Rock-Tenn Community Advisory Panel (RCAP)
The Rock-Tenn Community Advisory Panel (RCAP) is made up of fifteen community representatives advising on a study of renewable energy choices to fuel Rock-Tenn’s paper recycling operations in St. Paul. The panelists contribute knowledge and experience from the Izaak Walton League, Macalester College, the Blue Green Alliance, the Tubman Family Alliance, the Washington State Department of Health, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and additional environmental, legal, legislative, and engineering expertise (Learn more on our members page). The Panelists will learn about fuels, technologies and public health in order to recommend the best solution with the least environmental impact to fuel Rock-Tenn's paper recycling operations.
Scroll down to view bios. Panelists can be reached by joining the rtadvisory listserv, emailing nina@sapcc.org or sending questions and comments to 890 Cromwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55114.
Hamline Midway Coalition (District 11) Randy Schubring
St. Anthony Park Community Council (District 12) Matt Hass
Union Park District Council (District 13) Tim Thoreen (Alternate: John Curry)
Macalester Groveland Community Council (District 14) Don Arnosti (Alternate:George Socha)
Desnoyer Park Improvement Association Chris Jones
Southeast Como Improvement Association Bill Kahn
Midway Chamber of Commerce Paul McGinley
Unions Gerry Parzino, United Steel Workers Local #264 (Alternate:Bob Ryan)
At-Large Members - Shalini Gupta, Bernie Hesse, Mark Thieroff, and Tom Welna
At-large Alternates - Ellen Watters, Allan Schultz and Cathy Boies
Panel members were asked to submit their affiliations to air any potential conflicts of interest. Affiliations are listed directly below member names, prior to their bios.
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Randy Schubring - Hamline Midway Coalition (District 11)
Affiliations:
Randy currently serves as president of the Hamline Midway Coalition and as chair of University UNITED, a coalition of neighborhood organizations and businesses devoted to a pedestrian and transit-friendly avenue. Randy has been active in numerous community projects since moving to St. Paul 20 years ago. Professionally, he has served as a neighborhood newspaper editor and an advisor to former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton. Currently, he works as Public Affairs Director for Tubman Family Alliance and Chrysalis, a nonprofit agency that ensures healthy and safe families and communities.
Randy's goal for service on RCAP is to explore clean, renewable energy sources that not only can support Rock-Tenn, but also explore the potential of supplying locally produced energy for the surrounding St. Paul neighborhoods.
Matt Hass - St. Anthony Park Community Council (District 12)
Affiliations: St. Anthony Park Community Council Alternate and Environment Committee Member.
Matt Hass has been a resident of Saint Anthony Park for the past five years. His work with the Environmental Committee of the Saint Anthony Park community council led to working with the Rock Tenn Interested Neighbors and helping to establish the RCAP. His goals for the Rock Tenn project are to enable community participation to the fullest degree, and working to make sure that the RCAP procedure is transparent and worthy of the public's trust.
Matt has a Bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of Minnesota. He has worked for the Washington State Department of Health and the University of Minnesota. Currently he is working in natural foods at the Saint Anthony Park based Hampden Park Coop. He has also done extensive work on social justice issues through several local grassroots organizations. Matt's interests generally
include: music, politics, the outdoors, and cats.
Tim Thoreen - Union Park District Council (District 13)
Affiliations: Tim works for an engineering firm that is capable of providing services on this project from engineering through construction. Tim's firm has not been involved to date, and he has kept himself separate from any related company discussions.
I am a lifelong Minnesotan, born in Bemidji, attended High School in Morris, and have lived in Saint Paul for the last 7 years. Prior to living in Merriam Park, I lived on the East Side of Saint Paul where I got my introduction to work on community councils. I am now a member of the District 13 Community Council. With degrees in Environmental Studies and Public Affairs, I have worked as a planner for an international engineering firm for the past 8 years. Some of my work has included the preparation of environmental impact studies, including an early study for the Green Institute of a proposed biomass-fueled power plant in the Phillips Neighborhood of Minneapolis. In my spare time you might see me throwing rocks inside the Saint Paul Curling Club or my wife and I enjoying a walk to the Mississippi River with our dog, a really cool Labradoodle.
My first and foremost goal for RCAP is to represent District 13, sharing information and advising the council through this process. Personally, I see this as a great opportunity to understand the critical issues we as a society face as we reconsider our energy future for the next several generations. Through all of this, I also look forward to meeting and establishing lasting relationships with more of my neighbors.
Union Park District Council Alternate - John Curry
Affiliations: Parishioner, St. Cecelia’s. Member, D13 Parks and Rec Committee. Director, MN Campaign for Conservation. Board Member, Conservation Minnesota.
John Curry’s been a St. Paul resident since 1989 and he currently lives in Desnoyer Park with his wife (Sue), daughter (Maura) and puppy (Roscoe). He served 5 years on the Merriam Park Community council and four years on the Desnoyer Park Improvement Association. He currently serves on the District 13 Parks and Recreation Committee. He’s been a lobbyist and administrator for environmental non-profits for 10 years, working on recycling, waste, energy and environmental health issues. Previously, he served as Committee Administrator for the House of Representatives Economic Development Committee.
Don Arnosti - Macalester Groveland Community Council (District 14)
Affiliations: Don is employed by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He was an unpaid member of the Green Institute Advisory Committee for the Rock-Tenn Biomass study. He was involved as a citizen lobbyist in the drafting of the legislation that created the Rock-Tenn Community Advisory Panel.
Don has worked for a variety of public interest non-profit environmental and sustainable development organizations over the past twenty years, including serving ten years as the Minnesota Director of the National Audubon Society. He has also worked for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy where he is presently the Forest Program Director.
Don has extensive experience in natural resources public policy and advocacy. He has a degree in biology from Lawrence University, and has been project director of a number of biomass studies, including one just concluding in the Superior National Forest. Don served as an unpaid advisor to the recently-completed Green Institute study of biomass sources for the Rock Tenn facility.
Don and his wife Meg have been residents of the MacGroveland neighborhood of St. Paul since 1986. They have three children who are in or have gone through the Saint Paul public schools.
Chris Jones - Desnoyer Park Improvement Association (DPIA)
Affiliations: Chris was a member of Rock-Tenn Interested Neighborhoods as a representative member of DPIA.
Chris Jones lives in Desnoyer Park, in very close proximity to Rock-Tenn, and works on communications for the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in Saint Paul. He received a B.A. in geology from Carleton College in Northfield, MN and an MFA from the University of Florida in Gainesville. His personal goals for RCAP are threefold: establishing a constructive forum for all concerned about this issue,
grounding conversation in fact, and helping to guide the process to an amenable solution for as many as possible.
Bill Kahn - Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA)
Bill Kahn is a transplant from Los Angeles, California and has lived the last 14 years in--around seven or eight of those years as the environment committee chair for the neighborhood association--the Prospect Park East River Road neighborhood of Minneapolis. He has a B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies with an emphasis in planning. He is presently unemployed, but has worked in numerous positions in the Metro area since arriving in Minnesota, the last as an independent taxicab driver in St. Paul, cut short by sciatica. He brings an interest in human behavior and the interface of law and science to RCAP along with an odd sense of humor.
Paul McGinley - Midway Chamber of Commerce
Affiliations: Paul has been the board chair of the Northern Dakota County Chambers of Commerce; board member of the Midway Chamber of Commerce; and member of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. His professional affiliations include: the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping; the National Society of Professional Surveyors; the Minnesota Society of Professional Surveyors; the Consulting Engineers Council of Minnesota; the Sensible Land Use Coalition; and the Urban Land Institute, among others. The Port Authority is a client of his current firm. Loucks Associates does not offer any services relevant to the Rock Tenn power plant, its design, economic analysis or public health and emissions considerations. Loucks Associates would have no opportunity to participate in any engineering contracts or subcontracts related to the Rock Tenn power plant.
Paul McGinley is currently a board member for the Midway Chamber and a member of their Economic Development Committee. Mr. McGinley lives in Shoreview, Minnesota with his wife Jane. Paul and Jane raised their two children in the Midway area and in North St. Paul. Paul was raised on the east side and attended Hill High School, now Hill Murray High School. After starting at the U of M, pursuing a chemistry degree he transferred to Macalester College. He graduated in 1973, with a BA in Psychology, with emphases in child development and the philosophy of science.
Mr. McGinley has worked in the Land Surveying field since 1967. He was licensed in Minnesota as a Professional Land Surveyor in 1983. He worked at and later owned a land surveying firm in the St. Paul area (Paul R. McLagan & Son) for 23 years, performing hundreds of surveys a year, many of them in the Midway area for homeowners and businesses. For the past 14 years he has been a principal at Loucks Associates, a Twin Cities consulting firm, which specializes in civil engineering, land surveying, urban planning, landscape architecture and environmental science.
Gerry Parzino - United Steelworkers Union Representative
Affiliations: Member of the United Steel Workers, Blue Green Alliance (USW and Sierra Club), Sierra Club, Minnesota Independent Union Council, Green Energy St. Paul.
Born June 13, 1956 Midway Hospital, St. Paul, MN. Married 29 years to my wife Joan we have lived in Forest Lake, MN for the last 19 years. We have 3 children. Gina age 27 who lives in Astoria Queens, NY, Angela age 25 married to Trever. Marshall, who live in Fridley, MN and are expecting our first grandchild and Philip age 23 living in Woodbury, MN.
After graduating from Mounds View High School in 1974, I went to work for International Paper in Arden Hills, MN and joined what was at the time UPIU Local #264 St. Paul, MN, later to become USW Local #264. I’ve been a member of St. Paul Local #264 for 33 years. Being raised in a union household, I was evolved in the Local Union early on serving as Shop Steward and Negotiations Committee Member. I also held several local union offices, Recording Secretary/Treasurer, Vice President, President and 3 terms as the Locals Business Agent. I was then hired and went on staff with the International Union
May 1, 2003 as a Staff Representative. I am currently servicing 19 locations in Minnesota, in the paper and forestry products industry.
At-Large Representatives
Shalini Gupta
Affiliations: Former employee of the Green Institute; later was an unpaid member of the Green Institute Advisory Committee for the Rock-Tenn Biomass study. Is employed at the Izaak Walton League of America; her husband works at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy. She is a recent governor appointee to the Next Generation Board which looks at biofuels policies for the state, provides input on bionenergy research, and has bioenergy project granting authority. She is on the Agriculture, Forestry and Waste Management technical working group for the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group. She is on the Board of Directors of the Headwaters Foundation ffor Justice and serves on their environmental justice grants committee; is also on the Board of Directors for the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota.
Shalini Gupta is an at-large member of the RCAP. She lives in Prospect Park (a bordering Minneapolis neighborhood) and works in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul. Professionally, Shalini is a Senior Energy Associate at the Midwest Office of the Izaak Walton League, a national environmental and conservation nonprofit. At the Izaak Walton League, her responsibilities include conducting regional policy research on renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies, evaluating utility integrated resource plans, and promoting climate neutral energy strategies. Before joining the League, Shalini spent two years at the Minneapolis-based Green Institute working on the fuel inventory analysis and environmental assessment process for a combined heat and power biomass facility and conducting solar and energy-efficiency policy research. She has been a research fellow at St. Paul-based Fresh Energy, where she authored multiple bioenergy related reports, and has worked at Argonne National Laboratories analyzing dataset sources of atmospheric organic pollutants from urban and industrial sites in China. Shalini is on the Board of Directors of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice. She holds a B.S. in the geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Environmental Management from Yale University.
Bernie Hesse
Bernie Hesse is the Director of Special Projects for United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 789. A longtime resident of the midway and a member of St. Columba, upon graduation from the College of St. Thomas Bernie entered the retail/grocery industry and was employed by National Tea, Applebaum's, and Lunds Grocery. Bernie also held positions as a shop steward, executive vice president of Local 789, Sec/Treasurer of St. Paul Trades & Labor, and is currently a Trustee for Local 789 Pension Fund. Bernie’s work has centered around WakeUpWal-Mart, the Blue Green Alliance, MN Industrial Union Council, and Legislative/Political Director for Local 789. Most recently I have been involved in the Packinghouse Workers Bill of Rights and retail organizing. He is married to Vickie Hesse and has two healthy grown-up, somewhat financially independent children, Sarah and Sam.
His goal is to find a clean, sustainable, and renewable energy source for Rock Tenn and perhaps other customers in the midway. Bernie envisions a green job zone and retaining an industrial base in St. Paul by the work we have embarked on.
Mark Thieroff
Affiliations: Mark served as the Hamline-Midway Coalition's representative on the Rock-Tenn Interested Neighbors Initiative.
Mark Thieroff is an at-large member of the Panel. Since moving to St. Paul in 2000, Mark has been actively involved in community-development issues, including serving on the Merriam Park Community Council and its Land Use Committee and later the Hamline Midway Land Use Committee. Beginning in the summer of 2006, Mark served as the Hamline-Midway Coalition's representative on the Rock-Tenn Interested Neighbors initiative. Professionally, Mark is an attorney with a Minneapolis law firm and his practice includes environmental and land-use law. He resides in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood.
Tom Welna
Tom Welna is the director of Macalester College’s community foundation, The High Winds Fund. He is the former CEO of River Valley Preservation Company, served as Deputy Mayor of Saint Paul and established Saint Paul’s curbside recycling programs and community energy conservation programs as the first director of the Neighborhood Energy Connection in the 1980s.
Tom Welna is a member of the Board of Directors of the Clean Energy Reinvestment Fund and the think-tank, Minnesota 2020. He recently led the community effort to develop the “Marshall Avenue Green Street Proposal” – a traffic-calming neighborhood beautification project. Tom lives in the Merriam Park neighborhood with his wife and two daughters.
Alternates
Ellen Watters
Affiliations: Ellen is a member of the St. Paul Area and Midway Chambers of Commerce. Ellen's client list includes the City of St. Paul and St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. She serves on the boards of Macalester College High Winds Fund, Episcopal Homes of Minnesota, and the Ford Plant Task Force.
Ellen Watters is a partner in the newly-formed consulting firm, Civic Source which produces community issues education programs for organizations to develop civic leadership. Prior to launching Civic Source, Watters served as Senior Vice President of Economic Development for the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. Her responsibilities included developing macro policies to attract and retain investment and working with businesses on relocation, workforce and regulatory issues. Prior to joining the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce in 2002, Watters served as President of the Midway Chamber of Commerce for nearly six years. Her earlier career was primarily in communications and fundraising. A graduate of Macalester College, Watters serves as Vice Chair-
Chair Elect of the Board of Trustees of Episcopal Homes of Minnesota, on the board of the High Winds Fund at Macalester College and on the City of Saint Paul’s Ford Site Planning Task Force.
Allan Schultz
Allan resides in Merriam Park and was chosen as an at-large alternate to the RCAP. Allan brings a strong technical background to the Panel including a bachelor's degree in Analytical Chemistry, Master's degree in Physical Chemistry, an M.S. and PhDs in Materials Science. During his academic career, Allan researched the measurement of trace organice compounds, such as pollutants, at Northwestern University, as well as energy conversion and alternative energy generation with the Solar Energy Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin.
Allan's industrial experience, at Honeywell and Seagate Technology, involved intensive problem solving dealing with industrial processes, dangerous compounds, and meeting US government requirements, such as the Military Standards used by NASA and the Department of Defense. Allan spent the last part of his career with Seagate Technology as a Senior Director, running a large development group focused upon corporate wide Reliability.
In addition to his academic and career experience, Allan has been a small business owner and fully understands what Rock-Tenn means to the community. Newly retired, Allan also sees participation on RCAP as an opportunity to give back his own time to the community.
Cathy Boies
Affiliations: Cathy's husband is a pediatrician.
Cathy Boies is an alternate RCAP member living in the Macalester-Groveland area of St. Paul. Cathy has worked in energy public policy for the last several years. Most recently, she worked as the executive assistant to one of the commissioners of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, the state agency that regulates electric, telecom and water utilities. In this role, Cathy advised the commissioner as he made policy decisions, acted as his liaison to the public, and worked with agency staff to probe issues in pending cases. Prior to the Commission, Cathy worked as the project manager for an energy consumer advocacy organization that represented smaller interests before the Wisconsin State Legislature and the Public Service Commission.
A Minnesota native, Cathy returned to St. Paul with her family a year ago. She is currently a stay-at-home mom, taking care of her toddler and expecting a second child this fall. Cathy is also an avid athlete, competing in long-distance swimming through high school and college and triathlons as an adult. She completed the Wisconsin Ironman in 2003. Cathy holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a Master’s of Education from Harvard University.