California. Japan. New York. From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, three LEED Fellows are demonstrating their dedication to the sustainability field by going above and beyond the call of duty. They’re serving on boards, making presentations and mentoring. Most important, they are forging professional pathways for the green trailblazers of the future.

Kelly Gearhart

The idea of working internationally spoke to USGBC Faculty member and LEED Fellow Kelly Gearhart from the time she was a child. So, it makes sense that she would carve out a career as a principal at Triple Green Building Group, a sustainability solution–focused consulting firm with offices in the United States and Bulgaria, plus a global client roster to boot—Ikea, Mastercard and PG&E are just a few. That’s by design—Gearhart is a founding partner of Triple Green.

For Gearhart, the road to a sustainability career was not straightforward, though she had a lifelong fascination with (and passion for) the field, in addition to a knack for entrepreneurship. At first, Gearhart cashed in on the dot-com boom and ran a business from her college dorm room. Then, she accrued different job experiences, including working for a circus in Australia. She was feeling stuck; eventually, she had her light bulb moment.

A woman in a blazer smiles at the camera. — Kelly Gearhart, a founding partner of Triple Green Building Group, found her way to green building through a circuitous route. Photo credit: Vessela Valtcheva-McGee.

“I kept finding that I put my resume out there and companies would say ‘Yeah, we’re interested in you,’ and I would go in that direction,” says Gearhart. “After a few times doing that, I realized ‘I think I’m doing this backwards. I need to step back and decide what I want to do and then go after it.’”

She applied for a job that would get her foot in the door of sustainable design and building, expressing to her interviewer an eagerness to learn the ropes. The interviewer was impressed with her “funny resume,” Gearhart says, and they talked a lot about her time with the circus. She landed the job.

Gearhart’s story is one of coming into one’s own and a reminder that the path to discovering a career can be (and often is) circuitous. Her past informs her approach to running professional certificate programs and teaching classes at the extension school of the University of California, Berkeley, where she engages students in a sustainability education and guides those who feel stuck to get unstuck by vocalizing the careers they’d like to have.

“It’s a matter of, at first, listening. You have to ask folks why they’re there and what are they interested in,” Gearhart says. “Let’s say I have a class of 25 people and we’re going to be together for the next six weeks. I’ll spend an hour and a half doing intros and I’ll give them a little bit of my background, and then I’ll ask everybody, because I want everybody to know each other. They are now becoming each other’s network.”

At the school, Gearhart approaches teaching with the global perspective she’s cultivated over the course of her career. She teaches about how LEED is “used in practice on projects around the world” and ways that it “complements existing building codes and other green building rating systems around the world,” she says. Gearhart adds that students look at case studies and develop their own project scorecards, based on the rating systems they choose.

Gearhart hopes that anyone she encounters—students, clients, peers, colleagues—in her classes or during presentations finds a kernel of information or a skill set that resonates. Ideally, that kind of discovery in an educational setting sparks the pursuit of further learning and leads the way to something they find fulfilling. "That feeds their desire for knowledge,” Gearhart says. “[It] feeds their desire for the capacity to help and to put their skills to use in ways that are meaningful.”

Teaching courses at the extension school also gives Gearhart a chance to talk about topics she is plugged into, such as building commissioning, which Gearhart enjoys as a “beautiful, nerdy, mathematical, thermodynamic puzzle.” Another gratifying part of her teaching work is keeping in touch with students to see what they do once Gearhart’s courses end. Recently, one of Gearhart’s former students let her know that she had secured land in Mexico to construct an environmentally friendly wellness retreat, using principles she learned in Gearhart’s class.

A woman stands at the center of a group of workshop participants. — Kelly Gearhart led a workshop on LEED and energy modeling in Moscow several years ago, hosted by the Russian Green Building Council (RuGBC) and Hines. Photo courtesy of RuGBC.

Currently, Gearhart is looking forward to a slew of upcoming projects. Some are related to teaching, like the course curriculum she is finalizing about carbon management and mitigating atmospheric carbon dioxide. Soon, her team will travel to Barcelona, Spain, for GBCI’s Europe Circle 2023, a retreat-conference hybrid that covers building green in Europe. While Gearhart has attended, presented and conducted workshops at conferences like this one in the past, she’ll be staying back this time and helping her team prepare.

Triple Green was named after the triple bottom line: the concept that a business should not solely focus on profits, but must focus on people and the planet, too. Gearhart sees that there’s a need for people to learn how to shift from a mindset that’s negatively impacting the environment to one that is neutral for the environment, and ultimately, restorative. Helping people—especially students—build that mindset, while empowering them to effect change, is part of why she likes doing what she does.

“I really like getting to learn about new things, put them in practice and then share that with others. I get particularly excited to work with folks who are just entering this field, regardless of age,” Gearhart says, recalling her own excitement when she learned about things such as biomimicry for the first time at a guest lecture by Ray Anderson, the eco-minded founder and chairman of global manufacturing company Interface Inc. “That feeling of ‘Wow, I’m really loving getting it, and I’m loving the idea of the impact that that information can have as I put it out in the world and as I work with it.’ I want that feeling for folks.”

Hiroki Hiramatsu

Investment banking was Hiroki Hiramatsu’s bread and butter for two decades. Then, he felt a calling to do work in the sustainability space. Or rather: Hiramatsu saw how Japan’s landscape could evolve, saw an opening for social entrepreneurship, and then thought “I’d like to take the lead for that transformation,” he says. “I thought: ‘Someone needs to do that.’”

In 2006, Hiramatsu founded Woonerf Inc., a sustainability consulting firm dedicated to increasing the amount of green building in Japan. Hiramatsu was ahead of the curve in several ways. The Paris Agreement would not bring the global climate crisis sharply into the world’s focus for another 10 years. Japan would not propose a hard law amendment requiring companies to disclose environmental, social and governance ( ESG) performance until 2022. However, the demand for green building—and the benchmarks for doing so—were needed in the country, according to Hiramatsu. That’s his market-oriented reason for getting involved in green building at least.

A man in a library speaks to someone off camera — Hiroki Hiramatsu founded Woonerf Inc. to increase green building in Japan. He is also an educator and an advocate for sustainable development and landscape design. Photos courtesy of Hiroki Hiramatsu.

A man in business attire lectures at a podium. — Hiroki Hiramatsu founded Woonerf Inc. to increase green building in Japan. He is also an educator and an advocate for sustainable development and landscape design. Photos courtesy of Hiroki Hiramatsu.

“Developers used to not pay any attention to sustainability. But maybe around 2010, 2011, [before] the Paris Agreement in 2015, they started paying a lot of attention to sustainability and they asked designers to design in a more sustainable way,” Hiramatsu says. “After the Paris Agreement, the whole world changed.”

Hiramatsu also foresaw a huge economic opportunity to update the style of Japan’s towns and neighborhoods. He could structure them to draw younger generations to those towns and neighborhoods, ensuring those places would still thrive over time, as well as improve in terms of walkability and revitalization.

Woonerf has a direct hand in these kinds of town-business collaboration initiatives. Take Woonerf’s Lake Hamana satellite office, for instance. Employees of Woonerf can choose to work in the Lake Hamana office, which is styled like a coworking office in the suburbs between Osaka and Tokyo. The results offer two types of benefits. First, employees are given options resembling Patagonia’s “Let My People Go Surfing” work model, hearkening back to Hiramatsu’s admiration of the American outdoor clothing retailer (which has LEED Gold buildings in its portfolio).

A woman sits on a bench in a neighborhood with walkways, green space and buildings. — The High Line neighborhood in New York City serves an inspiration for Hiramatsu. Image copyright: Maridav—stock.adobe.com.

Second, an effect similar to that of the High Line in New York City’s former meatpacking district of Chelsea has a chance to occur, which Hiramatsu cites as an inspiration. This effect paves the way for neighborhoods to become human-centric communities, according to Hiramatsu; they flourish via an influx of new businesses, state-of-the-art tech and fresh faces.

“Biophilic design is the key to revitalizing the local city,” Hiramatsu says.

Hiramatsu continues to walk the walk in other areas of his life. For one thing, he encourages green scholarship. Green Building Japan, of which Hiramatsu is a founding co-chair, sponsors an opinion competition in which students are asked to consider how they can transform existing buildings in their towns to increase sustainability. The grand prize is 100,000 yen, which is roughly $750.

Hiramatsu, who holds LEED AP BD+C and ND credentials, also serves as a lecturer for several Japanese universities, such as the Kyoto University of Art and Design and Nagoya University. Sometimes, he is the one introducing college students to LEED and its tenets for the first time. His background as USGBC Faculty member and a LEED Fellow bolsters his teachings.

Furthermore, Hiramatsu took it upon himself to translate “A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century” by bestselling Canadian American author Witold Rybczynski into Japanese, after reading it multiple times since 2003. Hiramatsu’s translation, “Olmsted, the Man Who Created Central Park,” was released in December 2022.

A man poses with his new book and two colleagues. — Hiroki Hiramatsu (center) translated a book about Frederick Law Olmsted into Japanese to inspire the public in landscape and urban design. Photo courtesy of Hiroki Hiramatsu.

“[I] decided to publish [the book] in Japanese since it has been giving me many tips on how to transform the landscape and urban settings, as well as how to send out messages to the public by running a sustainability consulting firm,” Hiramatsu says. “I hope to deliver the book to the younger generations, so that they can find some kind of catalyst leading to their own philosophy.”

Another point of pride for Hiramatsu? A once-abandoned orchard that he bought nearly five years ago, which he’s brought back to its former glory. Now, goats and chickens populate the farm. Organic fruits and vegetables grow—enough for Hiramatsu to join forces with a cafe that cooks and serves his produce.

Today, LEED is attractive in Japan and is used as a marketing tool for some green buildings, Hiramatsu says. Brand recognition of the LEED name is just one of the ways that sustainability standards have penetrated the Japanese vernacular in the island country’s quest to fast-track a green future. It’s indicative of a bigger sign that Hiramatsu’s brand of environmentally friendly social entrepreneurship is working—and that it’s something younger generations can observe, learn from and do themselves, too.

“I saw that a huge need would be emerging in 10 or 15 years—that’s what I thought when I changed my career from investment to sustainability development in 2002,” says Hiramatsu. “I’m proud of my decision at that time.”

Kevin Stack

For USGBC Faculty member and LEED Fellow Kevin Stack, mentorship is personal. His son, Josh Stack, was one of his mentees. Though Josh grew up working for his father, it was only after he became a lawyer that he sought a deeper understanding of green building and design. That’s because he wanted to make a difference like Stack was doing—and who better to show him the way than his father, an eco-literacy educator highly experienced in building homes that achieved LEED certification? Now, Josh has taken the helm of Stack’s businesses: Northeast Natural Homes and Northeast Green Building Consulting, both based in Syracuse, New York.

Like Hiramatsu and Gearhart, Stack is no stranger to a career journey with twists and turns. He got his start in the field literally in the field, graduating with bachelor’s degrees in forestry and botany in 1979 and later working at Cranberry Lake Biological Station in Cranberry Lake, New York.

“I’m a biologist at the design table,” Stack says about his background, which means he represents the living environment in his work and not just the fiscal. A pivot to building didn’t take place until Stack had to support his family via an alternate career due to the recession caused by the 1970s Arab Oil Embargo, which led to a federal government hiring freeze.

A man stands amid trees on a mountaintop. — Left: An expert in forestry as well as green building, Kevin Stack has hiked all 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks. Right: Stack checks for ASHRAE 62.2 ventilation compliance on a multifamily project seeking LEED certification. Photos courtesy of Kevin Stack.

A man on a ladder checks the HVAC system in a home. — Left: An expert in forestry as well as green building, Kevin Stack has hiked all 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks. Right: Stack checks for ASHRAE 62.2 ventilation compliance on a multifamily project seeking LEED certification. Photos courtesy of Kevin Stack.

A master’s degree in sustainable construction management and engineering from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry followed 35 years later. Stack also taught classes at the same college from which he earned his master’s degree, as well as at Onondaga Community College prior to and after earning his master’s degree, with some interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Stack, though, teaching grew out of the mentorships he was giving to early-career green professionals about 20 years ago.

“We weren’t finding the workforce coming out,” Stack says. “They were being trained in the proper way, but through books, [so] they didn’t know actually how to do the work once they arrived at the jobsite.”

A man stands next to a trail sign in Spanish. — Kevin Stack hiked the 490-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route from the town of St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Photo courtesy of Kevin Stack.

Through teaching, Stack helped students put what they learned about green building in the classroom into practice. Students earned their own LEED credentials along the way. “As LEED faculty, we have integrated green building concepts into the curriculum,” Stack says. “Students form teams and participate in a real-life project to achieve LEED certification.”

Stack is gearing up for his triumphant return to teaching later this year, and he is pretty excited about it. It’s no wonder, when one notes the accomplishments of his students. For example: In the first U.S. Department of Energy Race to Zero Energy student design competition—today known as the Solar Decathlon—an integrated project team of students from Syracuse University, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Onondaga Community College that Stack helped advise were flown out to Colorado and crowned grand winners.

Stack was on-site in Colorado to witness the students’ achievement, along with fellow advisor Ken Bobis of Onondaga Community College and lead professor Paul Crovella of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. It is a moment Stack remembers fondly—and it’s a point of pride for him as well, considering the integrated project team won against teams from architecture schools.

Besides getting back to teaching after the pandemic, there’s a lot more that Stack is looking forward to this year as he begins what he describes as his last professional decade of impact. His aim is to finish writing a book about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the newly created Inner Development Goals.

Before the decade of Stack’s own impact is over—as Stack refers to the final stage of his working career—he wants students to be inspired to meet both sets of development goals. Stack also wants students to “know they can make the changes in the world that [have] to happen today.”

“Truly, this change has to happen, right? And we just can’t talk about it,” Stack says. “We need to do it, so I hope I’m inspiring the doers.”

USGBC staff teach courses to prepare the next generation of sustainability professionals

Teaching the urban planners, architects and green advocates of tomorrow is no small responsibility. Several USGBC staff also serve as teachers outside the organization, and they not only must spark the minds of students, they also need to make sure these up-and-coming sustainability professionals understand how valuable they are to solving the world’s most urgent social and environmental issues.

Karema Seliem is a LEED specialist for the LEED credit areas of Sustainable Sites and Integrative Process and also specializes in social equity and resilience. She first became acquainted with LEED through her interior design coursework; later, LEED inspired her to pursue an environmental studies master’s degree. Today, she teaches multiple courses—including one at her alma mater, Drexel University. The cumulative coursework spans topics from common spaces in buildings’ cores and shells (think shared spaces, such as stairways) to educating students about redlined districts and segregation by design.

At the heart of Seliem’s teachings? Lessons about equity in LEED. “We’re all people and we all have one planet,” Seliem says. “Everything impacts everything.”

Arnold Kee is director of education data at USGBC. Redlining is also a focal point of his work and his guest instruction at Drexel University and Catholic University. The analytical framework of LEED aids his lessons and allows for examination of data pertaining to how LEED buildings help residents of redlined districts. Kee and the students with whom he shared his findings seek answers to quantitative questions, including: What does impact mean from a nonprofit perspective?

“With LEED, we want people to live in better buildings, but we also want their health to improve,” Kee says. “Wouldn’t it be great know that their lives changed, and opportunities improved because of the presence of LEED?”

Vatsal Bhatt is USGBC’s vice president for communities, but his coursework crosses international borders. Some classes are taught within his home state of New York at Clarkson University; others, at European and Asian universities. Most recently, Bhatt found himself teaching about LEED for Cities and Communities in Guatemala City. In each setting, his urban planning and energy econometrics background come into play, so he can show students the comprehensive nature of urban planning and provide hands-on opportunities for students to enact sustainable, equitable development.

Within his line of work, Bhatt tackles problems in historically neglected and redlined city districts and social equity issues. He asks: “How do we work with people in [these neighborhoods] to improve their lives, but at the same time bring some kind of jobs back so that everybody is happy and has their fair share of opportunity?” Bhatt says. His students consider the same question to address their communities’ specific needs as they work toward LEED for Cities and Communities certifications.

USGBC member experts help build the pipeline of sustainability professionals