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Archive for November, 2008

Green Business Conference

San Francisco, November 12 to 13, 2008

Coop America is sponsoring its green business conference in conjunction with the annual Green Festival. The 2008 conference has four tracks:

  1. Go Climate-Friendly: How to reduce your company’s carbon footprint;
  2. Innovative Financial Models to grow your green business;
  3. Managing for success in this ever-expanding market; and
  4. Marketing of your sustainable programs to differentiate your company from your competitors.

Contact:

Coop America’s Green Business Conference

Highlights of the 2007 Conference

Coop America’s Green Biz Network

Experience His Yosemite: Retiring Superintendent Tollefson

Park Superintendent Mike Tollefson began “Experience Your Yosemite” when he first arrived at the national park in 2003, and today, Halloween, is his last program before retiring at the end of January 2009.

“This is our largest group in the six years,” he tells the sixty participants who hail from the park’s neighboring gateway communities. “We thought some of you would be discouraged by the rain, but it looks like everyone is here.”

Tollefson counts “Experience Your Yosemite” as one of his many accomplishments during his 36 years with the National Park Service. His longest tenure was his last assignment, here where it all began in 1864. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, creating the park, 52 years before Congress established the park service itself.

“Over 1,200 people have participated in the program,” which Tollefson uses to “help dispel the myths” about the park service’s plans for Yosemite. “It can be frustrating, the misinformation out there. Too often people are debating important topics without being fully informed.”

This group of Yosemite’s neighbors, mostly retirees who have settled in the surrounding communities, have squeezed into the Winter Room at the historic Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite Valley. Each person stands to offer a brief introduction. Almost half the group lives in Groveland, the gateway community on Yosemite’s northern border. “Is anyone left in Groveland?” a Mariposa resident inquires.

After the introductions, the superintendent opens the floor to questions.

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