Staff

The Energy Action Coalition has a small and dedicated central staff in Washington, DC. The central staff is responsible for keeping systems moving for the coalition and driving strategic planning and communications. Here we are (in no specific order)

Jessy Tolkan - Executive Director

jessy

Jessy Tolkan serves as the Executive Director for the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Energy Action Coalition leverages the power of young people to organize on college campuses, high schools, and in local communities to build models of the clean energy future. Under her leadership the Energy Action Coalition is growing a generation-wide movement to stop global warming, by advocating for green jobs, stopping new coal plants, and making young people's voices heard in the policy debate around global climate change. Jessy has spent most of her career working to build power amongst the millenial generation. In 2004, as state director for the New Voters Project, Tolkan helped to register more than 130,000 young voters and produce one of the highest youth turnout rates in the country. She's been featured in Time Magazine, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Jessy helped to plan the largest youth gathering on global warming in our nation's history - POWER SHIFT 2007, a conference that brought together more than 6000 youth representing all 50 states, and culminated with the largest single lobby day on capitol hill focused on global warming. Most recently, Jessy spearheaded POWER VOTE, a campaign to mobilize 1,000,000 young voters are climate and energy issues in more than 30 states across the country.

Prior to her work at the Energy Action Coalition, Tolkan worked with leading advocacy and grassroots organizations including: United States Student Association, Young Democrats of America, and Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. Tolkan received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science and African America-Studies. In 2006, Tolkan was named one of the REAL HOT 100 Women in America, for her work with young voters.

Pete Griffin - Campaign Director

Pete

Pete Griffin joins Energy Action Coalition as Campaign Director from his post at MTV (Think MTV) where he managed the network’s on-air, online, mobile and on-the-ground "pro-social" campaigns that engaged, educated and empowered young people to take action on the issues that impact their lives and community. This includes Break the Addiction, MTV's campaign to help young people make decisions that both improve their daily lives and protect the environment; Choose or Lose, MTV’s award-winning political campaign which most recently presented the Official Youth Ball during President Obama’s Inauguration; and Think MTV which recently won the 2008 Emmy Award for best Community Service Campaign on television.

Pete's team launched think.mtv.com in 2006 as an interactive online community where the young people, top non-profits and civic organizations, and the biggest names in pop culture could join forces to address the issues they face in their lives. The site, which was one of five 2009 Webby Award finalists in the Youth category, became a definitive resource for young people to share media and ideas, get informed, connect with others, take action and get rewarded as they worked on the issues that matter most to them.

Prior to Think MTV, Pete was an executive with MTV's International Marketing Partnerships team that created global on-air, online, mobile, and on-the-ground marketing campaigns across MTV's channels in 179 countries around the world. He also worked in Advertising Sales for MTV, MTV2, and mtvU in New York and Los Angeles. Pete has spoken at numerous conferences and events on youth activism, from the United Nations to Powershift, and has worked with dozens of organizations on issues ranging from the environment, human rights, sexual health, politics, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and education to help them create campaigns to engage and activate young people. Pete is a graduate of Bucknell University.

Danny Marx - Internet Manager

Danny has spent years roaming the world, gathering experiences, figuring out his creed, and leaving good cheer behind wherever he stopped. Afraid to just jump into the rut mentality of American maturation he let the whims of the world train and direct his actions. A large chunk of that introspective reed swaying played out working with the United States Peace Corps, where he worked in Community and Youth Development in Mongolia. While living in a felt tent on the Siberian plateau he was able to assist in the development of a Mongolia-specific life skills program and facilitate its adoption into the nationwide school curriculum. He also oversaw the transformation of a soviet-era labor camp into a youth summer camp, which in its initial 2 summers, provided an invaluable resource to over 300 at-risk youth.

After spending last year traveling across N. America in search of fresh snow and untracked pistes, he has settled down in DC. He now combines his unique blend of charm, experience, and intelligence to inspire, motivate, and organize the Energy Action Coalition's online communities.

Whit Jones - Program Coordinator

whit

Whit recently graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he majored in International Relations and minored in Political Economy and Environmental Studies. While on campus, he and his friends worked to make Carleton carbon neutral by designing a Sustainability Revolving Fund, studying the feasibility of bringing new wind turbines to campus, and participating in Minnesota Campus Wars. He spent his summer organizing the March to ReEnergize Iowa and participated in the international climate negotiations in Bali as the Partnerships Coordinator for SustainUS in December of 2007.

"It's incredible to work with so many inspiring and creative people, I'm excited about building this movement in the U.S. and across borders"

Lilian Molina - Environmental Justice Director

Adam

Lilian Molina, the Environmental Justice Director at Energy Action Coalition. A native of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, she moved to Chicago at the age of five with her mother. By the age of 16, she was working to organize around various social justice (SJ) and environmental justice (EJ) issues. She spent many years organizing to address immigration, education, and youth rights. She also worked on addressing the disproportionate representation of people of color affected by incarceration, the death penalty and police brutality. For the past 8 years, she has worked with young people in many different capacities but mainly facilitating leadership development through youth organizing. Most recently, she worked as the Youth Coordinator for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). At LVEJO, she implemented a three-year environmental justice, youth leadership project through the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing (FCYO) where she continued her SJ and EJ work. At LVEJO, she worked closely with all the campaign organizers to ensure Environmental Justice for the 100,000 plus residents of the Little Village community and the broader Chicagoland area. Through the guidance of facilitative leadership, Lilian has worked with young people across class and race to organize around the issues they face at the community level. She has a deep passion for EJ and believes that frontline communities need to be an integral component of movement building and drafting policy that meets their needs and demands. She is deeply committed to uniting African Americans, Asian-Americans, Indigenous People, Latinos and Pacific Islanders, and building alliances with White People. She believes that in order to build strong effective movements anti-oppression, de-colonization and diversity training are integral. The foundation of her work is deeply rooted in education as a tool for liberation, participatory democracy and popular education. Lilian has a bachelors degree in Bilingual/Bi-cultural Education and is looking to pursue a graduate degree in Urban Education Policy with a focus on environmental risks and their affects on learning.

Anjali Helferty - Partners Director

Adam

Anjali Helferty joins the Energy Action Coalition central staff team after spending several years involved with the coalition as the partner representative for the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC), the youth branch of Sierra Club Canada. She first got involved with SYC in early 2003 while a student at Queen's University, and was hired as the National Sustainable Campuses Coordinator in the summer of 2006. She currently holds the record for the most Sustainable Campuses conferences attended by any one individual, although she is open to challengers. She was a founding member and the first chair of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, and has appeared on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin and CTV's Mike Duffy Live and been profiled in Alternatives Journal for her work in the youth climate movement. One of the highlights of her involvement with Energy Action was the opportunity to appear with other movement leaders in Vanity Fair's 2007 Green Issue. After spending eight years reestablishing her Canadian roots, she is excited to be back in the US and to continue building relationships both within the country and across borders.

Adam Hlava - Operations Director

Adam

A Political Science graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Adam has dedicated his career to working for progressive candidates as well as important issues that we face in our everyday lives. Prior to joining the Energy Action Coalition in June 2009, he has worked on three successful political campaigns, most notably in 2008 managing the compliance department on Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s successful race for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. In addition he helped to raise over $1.3 million to re-elect the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2009, and organized volunteers in Central Wisconsin for Governor Jim Doyle in his successful 2006 re-election effort.

In 2007 Adam raised money for Fair Wisconsin, a group dedicated to advancing the rights of the state’s LGBT community. He now joins the Energy Action Coalition’s Central Staff as the Operations Manager, facilitating the organization’s financial and physical operations as well as providing logistical support for the coalition’s central staff.

Maegan Carberry - Communications Manager

Adam

Maegan Carberry is a digital media strategist and commentator who blogs about politics, media, technology and the so-called spoiled Millennial Generation at www.maegancarberry.com. Her work has appeared on HuffPost, CauseCast and Editor & Publisher. She also co-hosts the online radio show, Wilshire & Washington with Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson and conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein. She is a frequent lecturer, and a contributor to FOX Business News.

Previously, she was Arianna Huffington's chief of staff, where she ran the west coast offices of The Huffington Post. She worked with the Obama for America communications and new media team during the California primary election campaign. She has also been an advertising sales executive at The Los Angeles Times and a reporter and columnist for The Chicago Tribune's RedEye edition. She has a masters degree in journalism and media management from Northwestern University and a bachelors degree in political science from UCLA.

Read the History | Join the Team | Support the Movement | Contact Us


	The Our Decade Campaign The Energy Action Coalition Our Legislative Ask Read the Blog Twitter updates Be a Power Shift Blogger Sign the Petition Call Your Senators We Voted For ... Photo Petition Email Senate and Pres. Obama Write a Letter to Your Local Paper Regional Summit Organizer Resources Define our Decade Events Our Decade Resources Visions for Our Decade Staff The Energy Action Coalition has a small and dedicated central staff in Washington, DC. The central staff is responsible for keeping systems moving for the coalition and driving strategic planning and communications. Here we are (in no specific order) Jessy Tolkan - Executive Director Jessy Tolkan serves as the Executive Director for the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Energy Action Coalition leverages the power of young people to organize on college campuses, high schools, and in local communities to build models of the clean energy future. Under her leadership the Energy Action Coalition is growing a generation-wide movement to stop global warming, by advocating for green jobs, stopping new coal plants, and making young people's voices heard in the policy debate around global climate change. Jessy has spent most of her career working to build power amongst the millenial generation. In 2004, as state director for the New Voters Project, Tolkan helped to register more than 130,000 young voters and produce one of the highest youth turnout rates in the country. She's been featured in Time Magazine, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Jessy helped to plan the largest youth gathering on global warming in our nation's history - POWER SHIFT 2007, a conference that brought together more than 6000 youth representing all 50 states, and culminated with the largest single lobby day on capitol hill focused on global warming. Most recently, Jessy spearheaded POWER VOTE, a campaign to mobilize 1,000,000 young voters are climate and energy issues in more than 30 states across the country. Prior to her work at the Energy Action Coalition, Tolkan worked with leading advocacy and grassroots organizations including: United States Student Association, Young Democrats of America, and Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. Tolkan received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science and African America-Studies. In 2006, Tolkan was named one of the REAL HOT 100 Women in America, for her work with young voters. Pete Griffin - Campaign Director Pete Griffin joins Energy Action Coalition as Campaign Director from his post at MTV (Think MTV) where he managed the network’s on-air, online, mobile and on-the-ground "pro-social" campaigns that engaged, educated and empowered young people to take action on the issues that impact their lives and community. This includes Break the Addiction, MTV's campaign to help young people make decisions that both improve their daily lives and protect the environment; Choose or Lose, MTV’s award-winning political campaign which most recently presented the Official Youth Ball during President Obama’s Inauguration; and Think MTV which recently won the 2008 Emmy Award for best Community Service Campaign on television. Pete's team launched think.mtv.com in 2006 as an interactive online community where the young people, top non-profits and civic organizations, and the biggest names in pop culture could join forces to address the issues they face in their lives. The site, which was one of five 2009 Webby Award finalists in the Youth category, became a definitive resource for young people to share media and ideas, get informed, connect with others, take action and get rewarded as they worked on the issues that matter most to them. Prior to Think MTV, Pete was an executive with MTV's International Marketing Partnerships team that created global on-air, online, mobile, and on-the-ground marketing campaigns across MTV's channels in 179 countries around the world. He also worked in Advertising Sales for MTV, MTV2, and mtvU in New York and Los Angeles. Pete has spoken at numerous conferences and events on youth activism, from the United Nations to Powershift, and has worked with dozens of organizations on issues ranging from the environment, human rights, sexual health, politics, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and education to help them create campaigns to engage and activate young people. Pete is a graduate of Bucknell University. Danny Marx - Internet Manager Danny has spent years roaming the world, gathering experiences, figuring out his creed, and leaving good cheer behind wherever he stopped. Afraid to just jump into the rut mentality of American maturation he let the whims of the world train and direct his actions. A large chunk of that introspective reed swaying played out working with the United States Peace Corps, where he worked in Community and Youth Development in Mongolia. While living in a felt tent on the Siberian plateau he was able to assist in the development of a Mongolia-specific life skills program and facilitate its adoption into the nationwide school curriculum. He also oversaw the transformation of a soviet-era labor camp into a youth summer camp, which in its initial 2 summers, provided an invaluable resource to over 300 at-risk youth. After spending last year traveling across N. America in search of fresh snow and untracked pistes, he has settled down in DC. He now combines his unique blend of charm, experience, and intelligence to inspire, motivate, and organize the Energy Action Coalition's online communities. Whit Jones - Program Coordinator Whit recently graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he majored in International Relations and minored in Political Economy and Environmental Studies. While on campus, he and his friends worked to make Carleton carbon neutral by designing a Sustainability Revolving Fund, studying the feasibility of bringing new wind turbines to campus, and participating in Minnesota Campus Wars. He spent his summer organizing the March to ReEnergize Iowa and participated in the international climate negotiations in Bali as the Partnerships Coordinator for SustainUS in December of 2007. "It's incredible to work with so many inspiring and creative people, I'm excited about building this movement in the U.S. and across borders" Lilian Molina - Environmental Justice Director Lilian Molina, the Environmental Justice Director at Energy Action Coalition. A native of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, she moved to Chicago at the age of five with her mother. By the age of 16, she was working to organize around various social justice (SJ) and environmental justice (EJ) issues. She spent many years organizing to address immigration, education, and youth rights. She also worked on addressing the disproportionate representation of people of color affected by incarceration, the death penalty and police brutality. For the past 8 years, she has worked with young people in many different capacities but mainly facilitating leadership development through youth organizing. Most recently, she worked as the Youth Coordinator for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). At LVEJO, she implemented a three-year environmental justice, youth leadership project through the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing (FCYO) where she continued her SJ and EJ work. At LVEJO, she worked closely with all the campaign organizers to ensure Environmental Justice for the 100,000 plus residents of the Little Village community and the broader Chicagoland area. Through the guidance of facilitative leadership, Lilian has worked with young people across class and race to organize around the issues they face at the community level. She has a deep passion for EJ and believes that frontline communities need to be an integral component of movement building and drafting policy that meets their needs and demands. She is deeply committed to uniting African Americans, Asian-Americans, Indigenous People, Latinos and Pacific Islanders, and building alliances with White People. She believes that in order to build strong effective movements anti-oppression, de-colonization and diversity training are integral. The foundation of her work is deeply rooted in education as a tool for liberation, participatory democracy and popular education. Lilian has a bachelors degree in Bilingual/Bi-cultural Education and is looking to pursue a graduate degree in Urban Education Policy with a focus on environmental risks and their affects on learning. Anjali Helferty - Partners Director Anjali Helferty joins the Energy Action Coalition central staff team after spending several years involved with the coalition as the partner representative for the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC), the youth branch of Sierra Club Canada. She first got involved with SYC in early 2003 while a student at Queen's University, and was hired as the National Sustainable Campuses Coordinator in the summer of 2006. She currently holds the record for the most Sustainable Campuses conferences attended by any one individual, although she is open to challengers. She was a founding member and the first chair of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, and has appeared on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin and CTV's Mike Duffy Live and been profiled in Alternatives Journal for her work in the youth climate movement. One of the highlights of her involvement with Energy Action was the opportunity to appear with other movement leaders in Vanity Fair's 2007 Green Issue. After spending eight years reestablishing her Canadian roots, she is excited to be back in the US and to continue building relationships both within the country and across borders. Adam Hlava - Operations Director A Political Science graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Adam has dedicated his career to working for progressive candidates as well as important issues that we face in our everyday lives. Prior to joining the Energy Action Coalition in June 2009, he has worked on three successful political campaigns, most notably in 2008 managing the compliance department on Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s successful race for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. In addition he helped to raise over $1.3 million to re-elect the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2009, and organized volunteers in Central Wisconsin for Governor Jim Doyle in his successful 2006 re-election effort. In 2007 Adam raised money for Fair Wisconsin, a group dedicated to advancing the rights of the state’s LGBT community. He now joins the Energy Action Coalition’s Central Staff as the Operations Manager, facilitating the organization’s financial and physical operations as well as providing logistical support for the coalition’s central staff. Maegan Carberry - Communications Manager Maegan Carberry is a digital media strategist and commentator who blogs about politics, media, technology and the so-called spoiled Millennial Generation at www.maegancarberry.com. Her work has appeared on HuffPost, CauseCast and Editor & Publisher. She also co-hosts the online radio show, Wilshire & Washington with Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson and conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein. She is a frequent lecturer, and a contributor to FOX Business News. Previously, she was Arianna Huffington's chief of staff, where she ran the west coast offices of The Huffington Post. She worked with the Obama for America communications and new media team during the California primary election campaign. She has also been an advertising sales executive at The Los Angeles Times and a reporter and columnist for The Chicago Tribune's RedEye edition. She has a masters degree in journalism and media management from Northwestern University and a bachelors degree in political science from UCLA. Read the History \| Join the Team \| Support the Movement \| Contact Us
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