Speakers

More speakers TBA, be sure to check back regularly!

Reverend D. Alexander Bullock

Rev. D. Alexander Bullock has preached throughout the Midwest, Northeast and Southern United States. As a teacher, he has lectured throughout the Midwest and continues to impact the lives of undergraduate college students in both Detroit and Chicago.

A native of Boston, Massachusetts; Bullock was reared in Detroit, MI, in the home of Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Bullock. After graduating from high school (at the age of 16), Bullock entered Morehouse College in the fall of 1994. In 1998 Bullock graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in History. Bullock then entered the Doctoral program in Philosophy at Wayne State University, where he is currently in the final stages of dissertation preparation. In addition to being a PhD candidate at Wayne State University, Bullock is also currently a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where he is receiving advanced training in Theology.

As a college adjunct professor, Bullock has taught Philosophy at the following institutions: William Tyndale College (Farmington Hills), Wayne State University (Detroit) and Saint Xavier University (Chicago, IL). In all this, he has remained committed to parish ministry, having served as the Assistant Pastor of the Bethany Baptist Church of Detroit (for five years) and having worked in the following other ministries: Morehouse College Chapel (Atlanta, Ga.), Beulah Baptist Church (Atlanta, Ga.), The American Baptist Churches of Southeastern Michigan office and Brotherly Love Missionary Baptist Church (Chicago, IL).

He is the current President of the Highland Park Branch of the NAACP, the President of the Detroit Chapter of Rainbow-Push and the Chairman of the Issues Committee of the Council of Baptist Pastor’s. Bullock recently held an AIDS/HIV Awareness Conference where the keynote speaker was the noted actress and aids activist Sheryl Lee Ralph.

As a preacher of the gospel, Bullock remains committed to the cause of Christ and as an educator, he stands firm in the conviction that no student is unteachable and no goal is unreachable. Bullock was called to Pastor Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in Highland Park on December 18, 2005.

Brother ChiSing

Br. ChiSing is an ordained disciple of the famous Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh as well as a commissioned minister within the United Church of Christ. He is also a Community College adjunct professor of World Religions, the founder of Interfaith Mindfulness Ministries, and the facilitator of one of the largest lay meditation communities in Dallas, Texas. He is a popular retreat facilitator around the country for Christian churches, Buddhist centers, college campuses and Interfaith groups. And he is a singer/songwriter, poet and “peaceful” peace activist, as well as a lover of travel, science fiction/fantasy movies and gourmet gelato. See his cool website at:http://www.intermindful.com/

The Spoken Word with Nicolas Hampton

Poetry, Jimi Hendrix style. Let your ears and mind lead take control as you become apart of one man's incredible perspective. http://www.myspace.com/this_chaotic_white

Mary Nichol

Mary Nicol is the Greenpeace Student Network Manager, particularly focused on training and moblizing youth to take action on global warming. A veteran of the youth global warming movement, Mary has worked with the Energy Action Coalition to plan and recruit for Power Shift 2007 and as a Campus Climate Challenge organizer with the Student PIRGs. She has worked on several legislative and corporate campaigns on the local, state, and national levels. Mary is a graduate of the Green Corps Class of 2006 and a 2005 graduate of Emory University. She lives in Chicago and believes that youth will lead the way.

MSU-ECO Planeteers

Michigan State University student sustainability organization will be represented by the "Planeteers." A group of hard working, dedicated individuals with a passion for environmental equity, sustainable economics and clean and green universities.

Jerome Ringo

Jerome Ringo is a dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal advocate of clean energy has continued to inspire and motivate. He has first hand experience of the challenges we face after working for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry. More than half of that time was spent as an active union member working with his fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. Louisiana’s petrochemical industry focuses on the production of gasoline, rocket fuel, and plastics – many of which contain cancer causing chemicals. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities – primarily poor, minority communities – Jerome began organizing community environmental justice groups. Jerome’s experience organizing environmental and labor communities and his drive to further diversify the environmental movement bridges many of Apollo’s partners to create a broad based coalition to provide real solutions for our energy crisis. In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, Jerome became the chair of the board. In so doing, he also became the first African American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome was the United States’ only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, and represented the National Wildlife Federation at the United Nations conference on sustainable development in 1999. Jerome inspires audiences around the world to create a new clean energy economy. Some of his most notable keynote appearances include: the Montreal Climate Summit in 2006, the United Nations African Climate Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 2006, the Kyoto Plus Conference in Berlin Germany in 2007, and the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver Colorado. In 2006, Jerome was a McCloskey Fellow and Associate Research Scholar at Yale University; in 2008, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of the Environment. Jerome is the co-author of "Diversity and the future of U.S. Environmetal Movement"(2007) as well as "The Green Festival Reader"(2008) as well as appearing in the Oscar-winning documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth.

Sam Singh

Sam Singh is a senior policy consultant with the research and evaluation firm, Public Policy Associates. Sam’s consulting work focuses on strategic planning, nonprofit management and economic development. Previously, Sam served ten years as the President and CEO of the Michigan Nonprofit Association, an 1100 member-based association that was actively involved in public policy, capacity building and leadership development for the nonprofit sector. He has also held professional positions with the Volunteer Centers of Michigan and the Points of Light Foundation.

Sam Singh has been actively involved in politics in the city of East Lansing, Michigan; serving one term as mayor and three terms on the City Council. Sam also has extensive community experience having served on over twenty nonprofit boards throughout his career. He has served on the boards of such organizations as the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, Capital Region Community Foundation, Points of Light Foundation, Capital Area Transportation Authority and Michigan Association of United Ways. Sam recently completed a self-funded sabbatical that had him travel to all seven continents and forty-six countries over a seventeen month period.

Amanda Stitt

Amanda Stitt is the director of Michigan Voice, the c-3 collaborative whose mission is to engage underrepresented or socially responsible voters in the democratic process and to establish collective action around a common issue agenda. Over 50 state and local progressive organizations are a part of Michigan Voice.

Amanda has played an integral role in many of the successful Michigan campaigns over the last several years. Most recently, she served as the Constituency Vote Director for the Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change in Michigan. She led a team of 12 outreach staff who organized leaders and activists from across Michigan for the 2008 victory for President Obama. As a college student, Amanda became active in politics when she organized students across Michigan to oppose the “Roger’s Law” bill that disenfranchised college students. In 2002, Amanda directed Michigan’s first Democratic Youth Coordinated Campaign, a widely-recognized effort aimed at mobilizing 18-35 year old voters throughout the state. Amanda was the 2006 Deputy Democratic Coordinated Campaign Director, coordinating the field effort and voter contact programs for Michigan Democrats including Governor Granholm and Senator Stabenow. Following the 2006 elections, she served as the Political and Training Director for the Granholm Leadership Fund, where she coordinated training programs on behalf of Governor Granholm and Lt. Governor Cherry, and did political outreach to further their agenda for Michigan.

A native of Flint, Michigan, Amanda graduated from Flint Central in 1998 and then attended Kalamazoo College where she received a BA in Political Science in 2002. She lives in Lansing and works in Lansing and Detroit.

Jessy Tolkan

Jessy Tolkan serves as the Executive Director for the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Energy Action Coalition leverages the power of young people to organize on college campuses, high schools, and in local communities to build models of the clean energy future. Under her leadership the Energy Action Coalition is growing a generation-wide movement to stop global warming, by advocating for green jobs, stopping new coal plants, and making young people's voices heard in the policy debate around global climate change. Jessy has spent most of her career working to build power amongst the millenial generation. In 2004, as state director for the New Voters Project, Tolkan helped to register more than 130,000 young voters and produce one of the highest youth turnout rates in the country. She's been featured in Time Magazine, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Jessy helped to plan the largest youth gathering on global warming in our nation's history - POWER SHIFT 2007, a conference that brought together more than 6000 youth representing all 50 states, and culminated with the largest single lobby day on capitol hill focused on global warming. Most recently, Jessy spearheaded POWER VOTE, a campaign to mobilize 1,000,000 young voters are climate and energy issues in more than 30 states across the country.

Prior to her work at the Energy Action Coalition, Tolkan worked with leading advocacy and grassroots organizations including: United States Student Association, Young Democrats of America, and Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. Tolkan received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science and African America-Studies. In 2006, Tolkan was named one of the REAL HOT 100 Women in America, for her work with young voters.


	The Campaign The Conference The Energy Action Coalition The EAC Legislative Ask Register for the Conference Schedule Speakers Workshops Fair Trade and Local Market Activities Support Us Community Organizing Central Materials and Resources Speakers More speakers TBA, be sure to check back regularly! Reverend D. Alexander Bullock Rev. D. Alexander Bullock has preached throughout the Midwest, Northeast and Southern United States. As a teacher, he has lectured throughout the Midwest and continues to impact the lives of undergraduate college students in both Detroit and Chicago. A native of Boston, Massachusetts; Bullock was reared in Detroit, MI, in the home of Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Bullock. After graduating from high school (at the age of 16), Bullock entered Morehouse College in the fall of 1994. In 1998 Bullock graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in History. Bullock then entered the Doctoral program in Philosophy at Wayne State University, where he is currently in the final stages of dissertation preparation. In addition to being a PhD candidate at Wayne State University, Bullock is also currently a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where he is receiving advanced training in Theology. As a college adjunct professor, Bullock has taught Philosophy at the following institutions: William Tyndale College (Farmington Hills), Wayne State University (Detroit) and Saint Xavier University (Chicago, IL). In all this, he has remained committed to parish ministry, having served as the Assistant Pastor of the Bethany Baptist Church of Detroit (for five years) and having worked in the following other ministries: Morehouse College Chapel (Atlanta, Ga.), Beulah Baptist Church (Atlanta, Ga.), The American Baptist Churches of Southeastern Michigan office and Brotherly Love Missionary Baptist Church (Chicago, IL). He is the current President of the Highland Park Branch of the NAACP, the President of the Detroit Chapter of Rainbow-Push and the Chairman of the Issues Committee of the Council of Baptist Pastor’s. Bullock recently held an AIDS/HIV Awareness Conference where the keynote speaker was the noted actress and aids activist Sheryl Lee Ralph. As a preacher of the gospel, Bullock remains committed to the cause of Christ and as an educator, he stands firm in the conviction that no student is unteachable and no goal is unreachable. Bullock was called to Pastor Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in Highland Park on December 18, 2005. Brother ChiSing Br. ChiSing is an ordained disciple of the famous Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh as well as a commissioned minister within the United Church of Christ. He is also a Community College adjunct professor of World Religions, the founder of Interfaith Mindfulness Ministries, and the facilitator of one of the largest lay meditation communities in Dallas, Texas. He is a popular retreat facilitator around the country for Christian churches, Buddhist centers, college campuses and Interfaith groups. And he is a singer/songwriter, poet and “peaceful” peace activist, as well as a lover of travel, science fiction/fantasy movies and gourmet gelato. See his cool website at:http://www.intermindful.com/ The Spoken Word with Nicolas Hampton Poetry, Jimi Hendrix style. Let your ears and mind lead take control as you become apart of one man's incredible perspective. http://www.myspace.com/this_chaotic_white Mary Nichol Mary Nicol is the Greenpeace Student Network Manager, particularly focused on training and moblizing youth to take action on global warming. A veteran of the youth global warming movement, Mary has worked with the Energy Action Coalition to plan and recruit for Power Shift 2007 and as a Campus Climate Challenge organizer with the Student PIRGs. She has worked on several legislative and corporate campaigns on the local, state, and national levels. Mary is a graduate of the Green Corps Class of 2006 and a 2005 graduate of Emory University. She lives in Chicago and believes that youth will lead the way. MSU-ECO Planeteers Michigan State University student sustainability organization will be represented by the "Planeteers." A group of hard working, dedicated individuals with a passion for environmental equity, sustainable economics and clean and green universities. Jerome Ringo Jerome Ringo is a dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal advocate of clean energy has continued to inspire and motivate. He has first hand experience of the challenges we face after working for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry. More than half of that time was spent as an active union member working with his fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. Louisiana’s petrochemical industry focuses on the production of gasoline, rocket fuel, and plastics – many of which contain cancer causing chemicals. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities – primarily poor, minority communities – Jerome began organizing community environmental justice groups. Jerome’s experience organizing environmental and labor communities and his drive to further diversify the environmental movement bridges many of Apollo’s partners to create a broad based coalition to provide real solutions for our energy crisis. In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, Jerome became the chair of the board. In so doing, he also became the first African American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome was the United States’ only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, and represented the National Wildlife Federation at the United Nations conference on sustainable development in 1999. Jerome inspires audiences around the world to create a new clean energy economy. Some of his most notable keynote appearances include: the Montreal Climate Summit in 2006, the United Nations African Climate Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 2006, the Kyoto Plus Conference in Berlin Germany in 2007, and the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver Colorado. In 2006, Jerome was a McCloskey Fellow and Associate Research Scholar at Yale University; in 2008, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of the Environment. Jerome is the co-author of "Diversity and the future of U.S. Environmetal Movement"(2007) as well as "The Green Festival Reader"(2008) as well as appearing in the Oscar-winning documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth. Sam Singh Sam Singh is a senior policy consultant with the research and evaluation firm, Public Policy Associates. Sam’s consulting work focuses on strategic planning, nonprofit management and economic development. Previously, Sam served ten years as the President and CEO of the Michigan Nonprofit Association, an 1100 member-based association that was actively involved in public policy, capacity building and leadership development for the nonprofit sector. He has also held professional positions with the Volunteer Centers of Michigan and the Points of Light Foundation. Sam Singh has been actively involved in politics in the city of East Lansing, Michigan; serving one term as mayor and three terms on the City Council. Sam also has extensive community experience having served on over twenty nonprofit boards throughout his career. He has served on the boards of such organizations as the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, Capital Region Community Foundation, Points of Light Foundation, Capital Area Transportation Authority and Michigan Association of United Ways. Sam recently completed a self-funded sabbatical that had him travel to all seven continents and forty-six countries over a seventeen month period. Amanda Stitt Amanda Stitt is the director of Michigan Voice, the c-3 collaborative whose mission is to engage underrepresented or socially responsible voters in the democratic process and to establish collective action around a common issue agenda. Over 50 state and local progressive organizations are a part of Michigan Voice. Amanda has played an integral role in many of the successful Michigan campaigns over the last several years. Most recently, she served as the Constituency Vote Director for the Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change in Michigan. She led a team of 12 outreach staff who organized leaders and activists from across Michigan for the 2008 victory for President Obama. As a college student, Amanda became active in politics when she organized students across Michigan to oppose the “Roger’s Law” bill that disenfranchised college students. In 2002, Amanda directed Michigan’s first Democratic Youth Coordinated Campaign, a widely-recognized effort aimed at mobilizing 18-35 year old voters throughout the state. Amanda was the 2006 Deputy Democratic Coordinated Campaign Director, coordinating the field effort and voter contact programs for Michigan Democrats including Governor Granholm and Senator Stabenow. Following the 2006 elections, she served as the Political and Training Director for the Granholm Leadership Fund, where she coordinated training programs on behalf of Governor Granholm and Lt. Governor Cherry, and did political outreach to further their agenda for Michigan. A native of Flint, Michigan, Amanda graduated from Flint Central in 1998 and then attended Kalamazoo College where she received a BA in Political Science in 2002. She lives in Lansing and works in Lansing and Detroit. Jessy Tolkan Jessy Tolkan serves as the Executive Director for the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Energy Action Coalition leverages the power of young people to organize on college campuses, high schools, and in local communities to build models of the clean energy future. Under her leadership the Energy Action Coalition is growing a generation-wide movement to stop global warming, by advocating for green jobs, stopping new coal plants, and making young people's voices heard in the policy debate around global climate change. Jessy has spent most of her career working to build power amongst the millenial generation. In 2004, as state director for the New Voters Project, Tolkan helped to register more than 130,000 young voters and produce one of the highest youth turnout rates in the country. She's been featured in Time Magazine, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Jessy helped to plan the largest youth gathering on global warming in our nation's history - POWER SHIFT 2007, a conference that brought together more than 6000 youth representing all 50 states, and culminated with the largest single lobby day on capitol hill focused on global warming. Most recently, Jessy spearheaded POWER VOTE, a campaign to mobilize 1,000,000 young voters are climate and energy issues in more than 30 states across the country. Prior to her work at the Energy Action Coalition, Tolkan worked with leading advocacy and grassroots organizations including: United States Student Association, Young Democrats of America, and Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. Tolkan received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science and African America-Studies. In 2006, Tolkan was named one of the REAL HOT 100 Women in America, for her work with young voters.
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