’mores, anyone?), or flirting with Seattle traffic on her trusty mountain bike.
Greg Hanscom, Special Projects Editor
Greg Hanscom has been editor of the award-winning environmental magazine High Country News and the Baltimore-based city mag, Urbanite. He tweets about cities and the environment at @ghanscom.
Wentina Hurtado, Director of Finance
Wentina is on a train that left Seattle at 3 p.m., traveling 50 miles per hour, heading toward San Francisco, 800 miles away. Your train leaves S.F. at 9:12 p.m., heading toward Seattle at 90 mph. A fly is hovering just above the nose of Wentina’s train. It buzzes from her train to your train, turns around immediately, flies back to the first train, and turns around again. It goes on flying back and forth between the two trains until they meet. If the fly’s speed is 187 mph, how far will it travel? And at what time will our trains meet? To find out more about Wentina, meet her at the Amtrak Station, Saturday at noon. Wear a blue rose in your lapel and walk with a slight limp.
Lisa Hymas, Senior Editor
Lisa cofounded Grist in 1999 and now serves as senior editor. She’s also worked at Greenwire, an online environmental news service; Island Press, an environmental book publisher; Tomorrow, a sustainable business magazine; and ONE/Northwest, a nonprofit capacity builder for environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest. When not obsessing over news and politics, she’s likely to be found running, hiking, reading edifying books or trashy magazines, whipping up vegetarian delights in the kitchen, or planning her next international escapade.
Nathan Letsinger, Web Developer
Nathan was born as a small script in the Programming Republic of Perl. Now an expatriate of the Republic, he is firmly a PHP convert, a Seattle transplant, and Grist’s Web developer. His pursuits include philosophy, food, and of course, coding for a better life. He suspects Google can provide more than you ever would want to know about him.
Jennifer Mac Donald, Membership and Annual Support Manager
Being of fan of both humor and the planet, Jennifer found Grist to be a natural fit. After a six-year stint in Southern California, Jen turned in her sunglasses for a raincoat and returned to her native Seattle. And boy, is it good to be home. When she’s not busy making Friends with Benefits, she enjoys running, hiking, officiating weddings, civic service, and cultivating her love of fine food and cheap wine. Between the months of October and April you can usually find Jen calming her precious fiancé when the Utah Jazz don’t perform to their potential … for yet another season.
Gerald McLean, Director, Sales and Sponsorships
206.876.3151
Gerald was born in sunny Glasgow, Scotland, then immigrated to
California as a kid with his family and discovered the actual definition
of sunshine. Growing up in Silicon Valley during the technology boom
lead him to believe that the combination of humans and technology can
and will save the world! His Grist colleagues think that’s sweet.
Gerald brings nearly two decades of media experience to Grist as the
Director of Sales and Sponsorships. Prior, he was the Director of Sales
for Clear Channel Television and for SFGate.com. Here at Grist, he’s
doing his part to help make the world a better place. When not at work,
Gerald spends time with the coolest people he knows: his two daughters.
Rosalie Miller, Executive Assistant
Rosalie Miller, a Kentucky native who also goes by (and prefers) Rosie, earned a Bachelor of Arts with a double minor in Theatre and Art History at the University of Kentucky. Soon afterward, she trekked to Portland, Ore., to study at the Portland Actors Conservatory, from which she graduated in 2005. Following her time in Portland, Rosie relocated to sunny Los Angeles to further her (sometimes frustrating and daunting, but super badass) interests in film, theatre, and fine art.
Her latest migration took place in early 2011, when she decided it was time to get off the 405, purchase some flannel, and head north to experience the Emerald City.
When she’s not pestering Chip, Rosie is usually plotting her next social art project and how to retire at 35.
Matt Perry, Technology Director
Matt Perry writes code and manages Grist’s web production and development efforts. He sometimes posts updates about the web, data and technology here.
David Roberts, Staff Writer
David was born and raised in the South. A revelatory summer working in Yellowstone National Park convinced him that it was not the world but just the part where he lived that sucked, so he moved out West. After several wayward years spent snowboarding and getting an MA in philosophy (go griz), he woke up with nothing but a dissertation between him and an arid, cloistered life spent debating minutiae with the world’s other 12 Dewey scholars. So he bailed. A period was spent trudging through the swamp of Seattle tech work, wading past Amazon.com, IMDb.com, and Microsoft, before the fine folks at Grist fell for his devastating good looks in December 2003.
He now spends his free time playing in his new house with his newish sons and his not-so-new but still-wonderful wife. He loves them, loves Seattle, loves Grist, and still, despite himself, loves the internet.
Darby Minow Smith, Assistant Editor
Darby is a fifth-generation Montana rancher and a first-generation vegetarian. (Although she still holds a place in her heart and diet for grass-fed steak.) She graduated from Gonzaga in 2009 and has spent most of her post-college time drinking copious amounts of coffee and talking about her cat.
Theo Stewart, Account Manager
After succumbing to the travel bug for several years, Theo confirmed his long-held suspicion that the Pacific Northwest is truly one of the best places to live in the world (nothing beats the local mountains in his humble opinion) and promptly moved back home to pursue a career in online media and advertising. You might find him in his free time out on the slopes at one of the local ski areas or searching for a lost ball on one of the many nearby golf courses. He also greatly enjoys cooking for his friends and family and in the summers can frequently be spotted on his deck barbecuing.
Hanna Welch, Social Media Producer
Hanna grew up smack-dab in the center of Seattle and was lucky enough to spend her formative years stomping around the city while also spending summers at her family’s cabin on a small island in the San Juans. To date, she still thinks it’s the most beautiful place in the world. Like any respectable daughter of hippie parents, Hanna learned how to use native plants to dye wool for weaving and dreamed of being a naturalist. Instead she ran away to study law in Washington, D.C., and eventually followed her bleeding heart to New Orleans to help create an interactive science workshop for low-income kids. Unable to stay away from her hometown, she moved back to the Emerald City and dabbled in corporate life, then found her rightful place in the land of nonprofits. Lured by Grist’s mission to green the world one pun at a time, she now does her best to help it keep on growing.
If you’re lucky, you’ll run into Hanna while she’s sailing around Lake Washington, volunteering for SIFF, supporting local hip-hop, cooking lavish meals with friends, or eating out at restaurants she probably can’t afford, all with camera in hand. Question is, do you feel lucky? Well … do ya?
Katharine Wroth, Foundation Relations Manager
Katharine spent nearly five years as an editor at Grist before migrating to the wild world of fundraising. Pre-Grist, she spent eight years as an editor at environmental publications in the Northeast, sneaking humor into their pages whenever possible. A native New Englander, Katharine escaped to Seattle for a couple of years before being lured back to the land of lobsters and lighthouses, and now works from a sparsely decorated bunker in the Boston area. In her spare time, she defends the merits of bowling to anyone who will listen. Which isn’t really anyone at all.
Board of Directors
Susan L. Kaufman, Chair (Brookline, Mass.)
Susan L. Kaufman is a health care consultant working on health care system transformation in Massachusetts. She has held senior and executive level positions in government, health care delivery organizations and business. Kaufman founded and was a principal of Benova, Inc., a company that provided business process outsourcing services to health and human services agencies. She is also on the Board of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. She has a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Rachel Morello-Frosch, Treasurer (San Francisco, Calif.)
Rachel Morello-Frosch is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Rachel’s research examines race and class determinants of environmental health among diverse communities in the United States. Previously, she held a joint appointment between the Department of Community Health at Brown Medical School and the Center for Environmental Studies. Rachel completed her bachelor’s degree in development studies, a master of public health degree in epidemiology and biostatistics, and her Ph.D. in environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Rachel is a co-founder and former board chair of the Environmental Leadership Program and sits on the scientific advisory board of Breast Cancer Action.
Benjamin Strauss, Clerk (New York, N.Y.)
Benjamin Strauss is COO and director of the program on Sea Level Rise at Climate Central, a nonprofit that tracks and communicates climate change science and solutions. Formerly, he worked for Abt Associates, co-organized the Campus Earth Summit, and authored a report on college environmental education and practices for the Nathan Cummings Foundation. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Yale University, a master’s degree in zoology from the University of Washington, and a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University. Benjamin is a founding board member of Grist and was a founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program.
John Alderman, Member (Washington, D.C.)
John Alderman is the publisher of Slate Magazine. In addition, he heads up business development for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, the digital arm of The Washington Post Company. In this role, he is responsible for developing and managing strategic partnerships and new business initiatives for washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com, and slate.com. Previously, John ran business development for Away.com, a travel website that was sold to Orbitz in 2005. Earlier in his career, John served in a variety of editorial and business roles at Outside magazine. John has a bachelor’s degree in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard College and an MBA from Columbia University.
Gino Borland, Member (Seattle, Wash.)
Gino Borland was the founder of Gino Borland, Inc., an internet company that makes personalized e-marketing software. Since selling his company, he has focused his time on environmental interests, including the climate crisis and potential clean-energy solutions. Apart from Grist, he is also involved in Social Venture Partners in Seattle, Wash.
Melissa L. Bradley, Member (San Francisco, Calif.)
Melissa Bradley is the CEO of Tides, which provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers, and granted more than $100 million in 2009. Prior to joining Tides, Melissa was founder and managing director of New Capitalist, facilitating venture capital transactions for seed stage companies. She has served as a senior adviser to the Center for American Progress and as a regular consultant to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation on Family Economic Security and Civic Engagement. She is formerly a senior strategist for Green For All, where she created the Capital Access Program and assisted in the creation of the Energy Efficiency Opportunity Fund and the Green Jobs Award Program. Melissa graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor’s degree in Finance, and a master’s in Business Administration in Marketing from American University.
Tony Conrad, Member (San Francisco, Calif.)
Tony Conrad is a cofounder of about.me and Sphere, and is a member of the True Ventures founding team. He serves on the boards of Automattic (WordPress), appssavvy, Typekit, 20×200, GDGT, catchfree, StockTwits, KISSmetrics, and RescueTime, and led True’s investments in Milk, Smarterer, Plancast, Limelig.ht, and MakerBot. He has also served on the board of oddpost (acquired by Yahoo!) and played an active role managing investments in Stonyfield Farms (acquired by Groupe-Danone), Danger (acquired by Microsoft), and Post Communications (acquired by Netcentives). He graduated from Indiana University.
Chip Giller, Founder and President
See staff bio above.
Kristen Grimm, (Washington, D.C.)
Kristen Grimm is president of Spitfire Strategies, a company that provides communications solutions to support positive social change. Previously, she was president and chief operating officer of Fenton Communications. A graduate of Smith College, Kristen is a founding board member of Grist and also serves on the boards of the Independent Media Institute and Transfair USA.
Daniel Katz, Member (New York, N.Y.).
Daniel is an internationally recognized conservationist and social innovator. At the age of 24, he co-founded the Rainforest Alliance, now considered one of the world’s premier conservation organizations. The Rainforest Alliance is active in more than 70 countries, and was one of the first organizations to work with businesses to change management practices. Today, it is the world’s largest nonprofit certifier, working on products that range from Gibson guitars to Lipton tea. Daniel remains chair of the Rainforest Alliance’s board, and is also the senior program director in the Environment at The Overbrook Foundation. At the foundation, he launched Catalog Choice.org, which offers an easy way for its 1.2 million users to stop the flow of unwanted catalogs into their mailboxes. He has an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University, and is the editor of two volumes, Why Freedom Matters: The Spirit of the Declaration of Independence in Prose, Poetry and Song and Tales from the Jungle: A Rainforest Reader.
Bill McKibben, Member (Middlebury, Vt.)
Bill McKibben writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Outside, and many other publications. His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 after being excerpted in The New Yorker; it was a national bestseller and appeared in 20 foreign editions. His other books include Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, Enough, The Age of Missing Information, and The Bill McKibben Reader. Bill is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and led the organizing for StepItUp, which coordinated 2,000 climate change demonstrations in all 50 states. He’s now at work on 350.org, the first attempt at a global grassroots climate change movement.
Matt Mullenweg, Member (San Francisco, Calif.)
Matt Mullenweg is the founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software he guided from a handful of users to the most widely used open source blog tool. WordPress is now used by more than 200 million websites worldwide. After moving from his native Houston to San Francisco to work at CNET Networks, Matt left in late 2005 to found Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, as well as Akismet.com, Gravatar, and other enterprises. He has been named one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web.
Wendy Schmidt, Member (Palo Alto, Calif.)
Wendy Schmidt is president of The Schmidt Family Foundation, working to advance the wiser use of energy and natural resources. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley, and graduated magna cum laude from Smith College. She is a founder of The 11th Hour Project, and of Climate Central; and also serves on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council, California Academy of Sciences, and Green Products Innovation Institute. Wendy is president of The Nantucket Dreamland Foundation, and supports a vital downtown to serve island residents through her work at ReMain Nantucket.
Kelsey Wirth, Member (Boston, Mass.)
Kelsey Wirth is co-founder and former director of Align Technology, an orthodontic technology company. She was also the company’s president from its founding in 1997 until November 2001. Prior to her work with Align, Kelsey worked as an analyst for the Environmental Working Group, as a special assistant to the president of the World Resources Institute, and as director of constituency outreach for the Lamm Campaign for U.S. Senate. She served on the board of Brontes Technology until its sale to 3M in September 2006, and currently serves on the boards of the Environmental Working Group and the Winslow Foundation. Kelsey received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and her MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
