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Green Team

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS


Captain Steven Gammill is a coastal ecologist, mariner and entrepreneur.  He carries a BS in Biology and an MS in Marine Biology.  For eleven years, Steve was a coastal scientist in Louisiana where he was worked in coastal environmental restoration.
In 2002, Steve pursued the road less traveled through buying a 42 foot sloop and acquiring a merchant mariner license.  He and his wife Jan, started a sailing charter enterprise on Clear Lake.  As a liveaboard sailor, Capt. Steve has witnessed the good, the bad, and the ugly of marina living on Galveston Bay and environmental impacts of boating activities.  Steve founded Green Marinas in 2009 as a grassroots organization to address environmental impacts related to boating on Galveston Bay.
  
     Sustainability expert, Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner of Taiga Company, writes, speaks, blogs, and consults on how changing the way you look at something can change your results and your world.
     Her effervescent attitude inspires others to eco action.  She's a superstar green blogger, 2010 Shorty Award Runner Up on Twitter in the Green category (with over 15,000 followers), and works with companies to address the green/sustainability pressures in a way that strengthens them - capitalizing on the opportunities and mitigating the risk.
     Julie’s is featured on several websites including SocialYell.com, GreenEconomyPost.com, BusinessExchange.com, VividLife.com, ModernHippieMag.com and YourOliveBranch.org.  Not only does she walk the talk, she rides it too as an endurance mountain bike racer.  Follow her on Twitter: @TaigaCompany

 

Tracy L. Barnett is a Houston-based writer and bilingual multimedia journalist specializing in sustainable travel, particularly throughout Texas, the Southwestern US and Latin America. Before becoming a travel writer, she worked as an environmental reporter, as an immigration affairs reporter and as a founder and editor of publications for the Latino immigrant community. She has served as travel editor of the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. As an independent writer, she seeks to integrate the issues she is most knowledgeable and passionate about: sustainability, cultural exchange and travel.
     Tracy is also the founder of The Esperanza Project, a non-profit project that will develop over 2010.  Beginning in Mexico in January and ending in Patagonia in December. The idea is to visit and document creative and resourceful sustainability projects throughout the Americas, sharing ideas and gleaning inspiration from those she meets along the way.

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Vickas Dangayach is a native Houstonian and a graduate of Rice University. He is currently completing his final year of a combined MD/MBA program at Baylor College of Medicine. As the National Student Section President of the American College of Medical Quality, he realized that current quality initiatives in healthcare do not encompass many aspects of sustainable healthcare that contribue to quality care of patients. This realization coupled with his passion for environmental stewardship led him to the sustainable movement in healthcare. He currently is a member of Practice Greenhealth, a leading membership and networking organization for institutions in the healthcare community that have made a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly practices. It is his hope to discus a myriad of topics related to sustainability in healthcare, and provide a forum for the exchange of ideas to help advance the green cause in healthcare here in Houston.  He can be reached at greendocvick@gmail.com.

Read his Blog: GreenDocVick or follow him on Twitter: @greendocvick 
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     Nicole Bruder is the founder and owner of Lucy Goo Pet Sitting. Nicole believes that all living creatures should be treated kindly and with respect, as well as the Earth they live on. Wanting to do more to preserve the world in which our wonderful pets live in, Nicole felt a need for an eco-friendly pet business, and thus began Lucy Goo Pet Sitting.
     Nicole has a master's degree in early childhood education and an extensive background working with young children. Throughout her career as a teacher, Nicole arranged for many animals to visit the children in her classroom, including baby emus, a giant turtle, and a pot-bellied pig. Additionally, Nicole also scheduled 'zoo' days, where the children were encouraged to bring in their own pets. Each child was responsible for a written biography of their pet, and a report about their species. Knowing more about our pets helps us to understand them. Knowing more about our earth will hopefully aide us in saving it.
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Founders

Robert Metzger is the web designer and web service specialist for Houston Green Scene. He provides complete digital business solutions including web design, programming, marketing and consulting as well as managing personalized e-mail accounts, custom web design and re-design.

Robert is a Houston-based freelance web developer and takes pride in serving and supporting local businesses. Contributing to and working with the local community is as important to him as providing services.  

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Mona Metzger brings the same passion for mindful living to her community as she does in her own life.  As co-founder of Houston Green Scene she brings together people of like mind and spirit with local green businesses, organizations and initiatives of worthy causes.

Mona is regularly featured on PBS and makes special appearances on local, Channel 39's Going Green with Yolanda Green.  She teams up with a number of organizations and hosts monthly Green Mixers and luncheons to keep the environmentally friendly and socially responsible collaborating.

With more than two decades' experience as an activist, educator and behavioral specialist, she incorporates fresh social media and web development skills along with community organizing and social networking to this project.  She received her degrees from the University of Houston.

Her vision of a better world manifests itself by serving on boards of select non-profit organizations and working as a volunteer and committee member on many.  She published the first Houston Green Guide and is co-founder of Houston's Annual GreenFest in October.

Most important of all, Mona is Robert's very proud Mother.