Board Chair

Vicki Liao

Vicki has 10 years of business development, sales and strategy experience in the media and entertainment industry. She is passionate about sustainability and an advocate for environmental education. She currently serves on the Greener World Board at Sony Pictures studio, which is responsible for planning initiatives to educate employees on sustainability and environmental issues. Additionally, as the co-head of Sony’s employee garden, she launched a learning program in partnership with Sony’s Daycare and Employee Resource Groups to teach sustainable gardening.

In her free time, Vicki enjoys gardening, biking around downtown LA and reading sci-fi books. She holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley. 

Vice Chair

Albin Gielicz

Albin is a co-author of a recently published book for children about sustainability and climate change called The Super Sustainables. It was through his Coro Fellowship program in 2013 that he got a close up look at the harsh reality of our recent drought and its impact on our lives. At that point he put pen to paper upon realizing that we all play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change and making sure that we have a healthy planet for generations to come.

Originally from Arlington Heights, Illinois, he now considers Santa Monica to be home.  Since moving here in 2007, he’s chaired the Social Services Commission, North of Montana Association and Virginia Avenue Park Advisory Board. Currently he also serves on the Recreation and Parks Commission, Santa Monica Travel and Tourism Board and Buy Local Santa Monica Executive Committee.  Albin is committed to improving the quality of life for all Santa Monicans, and is a strong advocate for supporting local businesses in order to sustain a healthy economy.  You can often find Albin biking around town, running along the beach bike path or walking his dog Zoe in Palisades Park.

Albin graduated from Miami University (Ohio) and received an MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management.  

Board Member

Bonny Bentzin

Bonny is a key member of the leadership team for sustainability at UCLA, helping manage sustainability across the university and working to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments to create a world class living laboratory for sustainability. Bonny began her career in higher education sustainability as the Assistant Director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives and the Director of University Sustainability Practices at Arizona State University, where she was instrumental in designing the overarching sustainability vision and executing the campus sustainability strategy for the university. Her role as the founding Director of University Sustainability Practices included an expansive project portfolio spanning all area of operations for the University’s four campuses, as well as working on community engagement, organizational change management and the academic and research missions for the institution. She then served as the Director of Sustainability for GreenerU, a greater Boston area consulting firm focusing on the higher-ed sector in New England.

Prior to joining UCLA, Bonny was the Head of Sustainability and Project Integration for the Trust for Sustainable Development, working on Spirit Bay Developments, coordinating all sustainability aspects and planning key projects for a new town concept being developed in partnership with the Sc’ianew First Nation (Beecher Bay Band) near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Board Member

Diane Forte

Diane enjoys building on more than 10 years of experience in environmental policy and external affairs to help provide advice to nonprofits on their strategic planning. Her current position is in Government Affairs/Local Public Affairs for the Westside Cities for Southern California Edison. Prior to this position, Diane was Deputy Director External Affairs with the Public Interest Network, where she developed strategies for increasing visibility, access and funds for the network of 70 environmental and consumer groups.

Working in collaboration with the nonprofit Move LA, Diane developed the strategy, managed and implemented the plans and coalitions to ensure passage of Measure R, the sales tax that raised $40B for transportation in LA County, and the renewable energy policy at LA Metro. Diane was also Southern California Director of The Climate Group, an international nonprofit developing corporate partnerships for climate action, and, Sustainability Director, for Environment Now Foundation.

Diane graduated from Brown University and received a Masters of City and Regional Planning from Harvard University. Diane lives in Santa Monica.

Board Member

Dr. Garry Hart

Garrett Hart was the Executive Director of Sustainable Works from summer 2011 to summer 2014 but left to accept the position he now holds– Professor and Chair of the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University Fullerton. He remains with Sustainable Works as the Chair of the Advisory Board. Prior to Sustainable Works, Hart was an executive in the television industry, most notably as President of Paramount Network Television for eleven years (1993-2004).

Garry believes that there is no greater mission in life than to help make our world sustainable for our children, their children an all future generations. He is convinced that the best way to accomplish this goal is through worldwide educational efforts and behavior change, which is the mission of Sustainable Works.  All people, all businesses and all governments must do whatever is necessary to insure the sustainability of our planet for all living things.

Board Member

Nurit Katz

UCLA’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, Nurit Katz is working to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments to facilitate creating a world class living laboratory for sustainability at UCLA. As Executive Officer for UCLA Facilities Management, Nurit also provides strategy support to make the university more operationally efficient and coordinates with Emergency Management on resilience planning. Nurit is also an Instructor for UCLA Extension’s Sustainability Certificate Program. In 2017 she received the Dean’s Award from UCLA Extension for outstanding instruction and contributions to the UCLA Extension community and her class was featured as one of the top 10 classes in LA in the 2012 LA Weekly’s Best of LA.

Nurit holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a Masters in Public Policy from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and a BA in Environmental Education from Humboldt State University. Nurit was honored as one of 100 Inspirational Alumni for the 75th Anniversary of UCLA Anderson, Public Policy alumna of the year in 2015, and recently she was recognized as one of the top 100 business trailblazers in the Women Worth Watching in Profiles in Diversity Journal.

Board Member

Bonnie Nixon

As a relentless optimist and courageous catalyst for change, Bonnie has held many high-profile positions at the global forefront of a new low carbon, resource protected and just economy. Bonnie  has served as a corporate sustainability executive, owner of an environmental planning and communications consultancy, and university educator in the following  roles; Senior Partner with Environmental Resources Management (ERM), Director of Sustainability for Mattel Toys, Executive Director of Sustainability Consortium, Director of Global Sustainability for HP, Chairwomen of Sustainable Silicon Valley, Vice President of Circlepoint, Inc. and Director of PR for Boston Harbor Cleanup Project.  

Today Bonnie is a Sustainability Strategist and Human Rights Educator with BonnEco, Inc. and specializes in complex supply chains. Bonnie graduated from Penn State in Sociology and more recently obtained her Masters’ Degree in Learning Technologies and is pursuing a PhD in Global Leadership and Change, both at Pepperdine University. Ms. Nixon believes in the power of web-based collaboration and understands that blockchain technology, gamification, social media, online education using multi-media platforms, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics and visual animation can and will dramatically accelerate a more sustainable future for future generations.

Board Member

Steve Rounds

Steve Rounds is a senior consultant at Cognizant where he focuses on supporting Fortune 500 healthcare, technology, and retail corporations in organizational change management, digital transformation, strategic assessments and business process reengineering projects. Steve is passionate about sustainability–particularly from a viewpoint of digital technology (i.e. artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, automation, etc.) which can radically empower companies and citizens to adopt environmentally sustainable behavior.

Prior to Steve’s work in consulting, he served as a paralegal at the U.S. Department of Justice within the Commercial Fraud sector.

Steve holds an MBA from the University of Georgia and a BA in International Affairs and Spanish from the George Washington University. Steve lives in Santa Monica and, in his free time, enjoys biking along the beach, participating in the rich local music and arts culture, and taking in as many spectacular sunsets along Palisades Park as he can.

Board Member

Bill Selby

In addition to teaching a wide range of courses at Santa Monica College and serving in several leadership roles, Professor Selby is recognized as an accomplished speaker in geography and earth science. In addition to being an advisor to the City of Santa Monica, Professor Selby has also been a guest lecturer at UCI and for UCLA and has taught courses at UCI as a Visiting Professor. He continues presenting at teacher training workshops, has been one of the most requested speakers for SMC’s Speakers Bureau for community groups, and presents papers each year for professional organizations, such as the AAG, APCG, and CGS.