Organization

Beth Tener is a Principal of New Directions Collaborative and a facilitator, organizational consultant, and trainer with over 20 years of experience in helping organizations and networks enhance their environmental and social performance. She specializes in helping people to collaborate across functions and organizations in pursuit of joint goals including stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, mapping networks, and developing commitment, consensus and action plans to implement change. Her work is informed by broad experience in how organizational change happens, systems thinking, and sustainability issues, gained through work with over one hundred companies. She has served as Executive Director of Sustainable Step New England, training people in principles of sustainability and how to put these into practice in their work. She helped “change agents” take leadership within their organization to adopt green practices in government agencies, businesses, and non-profits. She has also convened dialogues between business leaders and government about advancing sustainable practices. Beth was a Senior Consultant at Arthur D. Little, helping corporations create management systems to help meet sustainability goals. She has spoken to a range of audiences including MIT Sloan Business School, National Environmental Partnership Summit, the National Association of Environmental Trainers, and the NESEA Building Energy conference. She serves on the faculty of the Institute for Corporate Sustainability, a joint project of NH Business for Social Responsibility and University of New Hampshire Whittimore School of Business. Beth has a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College and a M.S. in Environmental Technology from Imperial College in London.

Nick Lewis has worked as a lawyer, consultant/fundraiser, freelance graphic designer, and stay-at-home father. For twenty years, he was an employment and benefits attorney, representing labor unions, their pension and health funds and wronged employees and later worked as an Eldercare law attorney. In addition to his litigation and appellate practice, he acted as Managing Partner. From 2008 to 2012, he served on the Montclair, NJ Town Council, after being elected as representative for the Third Ward and was a member of the Board of School Estimate, Development Committee, Parking Committee, Arts Council, Budget Subcommittee, Business Improvement District and chaired a number of special investigatory committees. Nick is an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair and served as its President, Fundraising Chair, and Membership Chair and on its Board of Trustees, Investment Committee and Finance Committee. He is currently Vice President and Head of Development for the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey, an organization that aims to bring liberal religious values in to the public discussion. During a three-year hiatus from his legal practice living in Sydney Australia, Nick was General Counsel for the Australian Baseball League, General Manager of the Sydney Wave and a baseball author during three years in Sydney, where is also taught at University of Technology Law School. He served as the Treasurer and many other positions of the Rand School PTA where he helped institute an after-school arts program. He spent over ten years coaching Little League, served on the Board of the Montclair Academy of Dance and Laboratory of Music, Inc. and was President of the Arts Council of the Essex Area.