Climate Now - for our future

Our Team

Lalita
Lalita Booth is BRSI's Administrative Advisor. She is a native of Asheville, North Carolina and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. After completing graduate school in 2012, Lalita worked with the youth empowerment organization, Year Up. In 2013 she moved into the private sector to serve as CEO of the high-tech start-up, Navitome, in Cambridge, Mass. With Navitome up and running in the fall of 2015, Lalita and her family left Boston and returned home to Asheville. She is now focused on learning a wide range of hands-on skills that support lifestyle equilibrium and is volunteering her advisory services to BRSI.


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Ian Booth is the Director of Climate Now. He has a degree in Political Science from Guilford College, with post-graduate study in ecological economics and resource analysis. Ian has thirty years of experience in sustainability, social entrepreneurship, media and event production, and in citizen diplomacy. He worked with John Denver and the Windstar Foundation co-producing Buckminster Fuller's World Game, highlighting the disparities in global resources consumption aboard Spaceship Earth. He also created the Green Radio Bistro, an experimental variety show broadcast on TV and radio in the Asheville area, that featured live music, comedy skits, and guest interviews about the techniques and technologies of sustainable living. Ian is also a performing singer/songwriter.


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Robin Cape holds a Master of Science in Climate Change and Society from UNC Asheville. She was a leader in efforts to conserve the Woodfin watershed, and in the development of The Collider, the NC Green Schools Program, the City of Asheville Sustainability Program and more. Robin also sits on the Board of the GreenBuilt Alliance and is a BRSI research partner in lifestyle design. She and her husband live in a remodeled ranch home with solar panels, geothermal heating/cooling, enhanced envelope upgrades, high-efficiency mechanical systems, and drive one hybrid and one fully electric car. They also practice permaculture in the family's yard and garden. Robin is licensed realtor in Asheville, specializing in sustainable lifestyle design.


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Ned Ryan Doyle is a BRSI research and communications partner. He moved to WNC in 1979 to join the original Mother Earth News EcoVillage Research Project where his work included solar homes, ethanol fuel, woodgas, composting systems, earth sheltering, cordwood construction and organic gardens, as well as coordinating hundreds of workshops and seminars on site and on the road. Ned was the host of the "News from BackHome" and "Our Southern Community" for 15 years on public radio, co-host of "Green Radio Bistro" and frequent contributor to regional magazines and publications on sustainable living and technology. He Co-chaired the Technology Working Group for the WNC Modernization effort, and has lived off grid with solar energy for over 20 years.


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Richard Freudenberger is a BRSI research partner who left automotive technical journalism to begin a career in sustainability with the editorial staff of The Mother Earth News. While working as the publication's Research Director during development of its 624-acre organic farm and Eco-Village, he helped develop a national biofuels program encompassing ethanol and biomass. He later co-founded BackHome magazine and worked as a consultant for the corporate book publishing industry in the renewable energy and green building fields. He currently is the Energy and Resource Coordinator for Living Web Farms, a non-profit education, research, and organic production farm network in Mills River, North Carolina.


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Chris Mathis holds a degree in Physics from UNC Asheville and a Master of Science in Architecture Studies from MIT. He has spent 35 years focusing on how buildings and building products perform, and is the author of numerous research papers on various elements of building performance - from insulation to fenestration systems, sustainability metrics, and green building. He is an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer, currently chairs its Residential Building Committee, and was recently elected to serve on the ASTM Board of Directors. As a BRSI research partner and in his professional practice, Chris focuses on assisting product category leaders with market transformation goals related to energy, power and sustainability performance.