About Ecopreneurist
We love the ecopreneurist spirit — the confidence not only to start a business but to follow sustainable business practices and to offer consumers and other businesses green choices. Ecopreneurist.com calls attention to innovative entrepreneurs, lets us know about new products and services, and provides valuable lessons-learned for other entrepreneurs.
Ecopreneurist.com is part of the Green Options Media network and combines the observations of Leah Edwards, Paul Smith, MC Milker, Megan Prusynski, John Ivanko, Lisa Kivirist, Olga Orda, Julie Sammons, Angelique van Engelen and other Green Options Media writers.
Lead writer, MC Milker spent twenty years in corporate marketing at a variety of consumer products companies interspersed with stints as an entrepreneur. Prior to shifting her focus to marketing consulting, she held Director of Marketing positions at several corporations. She holds an MBA from The Thunderbird School of Global Management and has taught at The University of California, Berkeley and The University of Hong Kong.
Leah Edwards is a veteran of two dot-com start ups and shares lessons learned with start-ups in this wave of green/clean entrepreneurism. She has a B.S. in Business Administration from UC Berkeley and an MBA and Certificate of Public Administration from Stanford University. Currently, she assists green start-ups, including Green Options Media (GreenWeb, Inc.).
Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio School of Management in San Francisco.
A lifelong independent spirit and tree-hugger, Meghan Prusynski recently started her own design studio focused on helping sustainable small businesses, non-profit organizations, and like-minded people communicate their messages in an eco-friendly way. She shares her experience of launching her company with Ecopreneurist readers.
Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko dropped out of Corporate America more than a decade ago. They’ve come to realize that operating a small business (either for profit or non-profit) can make the world a better place rather than just making Corporate shareholders more wealthy. Their award-winning Inn Serendipity generates more renewable energy than it uses and features breakfasts prepared with ingredients harvested a hundred feet from the Inn’s back door. In addition to being co-authors of ECOpreneuring, Rural Renaissance and Edible Earth, Kivirist and Ivanko are national speakers, green marketing consultants, and champions of the “small is beautiful” mantra with a green spin.
Julie Sammons is a Sustainable Management MBA student at the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco. She also operates a small communications consulting business focused on the nonprofit and technology sectors. Julie has traveled widely across five continents and held jobs ranging from graphic designer to infectious disease researcher. Her current interests include social trends, youth culture, emerging technology, and how things are made.
Olga Orda was a print journalist who reported on sustainability in business.and has worked with Edelman (UK) and James Hoggan and Associates (at desmogblog.com). She is currently working with the 30 Days of Sustainability Society (www.30days.ca). She holds an honours degree in Communication and Business from Simon Fraser University and has done post-graduate studies in citizenship, education and international NGOs.
Angelique van Engelen is journalist/blogger always on the lookout for freelance assignments. She runs her own writing boutique, http://contentclix.com/ , specializing in hard news, trends, economics, green issues and fiction.
We welcome your comments to posts and hope you’ll help us to champion the efforts of ecopreneurists. Please send us your ideas for new stories to: ecopreneurist “at” greenoptions. com
