MSHub Staff & Board Members

Staff

Sara Olson

Program Manager

Sara Olson, Program Manager

Sara is a recent graduate of Keene State College, where she studied Criminal Justice and Sociology. She has been involved in the climate movement from a young age. Her interests include environmental activism, intersectional environmentalism, composting, conservation, divestment, and the Zero-Waste Movement. Sara has worked with Elm City Compost since 2020, as their Marketing and Media Manager; she has also served as Secretary of 350Nh Action’s Board since May 2021. She is excited to be the Program Manager for the Monadnock Sustainability Hub, helping to advance clean energy and other climate-related sustainability efforts in the region.

Board Members

Ann Shedd

Co-Chair

Ann Shedd, Co-Chair

Ann Shedd is a retired physician who moved to Keene in 2007; her family roots in Keene go back three generations, and she has a life-time love for the region. She served on the Keene Conservation Commission for 5 years and on the Keene Energy and Climate Committee for 6 years. During her tenure as Chair of that committee the City adopted 100% renewable energy goals, and 2 years later adopted a Sustainable Energy Plan to move the community toward those goals. She is pleased to be part of the collaborative regional efforts of the Monadnock Sustainability Hub.

Dori Drachman

Co-Chair

Dori Drachman, Co-Chair

Dori spent most of her career as an educator. She founded a school that organizes its curriculum around environmental education and was a classroom teacher for more than a decade. After earning her masters degree in environmental education from Antioch University New England, she worked as a teacher/naturalist for the Harris Center for Conservation Education. After years of taking kids into the woods with the goal of inspiring them to care for our planet, Dori decided that we actually couldn’t wait that long. So she helped re-start the Peterborough Energy Committee (PEC) and became its Chair. The PEC is a founding member of the Monadnock Energy Hub.

Mari Brunner

Secretary

Mari Brunner, Secretary

Mari Brunner has served on the Board of the Monadnock Sustainability Network since January 2017 and holds an MS degree in Environmental Studies with a focus on Sustainable Development and Climate Change. She works for the City of Keene Community Development Department, where she spends a portion of her time providing staff support to the City’s Energy and Climate Committee. Her interests include sustainable transportation, especially active forms of transportation such as walking and bicycling.

Mari believes that all “environmental” issues are also social and economic issues, and that a holistic approach is required to ensure our communities thrive in the face of a changing climate and social context. Prior to working for the City, she was a planner at Southwest Region Planning Commission and served on the City of Keene Energy and Climate Committee. She currently serves on the board of the Monadnock Time Exchange and volunteers for the Monadnock United Way.

Tracy Bartella

Tracy Bartella-Metell is the IT Project Manager for Holstein Association USA, in Brattleboro, VT where she leads project teams to provide software and services that help dairy producers worldwide raise the happiest, healthiest, and most productive Holstein cows. She has more than 10 years of experience managing people, operations, and projects across multiple industries and holds an MS degree in Environmental Studies with a focus on Sustainable Development and Climate Change. She is interested in building resilient, distributed systems to support local food, energy, and economies.

Prior to her time at Holstein Association, Tracy worked for local green manufacturer Tree Free Greetings and for OneReport, Inc., a Software-as-a-Service company helping Fortune 500 companies track and report on their Corporate Social Responsibility practices. Tracy believes that the core of sustainability starts inside of each of us and reflects our connection to the world we live in. To feel that connection and help instill it in others, she actively practices and teaches yoga at Keene Yoga Center.

John Kondos

John Kondos is a founder of the Monadnock Sustainability Network, Home-Efficiency Resources and the Monadnock Chapter of Citizen Climate Lobby. He started his career in the renewable energy industry in the late 1970s with the goal of making a practical contribution to reducing our dependence on finite fossil fuels. He began at the contractor level and went on to work at a crystalline and later at a thin-film PV manufacturer.

John returned to solar in 2007 after a number of years in other industries. He has installed PV systems on three continents and solar water heaters in MA, NH and VT. John has a Masters in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA from Fairfield University. He is committed to working on solutions to our greatest challenge- climate change caused by fossil fuel combustion- through energy conservation, renewable energy and land stewardship.

Catherine Owen Koning

Catherine Owen Koning is Professor of Environmental Science at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH, since 1993. She received her B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College, her M.S. in Ecology from the University of California at Davis, and her Ph.D. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin. Her interests are in wetland ecology, watershed management, conservation biology and sustainability. She has served on the Board of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, the NH Association of Wetland Scientists, the New England Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists and the Peterborough Conservation Commission. Catherine has been active in campus sustainability efforts, and is a founding partner of the Franklin Pierce Climate Action Institute. She is excited to join the Hub and assist local groups in implementation of meaningful changes in response to the challenge of climate change.

Peter Wotowiec

Peter is a carpenter, farmer, community volunteer and supporter of the many local eco-action groups working for a sustainable world for generations to come. He joined the Board to support the vibrant clean energy and sustainability programs underway. Peter resides along the Cold River in Langdon where he and partner Trish Stefanko grow intensively using regenerative agriculture practices.

Peter Hansel

Peter D. Hansel

Peter received a BA from Princeton University with a major in Environmental Studies. He worked briefly for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council before joining a family owned manufacturing business, Filtrine Mfg. Co., in 1973. After five years in California as a salesman for Filtrine, he moved back to Keene, NH in 1979 with his wife, Bridget, where they raised four children. He helped Filtrine become more energy efficient, most recently installing a wood chip boiler for heating and a 793 kWh solar array on its roof. Peter recently retired as the President of Filtrine and continues to serve on its board.

Peter has served as a Keene City Councilor, Chairman of the Keene Conservation Commission, Chairman the Board of Directors of the Harris Center for Conservation Education and President of the Friends of Open Space in Keene. He also served on the board of Antioch University New England. Peter is a member and past president of the Keene Rotary Club. He also currently serves as Chair of Keene’s Energy and Climate Committee and the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship and is on the board of the Greater Keene and Peterborough Chamber.

Gerald Burns

Gerald Burns recently retired from the English faculty at Franklin Pierce. He received his BA from Notre Dame and his PhD from Yale. At FPU, Jerry helped to found the Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture, and participated in many of its projects, including the 2016 documentary film From Hurricane to Climate Change. More recently he partnered in the establishment of the University’s Institute for Climate Action. Within the local area, he is a member of the Citizens Climate Lobby and the Marlborough Community Power Committee, and can usually be found Friday mornings at the Climate Strike in Jaffrey.

Jerry is focused on climate change, in part owing to a lifelong fascination with the weather. Given his background in the humanities, he is especially interested in the human factors both impeding and empowering effective responses to the crisis. He takes as a practical challenge the acknowledgement in the Hub’s strategic plan that awareness of climate issues is growing in the Monadnock Region, “but not fast enough.”