Speakers

Richard Kidd Bio
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Richard Kidd

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience

Department of Defense

Mr. Richard Kidd, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience. In this position, he provides policy and governance for programs and activities that enable resilience and cyber-secure energy for weapon systems and installations. This includes budgetary, policy, and management oversight of programs related to climate change, compliance with environmental laws, prevention of pollution, management of natural and cultural resources, and cleanup of contaminated sites, as well as energy resilience, risk, and performance.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Kidd served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Strategic Integration where he led the strategy development, resource requirements, and overall business transformation processes for the Office within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. He was responsible for developing and monitoring performance metrics for the Army’s installation management community as well as leading a strategic effort to examine options for future Army installations.

Throughout Mr. Kidd’s career, he has served in various leadership positions including Executive Director for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), a Federal entity in which he helped stood up. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Sustainability within the Army and was responsible for the oversight and implementation of all programs and initiatives related to Energy Security and Sustainability. Mr. Kidd also held a position with the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy where he was responsible for leading the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP).

Mr. Kidd received a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and attained a Master’s Degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University in Connecticut in 1993.

Kevin Powell Bio
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Kevin Powell

Director, Green Proving Ground & Pilot to Portfolio

U.S. General Services Administration

Christina Chan Bio
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Christina Chan

Senior Adaptation Advisor for the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry

US Department of State

Christina Chan is the Senior Adaptation Advisor for the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change
John Kerry. Christina advises SPEC Kerry on how the Administration can most effectively and
strategically support vulnerable countries and communities around the world in adapting to the impacts
of climate change. On his behalf, she leads interagency efforts to implement the President’s Emergency
Plan for Adaptation & Resilience (PREPARE).

Prior to joining SPEC Kerry’s team, Christina was Director of the Climate Resilience Practice at the World
Resources Institute, and Co-Director of the Global Commission on Adaptation, which was led by Ban Ki
moon, Kristalina Georgieva and Bill Gates. Christina led the Commission team in delivering a flagship
report in 2019, Adapt Now, and launched multiple action tracks to accelerate action and support, from
adaptation finance and locally led adaptation to food security and urban resilience. Christina led an
exceptional team of adaptation professions who support communities and policymakers in
understanding climate risks and vulnerabilities, as well as what works and why; integrating adaptation
into policies and programs; and accessing financial resources.

Between 2010 and 2017, Christina was adaptation and L&D lead, and later Branch Chief, at the U.S.
State Department’s climate change office, where she led U.S. government efforts on global adaptation
policy, launched several major adaptation partnerships, including the Adaptation Partnership and the
National Adaptation Plan Global Network, and provided leadership on adaptation on the UNFCCC’s
Adaptation Committee and Executive Committee to the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and
Damage. As Branch Chief, she also managed multiple teams – from science and REDD+ to finance and
NDCs.

Christina also spent eight years with CARE, helping communities reduce their disaster-related risks and
leveraging CARE’s on-the-ground partnership with communities to inform CARE International’s policy
advocacy with the U.S. and global climate change policy.
Christina holds a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Cornell University and an
undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University.

Julian Reyes Bio
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Julian Reyes

National Coordinator, USDA Climate Hubs program

USDA

Julian Reyes is the National Coordinator for the USDA Climate Hubs program. In this role, he provides connection and cohesion across the regional Hubs, integrates Climate Hub work across USDA agencies, coordinates with other climate networks, and engages with stakeholders. Prior, Julian was a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of State in their climate change office. Julian was also a Climate Hub Fellow with the USDA Southwest Climate Hub where he spearheaded development of the AgRisk Viewer, a new platform to provide accessible and discoverable crop insurance loss data. Julian received his both B.S. and PhD in civil engineering from Washington State University. He was a Science Policy Fellow at the U.S. Global Change Research Program and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Germany.

Samantha Medlock Bio
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Samantha Medlock

Senior Counsel

House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis

Samantha Medlock is senior counsel with the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, leading work to advance adaptation and resilience, including the wider implementation of science-based standards to decarbonize the built environment, reduce climate risk, and prioritize frontline communities. Sam led development of the Climate Crisis Action Plan for Congress on climate science, resilience, public health, national security, and financial risk. She joined the Committee from a private sector role in insurance and finance. Previously, Sam was senior advisor in the White House, coordinating climate and disaster policy across the Executive Office of the President and the administration. She has more than 25 years of experience in environmental law and policy serving governments and cross-sector partnerships. Sam has held multiple posts in academia, including with the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and the Santa Barbara & Ventura Colleges of Law, where she launched new curricula on emerging national security threats. Sam is a Juris Doctor graduate with honors of Vermont Law School and earned a Bachelor of Science summa cum laude from Texas Woman’s University.

Deke Arndt Bio
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Deke Arndt

Chief, Climatic Science & Services Division

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Deke Arndt is the Chief of the Climatic Science & Services Division in NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in Asheville, NC. The Division takes in NOAA's historical weather, climate and paleoclimate observations, and transforms them into data, products, analyses, and services used by partners, scientists and decision-makers across public and private sectors in the U.S. and globally. Mr. Arndt previously headed NCEI's Climate Monitoring team, which tracks the climate system by developing indicators, and with regular expert analyses of parts of the U.S. and global climate system. Mr. Arndt was recently the co-chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Indicators Interagency Working Group, and currently serves on the Council of the American Meteorological Society. Prior to NOAA, he managed the OK-First weather and climate public safety decision support program which was recognized as one of the ten most innovative government programs in the nation by the Ford Foundation and Harvard's JFK School of Government. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma’s School of Meteorology.

Ellen Mecray Bio
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Ellen Mecray

Regional Climate Services Director, Eastern Region

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Ann Vaughan Bio
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Ann Vaughan

Senior Advisor for Climate Change

USAID

Ann Vaughan joined the Biden-Harris Administration in February, 2021 and works in USAID's Bureau for the Resilience and Food Security (RFS) as a Senior Advisor for Climate Change. The Bureau for Resilience and Food Security works with a host of partners to advance inclusive agriculture-led growth, resilience, nutrition, and water security, sanitation and hygiene in priority countries to help them accelerate and protect development progress, including against the impacts of climate change. Prior to joining USAID, Ann worked at Mercy Corps, served as a field officer for USAID in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as a Congressional staffer working on foreign aid appropriations and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua. She has her Masters in International Development Studies from George Washington University and Undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary.

Vickie Patton Bio
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Vickie Patton

General Counsel

Environmental Defense Fund

Vickie Patton serves as Environmental Defense Fund's General Counsel and leads its U.S. Legal and Regulatory initiatives. For over thirty years, she has worked with partners to secure national and state protections addressing climate and air pollution, participated in numerous successful climate and clean air cases to protect human health and the environment, and testified before congressional and state legislative committees.

Prior to EDF, she served in the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of General Counsel where she implemented the historic 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and received the Gold Medal for Exceptional Service. She has received the Air & Waste
Management Association's Richard Beatty Mellon Environmental Stewardship Award, the Wirth Chair Award for Creative Collaborations in Sustainability, and the Healthy Community Award received from her local health department for her efforts to address mercury air pollution.

Vickie is a co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, serves on the Boards of the Environmental Law Institute, Earthshot and the Initiative on Climate Risk and Resilience Law, and in 2013 was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers.

Bridget Herring Bio
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Bridget Herring

Sustainability Director

City of Asheville, NC

Bridget Herring has over 10 years of experience in environmental project management, policy, outreach and education including initiatives pertaining to comprehensive carbon reduction strategies, renewable energy programs, green building and resource management policies, and national energy code development. As Sustainability Director for the City of Asheville, she implements strategies to achieve an 80% carbon reduction and 100% renewable energy goals. She is a member of the North Carolina state Building Code Council and Southeast Sustainability Directors Network.

Kyle Spencer Bio
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Kyle Spencer

Chief Resilience Officer

City of Norfolk, VA

Michael Gerrard Bio
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Michael Gerrard

Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Columbia Law School

Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on environmental and energy law and founded and directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is also a member and former Chair of the Faculty of Columbia’s Earth Institute. Before joining the Columbia faculty in January 2009, he was partner
in charge of the New York office of the Arnold & Porter law firm; he is now Senior Counsel tothe firm. He practiced environmental law in New York City full time from 1979 to 2008. He was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and
Resources. He has also chaired the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.

Since 1986, Gerrard has written an environmental law column for the New York Law Journal. He is author or editor of thirteen books, two of which were named Best Law Book of the Year by the Association of American Publishers: Environmental Law Practice Guide (twelve volumes, 1992) and Brownfields Law and Practice (four volumes, 1998). Among his other books are
Global Climate Change and U.S. Law (with Jody Freeman) (2d ed. 2014); Law of Clean Energy (2011); Climate Engineering and the Law: Regulation and Liability for Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal (with Tracy Hester 2018); and Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (with John Dernbach 2019).

He received his B.A. from Columbia University and his J.D. from NYU Law School.

John D. Sutter Bio
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John D. Sutter

Filmmaker

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John D. Sutter is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Salt Lake City. His work has won the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, the IRE Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Peabody Award and has received two EMMY nominations -- one for new approaches to documentary and the other for environmental reporting. With support from the National Geographic Society, Harvard's Nieman Foundation and MIT, he is directing BASELINE: Part 1, a pioneering documentary series that aims to tell the story of the climate crisis beyond a human lifetime. At CNN, where Sutter was a senior investigative reporter, producer and columnist for a decade, he created and directed several award-winning projects, including "Two Degrees," "Vanishing" and "Change the List." Currently, he is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, a CNN contributor and a National Geographic Explorer. He is a former Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and teaches for the Poynter Institute.

Tanya Ballard Brown Bio
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Tanya Ballard Brown

Executive Editor

Government Executive

As the Executive Editor of Government Executive, Tanya Ballard Brown leads a team of editors and reporters to produce breaking news and deeply reported features on GovExec.com and the GovExec Daily podcast for a large and diverse audience of current and aspiring federal leaders. Ballard Brown also oversees Government Executive’s portfolio of newsletters, ebooks and special reports and work closely with the editors of multiple sister publications to coordinate news coverage and strategy.

Previously, Ballard Brown worked as a Senior Editor at NPR since 2008. She has worked on projects such as The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later, 19th Amendment: A Start, Not A Finish For Suffrage, Being Black in America, and They Still Take Pictures With Them As If The Person's Never Passed. Ballard has also been a freelance writer for organizations such as The Washington Post and Reviewed, a publication that is part of the USA Today network. She also has a background in reporting and writing for digital and on-air stories, editing breaking news stories, managing digital producers and interns, and collaborating with the National Desk, Criminal Justice team, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, the investigative team and local stations, to create digital content that complements on-air reports.

Ross Gianfortune Bio
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Ross Gianfortune

Engagement Editor

Government Executive

Patrick Tucker Bio
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Patrick Tucker

Technology Editor

Defense One

Patrick Tucker, Technology Editor, Defense One

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of THE NAKED FUTURE: WHAT HAPPENS IN A WORLD THAT ANTICIPATES YOUR EVERY MOVE? (CURRENT, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere.

Aaron Boyd Bio
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Aaron Boyd

Senior Editor, Technology & Events

Nextgov

Aaron Boyd is an award-winning journalist currently serving as senior editor for technology and events at Nextgov. He primarily covers federal government IT contracting and cybersecurity issues affecting both civilian and defense agencies. As a lifelong nerd and policy wonk, he feels right at home covering the intersection of technology and policy in the nation’s capital.

Alisha Powell Gillis Bio
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Alisha Powell Gillis

Senior Editor

Route Fifty

Alisha Powell Gillis is the senior editor at Route Fifty where she is responsible for programming live and online events content, moderating panel discussions, soliciting, editing and writing analytical pieces and overseeing the annual Navigator Awards program. Before joining Route Fifty, Alisha was the director for community impact at the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) where she worked to connect urban public libraries to critical issues in state and local government and led event programming. Prior to ULC, Alisha served the nation's governors for nearly a decade at the National Governors Association where she specialized in homeland security, emergency management and cybersecurity issues. Alisha holds a master's degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Hofstra University.

Travis Wolfe Bio
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Travis Wolfe

Associate Director, Content

GovExec

Travis Wolfe brings his non-nonsense approach from his time working with local and national media to the public sector space. A veteran of Tammy Haddad and Washingtonian Magazine, Wolfe is a trusted communicator with years of experience in
developing and booking a network of government speakers for various events.

Wolfe joined GovExec in March 2021 as Senior Producer and led the development of content creation and programming for both editorial and white label events. Since then, he has been promoted to Associate Director of Content, where he heads a team
dedicated to developing federal and defense-focused programming. He is also co-chair of the GovExec Equity Team. In this role, he contributes to the progress of diversity and inclusion goals across the organization.

A graduate of Ohio University, Wolfe received his bachelor’s degree with a distinction in Anthropology and Spanish. He later earned his master's degree in public policy with a focus on econometrics from American University in 2017.

Wolfe currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his partner and feline companion.