Bram Kleppner is CEO of Danforth Pewter, with manufacturing in Middlebury and retail stores in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Virginia. Danforth has committed to getting to zero fossil fuel use, and to that end has built a solar farm, installed heat pumps, and put in an electric car charging station at the flagship store in Middlebury. 

In addition to the Vermont Climate Council, Bram served for five years as Co-Chair of Vermont’s Medicaid Exchange Advisory Board, served as a Commissioner on the Vermont Tax Structure Commission, and served on the Governor’s Business Advisory Council on Health Care Financing.

Previously, Bram spent 10 years at Ben & Jerry’s, where he co-led their first campaign against global warming and led the creation of their first non-GMO ice cream.

He also spent seven years as chair of the Board of the Population Media Center, which advances the rights of women and girls in the developing world and protects the planet by stabilizing global population at a sustainable level. PMC’s programs have been seen by over 500 million people.

Burlington Electric believes Bram’s family’s project was the first 100% conversion of a historic home in Burlington to zero emissions.

Bram earned an MBA from the (now) Grossman School of Business at the University of Vermont, and a BA from Middlebury College.

Liz Miller is VP of Sustainable Supply & Resilient Systems at Green Mountain Power and lives in Burlington. Previously, she worked as a lawyer and advisor specializing in executive and organizational management and corporate governance. Liz served as Chief of Staff to former Governor Shumlin and as Commissioner of the Vermont Public Service Department, where she led the State’s energy and telecommunications policy. Earlier in her career, she founded and ran a small law firm. Liz has served on many nonprofit boards and advisory groups including ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, Boy & Girls Club of Burlington, Vermont Law School, and Conservation Law Foundation. She is a member of the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board and chairs the Vermont Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence. Spending time on Vermont’s mountain trails and Lake Champlain is her passion.

Chris is Executive Director of the Windham Regional Commission based in Brattleboro, Vermont, which serves 27 towns in Southeastern Vermont. He was previously Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Graduate Program Coordinator at Mississippi State University; Deputy Director of Planning and Zoning for Calvert County, Maryland; Deputy Commissioner of Planning and Director of Agricultural Economic Development for Orange County, New York; Federal Policy Coordinator for the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture; founder and Executive Director of the Baton Rouge Economic and Agricultural Development Alliance; and a Presidential Management Intern with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC.  Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Public Policy and Administration from Mississippi State University, and a Master of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University. He lives in Townshend.

David Deen, Westminster served as the River Steward for the Connecticut River Conservancy (nee Connecticut River Watershed Council) responsible for public education and advocacy on issues in the VT/NH reach of the river since 1998, including regulatory affairs, river cleanup, barrier removal, hydro relicensing, and published articles and made presentations to citizens about the river. He now serves as an honorary trustee for the Conservancy.

David owned and operated Strictly Trout a flyfishing guide service that was Orvis Endorsed in VT and licensed in NH for 25 years, at the time the oldest guide service in Vermont.

 David served in the Vermont Legislature for 30 years (28 in the House; 2 in the Senate) either on or as chair of the Natural Resources, Water Resources, and/or the Fish and Wildlife Committees among other assignments including a decade as ranking member of the House Rules Committee.

He serves as chair of the Connecticut River Chapter of Trout Unlimited and is a founding incorporator of the Vermont Community Foundation. He has recently been appointed to the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission.

He tries to fish whenever he can and is an appointed Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board member.

David holds a MS in Environmental Science from Antioch New England Graduate School.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux is a Professor of Climatology in the Department of Geography at the University of Vermont. She uses a variety of mixed methods from remotely sensed data to statistics and historical content analysis, to explore the influence of atmospheric processes on fluvial processes and vegetated landscapes. Her work spans a number of climate hazards and severe weather, with a special focus on flooding and droughts. As the State Climatologist for Vermont, she engages directly with community groups, K-12 schools, State legislators, Federal and State agencies, and national climate organizations. She is the President of the American Association of State Climatologists and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in January 2020.

She is the lead editor of ‘Historical climate variability and impacts in North America’, the first monograph to deal with the use of documentary and other ancillary records for analyzing climate variability and change.

Nationally, she is the lead author for the Northeast Chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program. She has served on the NOAA Science Advisory Board Climate Working Group helping to guide climate research across the US. Statewide, she is the Co-Chair of the State’s Drought Task Force and worked closely with the Vermont Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security on the climatology related sections of the FEMA-mandated Vermont State Hazard Mitigation Plan. In 2014, she was a Scholar-in-Residence for the Sustainability Graduate Institute at Goddard College, and their Commencement Speaker in Spring 2015. Also, in 2015, Dr. Dupigny-Giroux was elected a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering in recognition of her academic and outreach contributions to the state.

Additional Resources:

• https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMED41A0555D/abstract
• https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/applied-climatology/107194/
• https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/vt/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley-Ann_L._Dupigny-Giroux
• https://www.uvm.edu/cas/geography/profiles/lesley-ann-dupigny-giroux
• https://futurumcareers.com/in-the-know-building-a-climate-literate-society

Johanna Miller is the Energy & Climate Program Director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council. Johanna also serves as the coordinator of the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, the statewide network of over 120 all-volunteer town energy committees and the partners who support them. In these roles, Johanna works from the grassroots to the Legislature to help advance clean energy and climate action programs and policies. Johanna was appointed to serve as a member of Governor Phil Scott’s Climate Action Commission and also serves on the Clean Energy Development Fund board, the Vermont Energy Education Program board, and the Vermont System Planning Committee. Prior to joining VNRC in 2005, Johanna spent five years working as a researcher, writer and policy expert for a statewide environmental policy and advocacy organization in Michigan, where she helped to coordinate a statewide transportation and land use coalition. Johanna is a graduate of the University of Vermont and lives in Montpelier; a home base from which she and her family love to ski, hike, camp, bike, garden and travel.

Matt Cota is the owner of Meadow Hill, which provides advocacy and management services for Vermont non-profit trade associations in the energy and transportation sector. A former journalist with a master's degree in public policy, Cota is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Vermont. Appointed to the Public Utility Commission’s Clean Heat Technical Advisory Group and Equity Advisory Group, Cota has also served on the South Burlington City Council, the Green Mountain Transit Authority, the South Burlington Development Review Board, and the Plainfield Planning Commission. As the founding director of the Split the Ticket Fund, he has organized the delivery of more than 100,000 gallons of free heating fuel to Vermont’s neighbors in need.

Richard Cowart is a Principal at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), a Vermont-based, global non- profit that advises governments on energy regulation, electricity markets, and climate policy (1999- present). Over the past decade he built and directed RAP’s European program in Brussels, Berlin, and Warsaw. He has advised governments across the US and Europe, in China, Brazil, and several other nations.

Before joining RAP, Mr. Cowart served as Chair of the Vermont Public Service Board (now PUC) for 12 years. He was elected president of the New England Conference of Public Utility Commissioners, and Chair of the US regulators’ national Committee on Energy Resources and the Environment.

In addition to his RAP position, Richard served for six years as Chair of the US DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee, on the International Energy Agency’s Demand-Side Management program. and the Board of Directors of the Electric Power Research Institute. He now serves on the Environmental Advisory Committee of the New York ISO and chairs the Board of VEIC, which operates the “energy efficiency utilities” in Vermont, Washington DC, and several cities in Ohio.

Richard also has experience in natural resources and land use management. He served as Executive Officer and general counsel of the Vermont Environmental Board for two years, and taught courses in environmental law, land use law and natural resource policy at the University of California and Vermont Law School for more than a decade. He and his wife manage a commercial Christmas tree farm and sugar maple/land conservation projects in Calais and Marshfield, Vermont.