Clean Path 2025:
Taking Charge of Our Electric Power

Bill Powers is author of North Carolina Clean Path 2025: Achieving an Economical Clean Energy Future, a 2017 report for NC WARN, as well as a 2018 update. He is a registered professional mechanical engineer in California with over 30 years of experience in energy and environmental engineering. He wrote the 2012 strategic energy plan, Bay Area Smart Energy 2020, for the San Francisco Bay region. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Duke University and an M.P.H. in environmental sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Charly Lowry is a founding member of Dark Water Rising, a Robeson County band that harnesses the sounds of soul, rock, country and R&B. She was a 2004 American Idol semi-finalist and won a 2010 Native American Music Award in the category of debut duo or group.

Donna Chavis (Pembroke, NC) is an elder of the Lumbee nation and long-standing environmental justice organizer. She is a member of the Leadership Team of the NC Climate Justice Collective. She is the Founder of the RedTailed Hawk Collective, Our Communities Care for Culture and Climate and was co-Founder of the Center for Community Action. Donna also currently serves as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Lead Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, USA.

Reverend Nelson N. Johnson and Joyce Hobson Johnson are co-Executive Directors of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro. Nelson is Founding Pastor Emeritus at Faith Community Church in Greensboro, NC, site of NC WARN’s “Solar Freedom” legal challenge. Joyce is a former business professor and transportation research director at North Carolina A&T State University. Both have been intensely involved in the movement for social and economic justice since high school. The Johnsons are leaders in the Poor People’s Campaign and have served on the National Council of Elders, which includes leaders of social justice movements of the 20th century. They received the 2017 NC NAACP President’s Award from Bishop Dr. William J. Barber II and the 2015 John Blackburn award from NC WARN.

Jean Su is the Energy Director of the Climate Law Institute and a Staff Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, where she specializes in energy and climate change issues. Jean’s energy work focuses on growing access to renewable energy, including challenging discriminatory behavior against distributed solar energy, as well as phasing out fossil fuel production. Prior to joining the Center, Jean practiced as a renewable energy project finance attorney with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP in Singapore and Los Angeles, a management consultant focused on climate change with McKinsey & Company in China, and a development worker with CARE International in Madagascar.

Connie Leeper, NC WARN’s Organizing Director, is a community organizer and justice champion with 45 years of experience. She has first-hand knowledge of how certain people and places have been discounted in value and relevance to make change. Connie believes in the power and importance of cultural work. She is co-convener of the NC Climate Justice Collective and serves on the advisory board of the Durham Solidarity Center, the leadership committee of the Pauli Murray Project and the board of directors of the Southeast Climate & Energy Network.

Donald Harrod has been Village Administrator for the Village of Minster, Ohio since 1993. Under Harrod’s leadership, the Village has completed many projects that include a new Village Administration Building, new Police facility, new water and wastewater treatment facilities, miles of major road improvements and the development of a solar and energy storage system for the village’s electrical department that is saving the Village $150,000/year.

Diana Hales was elected to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners in 2014. She is a retired North Carolina government employee and serves as Board liaison to Chatham County’s Climate Change Advisory Committee and Environmental Review Advisory Committee. She is a member of several local nonprofits dedicated to conserving and protecting our rivers and environment – including NC WARN. She will speak about the Commission’s decision to explore putting solar on county buildings.

Bill Jensen has been an Apex Town Councilman for 19 years, where he has consistently pushed for more solar on Town-owned and privately-owned buildings in Apex. He was an aerospace engineer for 35 years and has an MS in Mechanical Engineering. Bill is a member of the Sierra Club, Haw River Assembly, Environment NC, Population Connection and NC WARN.

Mark Marcoplos is a county commissioner in Orange County, NC. Before being elected, he served on the county’s Economic Development Commission, Planning Board and Housing Authority. He was appointed to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors and served two terms as its elected Chair. He founded Marcoplos Construction in 1987 and was an early adopter of green building techniques. He has served on the boards of NC WARN and the NC Solar Energy Association.

Amanda Robertson has worked in the educational design industry for more than twenty years and is founder and CEO of The Farthest Pixel, an educational media design firm based in Pittsboro, North Carolina. She serves as co-chair of the NC Climate Solutions Coalition and also leads Chatham Clean Path, a group of volunteers working to implement NC WARN’s Clean Path 2025 strategy in Chatham County. She helped organize the Chatham County Climate Change Advisory Committee in 2015 and is a leader and lecturer in the Climate Reality Leadership Program.