J. Michael Fay, Conservationist - Explorer-in-Residence
National Geographic

Mike Fay has spent his life as a naturalist—from the Sierra Nevadas and the Maine woods as a boy, to Alaska and Central America in college, to North Africa and the depths of the central African forest and savannas for the last 25 years.

Fay has worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Bronx since 1991. He received a B.S. in 1978 from the University of Arizona and spent six years in the Peace Corps as a botanist in national parks in Tunisia and the savannas of the Central African Republic. He joined the staff of the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1984 to do a floristic study on a mountain range on Sudan's western border, but ended up doing his Ph.D. on the western lowland gorilla. It was at this time that Fay first entered the forests of central Africa, surveying large forest blocks and creating and managing the Dzanga-Sangha and Nouabale- Ndoki parks in the Central African Republic and Congo. In 1996, Fay flew over the forests of Congo and Gabon and realized there was a vast, intact forest corridor spanning the two countries from the Oubangui to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1997, he walked the entire corridor, over 2,000 miles, surveying trees, wildlife, and human impacts on 12 uninhabited forest blocks. Called Megatransect, the project had the objective of bringing to the world's attention the last pristine forest in central Africa and the need for protection. This work led to a historic initiative by the Gabonese government to create a system of 13 national parks in Gabon, making up some 11,000 square miles (28,500 square kilometers).

Fay also hosted Colin Powell on a forest walk in Gabon after the former secretary of state's announcement to support the Congo Basin with tens of millions of dollars for national park creation, development, and forest management. Fay worked for a year setting up park management infrastructure in Loango National Park. In 2004, Fay completed the Megaflyover, an eight-month aerial survey of the entire African continent. He logged 800 hours and took 116,000 vertical images of human impact and associated ecosystems, many of which are now visible on Google Earth. In 2008 Fay completed the Redwood Transect, a new project to learn more about the redwood forest. He walked the entire range of the redwood tree, over 700 miles.

Jason F. McLennan, Founder - Living Building Challenge

Considered one of the most influential individuals in the green building movement today, Jason F. McLennan's work has made a strong impact on the shape and direction of green building in the United States and Canada and he is a much sought after presenter and consultant on a wide variety of green building and sustainability topics around the world.

McLennan serves as the CEO of the International Living Future Institute – a leading NGO that focuses on the transformation to a world that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. Under the Living Future Umbrella, Jason operates the Cascadia Green Building Council, the Pacific Northwest's leading organization in the field of green building and sustainable development, The Natural Step USA and Ecotone Publishing.

Jason is the founder and creator of the Living Building Challenge, widely considered the world's most progressive and stringent green building program. His work in the sustainable design field has been published or reviewed in dozens of journals, magazines conference proceedings and books including Time Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Times, Architecture, Architectural Record, Dwell, Plenty, Metropolis, NY Times, The Globe and Mail, The World and I, Ecostructure, Greensource, Arcade and Environmental Design and Construction Magazine. He is the author of four books; The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, The Dumb Architect's Guide to Glazing Selection, The Ecological Engineer and Zugunruhe. The Philosophy of Sustainable Design has been used as a textbook in over seventy universities and colleges and is distributed widely throughout Europe, North America and Asia.

David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary - Department of the Interior

David J. Hayes was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior on May 20, 2009 by unanimous vote of the United States Senate. He was nominated for the position on February 27, 2009, after serving as a leader in President Obama's Transition Team, heading the agency review process for the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency.

Deputy Secretary Hayes is the second highest ranking official at the Department of the Interior. By statute, he serves as the Department's Chief Operating Officer (COO) and has authority over all of the Department's bureaus and agencies. He is involved in implementing the Secretary's priorities for the Department, including promoting conservation initiatives such as the Administration's "America's Great Outdoors" agenda; encouraging renewable energy development on our public lands and offshore resources; developing conventional energy resources safely and responsibly; fulfilling our trust responsibilities to American Indians and Alaskan Natives; managing our nation's water supplies sustainably; and other matters relating to Interior's mission to conserve our nation's natural and cultural resources. Hayes co-chairs the Secretary's Energy and Climate Change Task Force; he played an instrumental role in settling the long-standing Cobell Indian trust litigation and is overseeing implementation of the settlement; he managed the team that responded to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; pursuant to President Obama's Executive Order, Hayes chairs the Administration's coordinating body for Arctic-related matters; and, in his COO role, he serves on the President's Management Council and is engaged in IT transformation and other management initiatives at the 70,000-employee Department.

Throughout his career, Deputy Secretary Hayes has been involved in developing progressive solutions to environmental and natural resources challenges. He previously served as the Deputy Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton Administration. He worked for many years in the private sector where he chaired the Environment, Land and Resources Department at Latham and Watkins, an international law firm. He is a former chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute; he was a consulting professor at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment; he served as a Senior Fellow for the World Wildlife Fund, and was the Vice-Chair of the Board of American Rivers. Hayes has written and lectured widely in the environmental and natural resources field.

Hayes is a native of Rochester, New York. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and received his J.D. from Stanford University, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Visitors for Stanford Law School.

Dennis McLerran, US EPA Regional Administrator

Dennis McLerran, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator, was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the Regional Administrator (RA) for Region 10, leading a staff of 650 employees, with responsibility for an annual budget of $500 million. He was sworn in on February 22, 2010.

As RA, Dennis oversees the implementation and enforcement of the federal environmental rules and regulations in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska, including 271 tribal governments in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Before moving to EPA, Dennis served as Executive Director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, a state chartered regional agency that adopts and enforces air quality standards that protect the health of 3.5 million Washington residents. As Executive Director, he led the development of an innovative strategy to reduce emissions at the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Metro Vancouver. Prior to that, he served as City Attorney for the City of Port Townsend and Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Land Use. Dennis has over 20 years experience as an advocate, attorney and administrator. Dennis received his bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and a J.D. from the Seattle University School of Law.

Nancy Lord, Alaskan Author

Nancy Lord, Alaska's Writer Laureate for 2008-10, holds a liberal arts degree from Hampshire College and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Vermont College. In addition to being an independent writer based in Homer, she fished commercially for many years and has, more recently, worked as a naturalist and historian on adventure cruise ships. She is the author of three short fiction collections (most recently The Man Who Swam with Beavers, Coffee House Press, 2001) and five books of literary nonfiction (most recently Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North, Counterpoint Press, 2011.) She teaches creative writing part-time at the Kachemak Bay Branch of Kenai Peninsula College and in the low-residency graduate writing program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Her awards include fellowships from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, a Pushcart Prize, and residencies at a number of artist communities.

Danielle Labonté,  Adjunct Professor and Fellow, Circumpolar Affairs, at Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario

Danielle Labonté is currently on a two-year assignment as a Fellow at Queen’s University where she is focusing on Circumpolar Affairs, with a focus on capacity-building and arctic-science policy linkages.  She is also the Program Chair (Knowledge to Action) for the IPY 2012 Conference that will be held in Montreal in April 2012 and a member of the International Steering Committee for the Conference. From 2007 to August 2011, Ms. Labonté had been Director General, Northern Policy and Science Integration Branch at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.  In that capacity, Ms. Labonté was responsible for developing and sustaining the federal government’s policy framework and related program initiatives for the Canadian North: Canada’s Northern Strategy.  Some of her key projects included International Polar Year, plans for Canada’s High Arctic Research Station, the delivery of Canada’s Arctic Research Infrastructure Fund, support to Canada’s participation at the Arctic Council.  Ms. Labonté has been a Canadian federal official for nearly thirty years and has held positions in a wide array of policy/program fields, most of which have had a policy-science interface. 

Previously noted Keynote, John Kozij, Director General of the Northern Strategic Policy Branch, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) was requested to appear before Parliment. We are pleased the Danielle Labonté his predecessor at AANDC is able to attend at Mr Kozij's request.