John Birge has been a Principal at RDG Planning & Design since 1976. Since that time, he has led the firm's growth and success in many areas including master planning services as well as design of senior living, corporate, educational, and religious facilities. For the second year in a row, RDG has been ranked in the Engineering News Record's Top 100 Green Design Firms. Also in 2009, RDG was recognized by Architecture Magazine as a Top 100 firm based on profitability, sustainability and design within the practice of the firm. RDG was one of only 45 U.S. businesses recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a Bicycle Friendly Business (Silver Level). In 2005, RDG was recognized as one of the Top Ten Places to Work in Omaha.

John is a perpetual student of social impacts through the effect each RDG-designed facility has on its residents; through the effect a firm leader can have on the staff; and through the role we all play in our civic involvement and family life.Ê John advocates it is each individual's responsibility to live life responsibly and to do each and every thing well. Each individual that makes up the whole of RDG is a collective part of the social structure that gives the firm its ability to make a difference for social change. As designers, RDG staff have the opportunity to make a significant impact through purpose-driven design for their clients and for the greater social good of their community. Identifying that sustainability and health are two key factors for a balanced lifestyle, one question is how can we measure ourselves to know we are having an effect on change in our society?

A 1972 graduate of Iowa State University, John is active in several professional organizations including as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, member of the Nebraska Society of Architects, and past-President of the Board of Directors for the Global Design Alliance. John is a U.S. Green Building Council LEED Accredited Professional.
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Dell Gines serves as an adjunct professor in Creighton University's entrepreneur department where he teaches social entrepreneurship courses. He currently has an MBA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and is pursuing his PHD in Public Administration where his research focus is social entrepreneurship theory and impact. Dell Gines' emphasis in social entrepreneurship came about due to his business background and his strong commitment to community activism and development in the Omaha community. He spent his early career in business banking in low income communities, working to develop innovative ways to help urban small businesses develop. Because of his community passion he transitioned into non-profit leadership, serving in executive and management roles in business development agencies as well as Habitat for Humanity of Omaha. Currently an executive director of a local health care non-profit, he not only teaches social entrepreneurship but has applied its principles in program design through his organization.

Community Roles:

Personal Information:

Ingrid Kirst is the Executive Director of Community CROPS, a Lincoln-based non-profit organization that helps families grow food for themselves and the community. Over the last four years under Ingrid's leadership, the organization has grown to serve 170 families with garden plots, five farm training families and offers regular workshops on garden and sustainable themes. Through the work of Community CROPS, more and more people are growing their own food, to increase the health of their family and to save and even earn money. Community gardens and farms connect the community in many ways around a common theme of food. Ingrid is also an avid organic gardener and a board member of Open Harvest Natural Foods Cooperative Grocery in Lincoln.

Jim Knopik grew up on a farm near North Star, Nebraska, a village that no longer exists. He has six decades of farm experience. At the age of five there were farm families living on nearly every quarter section(160 acres) in his neighborhood. Forty-nine families living within a two mile radius of North Star where now there are only five.

In 1967 he married Carolyn, rented their own farm and eventually became one of the larger conventional farmers in the area farming with his father and brothers. After twenty years they realized they were farming more for bank and companies like Cargill, Monsanto and Case IH and it wasn't something they would ask their children to do. Looking for something more sustainable they downsized, began farming organically and began direct marketing forming a group called North Star Neighbors which they now manage by marketing and delivering meat raised by their members.

Rural communities have lost nearly all infrastructure for processing and transporting locally grown food. Jim actively works with others trying to establish fair and new markets for small farmers. They are currently working on several projects. One is building a mobile meat processing unit and another is a year-round on-line farmers market with a delivery system now serving part of eastern Nebraska.

He serves on the boards of organizations such as the Center for Rural Affairs, the Nebraska Environmental Action Coalition and the Nebraska Food Cooperative and was recently elected to the Nance County Board of Supervisors.

Jim and Carolyn have four children and eleven grandchildren all living within 30 miles of their home. Family and neighbors are their most important resource.

Education:

B.S. / Civil Engineering, University of NE - Omaha, NE M.S. / Civil Engineering, University of NE - Omaha, NE

Andrea is a lecturer of both literature and ecocomposition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she is working on her Doctorate in English Literature. She specializes in Ecocriticism, Dietary and Appetite theory, Post-colonialism, Native American literature, British Romanticism, and Science and Literature. Her current research projects explore the relationship between philosophies of taste, appetite, and materialism in Western culture and their significant contributions to both the legitimization of colonization in America, and a Western ideology of capitalism that relies upon unrestricted consumption-the consequences and by-products of which include widespread ecological devastation, loss of biodiversity, toxicity, and disease. Her work examines Native ideologies that call for an increased ecological conscientiousness, and serious reconsideration of our consumptive practices, including how we produce and consume our food.

Andrea is an avid animal and nature-lover and enthusiast. She is committed to learning as much as possible about how we can reduce our ecological footprint, eat both sustainably and healthfully, and be more mindful, impact-aware consumers. The past several years, she and her family have been enjoying the challenges of learning how to reduce their energy and water usage, garden and practice permaculture, learn the art of vermicomposting, eat more organic and locally produced food, cook in season, cut back on the use of fossil fuels wherever possible, support truly green business and business practices, and employ the holy trinity of sustainability to its best effects: "reduce, reuse, and recycle."

Daniel has studied, lived and consulted on sustainable practices in the private, non-profit and government sectors. He believes in a collaborative approach to taking advantage of the economic, environmental and social opportunities in front of our community and lives this out daily in his work with Verdis and involvement in the community.

Daniel serves as the Coordinator of Sustainable Practices for Metropolitan Community College, Nebraska's largest community college. He is very involved in Omaha's Green community: he sits on Environment Omaha's Building Construction Sub-Committee, is Chair of Omaha's Green Neighborhood Council, and is on the Executive Committee of the Green Omaha Coalition.

As a nationally certified Home Energy Rater, Daniel has helped entire neighborhoods save energy through an original Neighborhood Energy Savings Program. He has presented throughout the Midwest on Community Sustainability, Green Business, Green Living, and Green Homes and consults both the private and non-profit sectors in areas of sustainability and efficient resource management.

Billene Nemec is the Coordinator for Buy Fresh Buy Local, Nebraska Chapter. Her long time passion for great local food and for those who produce it has helped her to understand the need for a program that markets the producers' food and supports those who buy directly from the local producers. For the past 20 years Billene has been a market gardener, farmers' market vendor, and she manages two farmers' markets in Lincoln. She has the privilege and the obligation, as coordinator of Buy Fresh Buy Local, to ensure that ag and rural entrepreneurs have a strong promotional and outreach program for their local products and consumers have a consistent message that helps them to identify the products of family farmers. A program that helps local businesses highlight their support for local foods, and provide entire communities with information about the many benefits of a strong local food system.

A native Nebraskan, Billene graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in BFA in Art Ed. After 11 years of working outside of Nebraska she returned home to work with children and adults in raising food for fun and nutrition.