2009 Organizers' Bios


Elizabeth Silleck --- Elizabeth Silleck ---

Elizabeth Silleck is the creator and lead organizer of Clean and Green, and with the help of her team, has expanded upon its original vision to create what is now an innovative, comprehensive approach to environmental awareness event planning. Elizabeth graduated from SUNY Purchase College, magna cum laude in 2001, and earned her J.D. from Pace University School of Law and Certificate in Environmental Law, magna cum laude in May, 2009.  Elizabeth has also been awarded numerous merit-based scholarships throughout her academic career. She was recently nominated for an Above the Bar Award, sponsored by the Westchester Business Journal, and was honored to receive the Con Edison Environmental Award, which was officially presented to her at the Westchester County Women's Hall of Fame.

Some contributions Elizabeth has made to local environmental efforts include organization of a Continuing Legal Education panel informing the legal community about recent developments in New York environmental law, and contributing to scholarly work as a research assistant for Pace’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies. Elizabeth currently offers consulting services in environmental education program development, organization and promotion.

Elizabeth is a member of the the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, co-chairs the Westchester Women's Bar Association's New Lawyer's Committee, and serves on the fundraising committee for the Public Interest Law Scholarship Organization at Pace Law School.  Through her extensive network including professionals in law, the non-profit environmental sector, business, development, academia and entertainment, Elizabeth expects Clean and Green’s eco-collaborative approach to grow and flourish.

Elizabeth is mother to a fourteen year old daughter, Jasmine, and takes great pride in Jasmine’s academic and extra-curricular accomplishments including soccer, basketball, hip-hop dance and photography. Elizabeth also loves dancing salsa, snorkeling, creative writing and social event planning.

To view Elizabeth's descriptive article about Clean and Green: White Plains, published in Pace Law School's newspaper, Hearsay, click here.



Our Partners' Bios


City of White Plains:   (view City's website)


Mayor Delfino --- Mayor Joseph Delfino ---

As Mayor of the City of White Plains, New York for the last 11 years, Joseph Delfino has envisioned and spearheaded an urban renaissance unrivaled in scope and success by any comparable community in the United States. His comprehensive Smart Growth revitalization plan for the downtown business district spurred more than $3 billion in new private development being approved, of which $1.45 is already completed and almost $700,000 is currently under construction. He has transformed White Plains from a city with the nation’s highest business vacancy rate (34%), to one with thriving residential, restaurant, retail, entertainment and tourism projects which have substantially increased property values and created a vital, dynamic destination. With thoughtful planning, he has accomplished all this while still leaving untouched the many bucolic neighborhoods that residents enjoy.

Today, White Plains’ vacancy rate is under 10% with most of that contained to a single building. Older structures have been gutted and renovated to Class A energy-efficient office space. Dollar stores, "superettes" and empty storefronts and offices have been replaced with a vibrant downtown replete with a wide range of housing which includes high rise luxury Ritz Carlton Residences and Trump Tower condominiums; high and mid-rise middle market rentals and condominiums; and subsidized housing for low moderate income families. New retail stores, restaurants, and a Performing Arts Center have replaced the former vacant Macy’s store. The Ritz Carlton Hotel and Residences have risen from what was an abandoned, contaminated municipal parking lot. New restaurants and entertainment venues have sprung to life all along Mamaroneck Avenue and Main Street -- and people are everywhere, day and night, enjoying the Bellagio-style fountain at Renaissance Square or eating al fresco at outdoor and roof-top cafes along the Avenue.

Under Mayor Delfino’s leadership, the City has enjoyed a reputation for positive practices and progressive thinking. The first open space incubator projects began through a public-private partnership with Starbucks. This open space initiative contributed to a fund which has, at the Mayor’s directive, led to the acquisition of more than 53 acres of open space. As one of the first signatories of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Control Agreement, Mayor Delfino devotes much attention to the environment and to the protection and conservation of natural resources and energy. His Green Technology Initiative has resulted in many "firsts" for the region including the Minerva Place condominiums, an affordable housing complex which marks the first large-scale residential use of the cutting-edge geothermal heating and cooling system.

Of all his achievements, Mayor Delfino is most proud that throughout the duration of the City’s revitalization, not one residential property was destroyed nor was a single family forced to relocate. Mayor Delfino’s reputation is one of intense sensitivity to the people who reside in White Plains. He has initiated numerous programs which improve and enhance the quality of life for all, with special attention to those initiatives which support and celebrate the City’s wide economic, ethnic and cultural diversity.



White Plains Youth Bureau:


WPYB The City of White Plains Youth Bureau provides children and youth, ages 5 through 21, with over 20 effective youth development programs during after school and weekend hours. Todays youth need more than to simply stay out of trouble; they must be prepared to become good workers, good parents, good neighbors and good citizens, and to develop the skills needed to become competent leaders of the 21st century.

We provide safe spaces to go to after school, supervision by positive role models, structured activities that engage interest and challenge their skills, and an opportunity for community service. Youth Development builds strong communities by emphasizing preventive measures for today's youth and provides support for families and schools.

Link to website: www.whiteplainsteens.com


White Plains Business Improvement District:


BID logo Founded in 1998, the White Plains Downtown Business Improvement district is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation that offers supplemental services to the White Plains Central Business District to enhance its economic, social, and cultural landscape. Services include:

• Marketing and Promotion
• Streetscape Improvements
• Sidewalk Cleaning
• Events
• Advocacy

The White Plains Downtown BID encompasses 145 properties with approximately 5.5 million square feet of office and retail space. Our membership includes small business owners, national retailers, Fortune 500 Companies, and industry leading commercial property owners. The BIDs Board of Directors represents the diversity of business interests in the Central Business District and is committed to creating an environment conducive to economic development and business growth.


Federated Conservationists of Westchester:


FCWC Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, Inc. is a non-profit coalition of hundreds of organizations and individuals, founded in 1965 to create a unified voice on environmental matters of regional concern. FCWC works to protect our natural resources through advocacy and education about environmental issues and how they relate to public health, quality of life, and the economy. We act as a clearinghouse for environmental information, as well as a county watchdog.

FCWC offers local solutions to global issues. Expanding our role as a bridge builder between the environmental and business communities, we now work to bring all stakeholders together surrounding these important environmental, social, and economic issues.

It is because of our established reputation as a knowledgeable and responsive spokesperson, and rich history in the county that citizens, elected officials, community leaders, and business professionals look to us for an informed view of the region.
Link to website: www.fcwc.org


Our Speakers' Bios


Alexandra Dunn --- Dean Alexandra Dunn, Moderator ---

Alexandra Dapolito Dunn is Assistant Dean for Environmental Law Programs and Adjunct Professor of Law (Environmental Justice) at Pace University School of Law in White Plains, NY. Dean Dunn oversees the Law School’s environmental law programs and curriculum, ranked among the top in the nation. Dean Dunn focuses her research and policy work at Pace’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies on climate change, water quality, green urbanism, open space and poverty, and sustainability. Dunn serves as Curriculum Advisor to Pace Law’s Theodore W. Kheel Center on the Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes.

Dunn previously served as General Counsel of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) in Washington, DC. Prior to NACWA, Dunn served as Counsel to the American Chemistry Council in Arlington, VA. She began her career in Washington, DC as an environmental associate at Winston & Strawn.

Dunn serves as Education Officer for the American Bar Association’s 11,000 member Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources. She is a member of the Environmental Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

She earned her J.D. in 1994, magna cum laude, from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic University Law Review. She earned her BA in 1989, cum laude, in Political Science and French from James Madison University. Dean Dunn is admitted to the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New York bars, the U.S. Supreme Court, and federal circuit and district courts.


Jason Black --- Jason Black, LEED AP ---

Jason Black heads up architectural services for Reckson's 5,000,000-square-foot portfolio of Class A office space in suburban Westchester and Connecticut. In addition to oversight and performance of services for the properties and their tenants, Jason's work includes input on architectural considerations affecting capital investments, acquisitions and repositioning. He is also a major contributor to the company's award-winning sustainable programs.

Jason launched his career in 1999 at The Phillips Group, a nationally ranked, top-ten commercial interiors firm. After graduating from Roger Williams University in 2002, he worked briefly with Roger Ferris & Partners before joining Reckson in early 2004.

His extensive extra-curricular activities include his associate membership on the Global Warming Task Force, a county committee under the guidance of the county executive that is developing a county-wide sustainable action plan, and his service as a recent appointee to the White Plains Green Technology Committee. Jason is also a leading fundraiser for events benefiting the National MS Society.


Seth Davis --- Seth A. Davis ---

Seth A. Davis is a partner in Elias Group LLP, in Rye, New York, co-chairing the firm’s environmental and energy practice. He handles a wide variety of environmental issues arising out of a wide range of corporate and real estate transactions, regularly represents responsible parties in site remediation and cleanup negotiations, and counsels corporate and individual clients on compliance with all the environmental statutes. Previously, Mr. Davis was a partner in Huber Lawrence & Abell in New York City for 12 years. Prior to his return to private practice, Mr. Davis practiced environmental law in the law departments of Revlon, Inc. and the Celanese Corporation.

Mr. Davis lectures frequently on various aspects of environmental law. He is a Council Member of American Bar Association’s Section of Environmental, Energy and Resources, and a Past Chair of the Section’s Committees on Site Remediation, and Environmental Transactions and Brownfields. Mr. Davis teaches a course in Environmental Law in Commercial Transactions as an Adjunct Professor at Pace University Law School.

Mr. Davis received his J.D. from Harvard University in 1975, and his B.A., Summa cum laude, in 1972 from Wesleyan University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He is admitted to the bars of New York, the Southern, Northern and Western Districts of New York, and the Second Circuit. Mr. Davis is painfully aware that, no matter else he accomplishes, he will be remembered for being a 4-time winner on “Jeopardy!” in 1991.


Adiel Gavish --- Adiel Gavish ---
Ms. Gavish is an independent corporate sustainability strategist with The Living Business, specializing in sustainable systems, products and services design. As a student and practitioner of Biomimicry, she helps companies develop and implement CSR initiatives, and climate change and sustainability programs utilizing nature’s principles of sustainable design. Adiel is the Program Director of the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, Inc., a non-profit environmental advocacy organization founded in 1965 as a coalition of organizations in Westchester speaking with one voice on environmental matters of regional and state concern. Ms. Gavish is also a member of the Global Policy Coherence Project, a program of the Institute for Environmental Security, The Hague, Netherlands, which aims to improve the compatibility of existing environmental, trade and financial regimes in preparation for the climate talks in Copenhagen this year.


Joseph Siegel --- Joseph Siegel, Esq. ---
Joe Siegel is a Senior Attorney and Alternative Dispute Resolution Specialist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, Office of Regional Counsel in New York, where he has worked for 22 years. He specializes in climate change and air pollution, and has extensive experience in environmental dispute resolution, policy, and facilitation. He is also the lead attorney on the EPA Region 2 Climate and Energy Workgroup. Since 2000, he has been an adjunct professor at the Pace University School of Law, Center for Environmental Legal Studies, where he has taught courses on climate change and air pollution. He was also an adjunct professor of environmental law for 11 years at CUNY Law School at Queens College. Joe is Co-Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Committee on Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Ecosystems and a Vice-Chair of the ABA Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. He also served as Vice-Chair of the ABA Renewable Energy Resources Committee. Joe is a frequent lecturer and writer on climate change, alternative dispute resolution and other environmental topics, and a volunteer community mediator.


Elyssa Rothe --- Elyssa Rothe ---
Elyssa Rothe joined Courtney Strong Inc.’s Energy $mart Communities Program in 2008, after working as the Energy $mart Communities Coordinator for Northern Manhattan, Bronx, and Queens. This energy efficiency community outreach program has Elyssa traveling across Westchester, helping communities take advantage of the assistance available from the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA.) Before becoming part of the team at Courtney Strong Inc., Elyssa was a communications associate at the Coro New York Leadership Center, working to encourage ethical and effective leadership in New York City. She has written and reported for several Westchester newspapers and publications, after graduating from New York University with a degree in Social Entrepreneurship and Writing.


Film Producers' Bios


Bayley Silleck --- Bayley Silleck ---

A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America, Bayley Silleck entered the film industry in 1967, working in the European studios of Embassy Pictures Corporation and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

Silleck’s most recent large-format project is “Dinosaurs Alive!”, an IMAX 3-D film for which he served as Co-Director and Co-Writer with David Clark. The film takes viewers on a spectacular tour of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the high desert country of New Mexico as scientists unearth some of the most fascinating beasts ever to roam the Earth. It also features the most dramatic high-resolution 3-D animation of dinosaurs ever created.

Bayley Silleck received an Academy Award nomination and wide acclaim for his 1996 large-format production, "Cosmic Voyage", an IMAX film commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. The "Cosmic Voyage" project -- for which Silleck served as director, screenwriter, and co-producer -- was principally funded by the Motorola Foundation and NSF. Utilizing data-based computer visualizations, digital effects, and live-action sequences shot in Greece, Italy, Holland, Hawaii, and Utah, "Cosmic Voyage" is a portrait of the universe in time and space, transporting audiences from galaxy super-clusters down to the strange realm of quarks, smallest known constituents of matter; and from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization and modern technology. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, "Cosmic Voyage" is based in part on "Cosmic View", a 1957 Dutch schoolbook by Kees Boeke which introduced the concept of using the orders of magnitude (“powers of ten”) to portray the structure and scale of the universe.

Bayley Silleck also wrote, directed, and produced the first-ever ShowScan 70mm 3-D film for the Pavilion of the Environment at the 1992 World's Fair in Seville, Spain. The innovative film, entitled "Concerto for the Earth", celebrates the natural diversity of the planet, portrays global environmental problems, and addresses potential solutions. Created without narration as a visual poem, “Concerto” features an original music score composed by Philippe Sarde and performed by the 110-piece London Symphony Orchestra. It was hailed as one of the most powerful and important films presented at Expo ’92 and was selected for an additional year-long run in Seville after the Fair closed.

In 1980-82, Silleck began his large-format work with Oscar-winner Francis Thompson, co-writing and directing the IMAX film "Energy! Energy!" for the United States Pavilion at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, TN. NBC-TV called it “The spectacular hit of the Fair.”

In 2000-2001, Bayley directed “Lost Worlds: Life in the Balance", a spectacular, giant-screen exploration of the Earth's biological diversity and its critical importance to human life, for which Blue Mountain was awarded a grant of $2 million by the National Science Foundation. "Lost Worlds", filmed on location in Venezuela, Guatemala, Canada, New York, and California, is a co-production with Primesco International of Montreal and is narrated by Harrison Ford. Principal scientific advisors for the project were Thomas Eisner of Cornell and Edward O. Wilson of Harvard. It premiered on Earth Day 2001 at the American Museum of Natural History.

Among the films Silleck has written and directed for American educational and public television are a series of films on oceanography, produced in 1977-80, including "The Cayman Trough", with Robert Ballard, "The Ocean World", and "Exploring the Deep Sea", for WETA and other PBS stations.



Nathaniel Smith --- Nathaniel Smith ---

Nathaniel aspired to become a filmmaker as early as seven-years old. It wasn’t until he acquired an old VHS Camcorder at the age of 13, however, that he finally began his filmmaking ventures shooting short films with his young friends. This linear style of making movies was carried on all the way up through high school, until finally mastering the craft of digital editing at Gordon College, where Nathaniel earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications/Film. It was at Gordon College where Nathaniel also collaborated with numerous film talents on and off campus.

Whether it was shooting and editing professional commercials for the Comcast cable network, editing documentaries, or going back to his roots shooting short films with his fellow film students and submitting them to local film festivals, such as the 48-Hour Film Festival in Boston, Nathaniel’s passion for film never took a back seat. This drive to make films eventually led Nathaniel out to Hollywood via an off campus film program at the Los Angeles film Studies Center (LAFSC). In addition to taking rigorous classes (from pre-production to post-production), Nathaniel was also given the opportunity to work at a major studio, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach Productions where he assisted the cast and crew of shows such as, That 70’s Show and Grounded for Life. Nathaniel took what he learned out West and brought it back with him to Boston where he took on the major position of 2nd Cameraman on an episode of MTV’s MADE.

Upon moving to New York City, where he currently resides, Nathaniel freelanced his skills for renowned companies such as Belladonna Productions and Coldwell Banker. Having worked across the board on numerous film projects, from gaffing and PA work to cinematography, directing and editing, Nathaniel has made the conscious choice to expound his skills into the feature film/documentary department. In addition to co-producing with Oscar-nominated Producer/Director, Bayley Silleck, on a full length documentary covering Clean and Green: White Plains, he is also producing one other documentary, as well as two short films, one which he wrote and will be directing this coming summer.


Entertainment's Bios


Solar Punch Solar Punch is a solar-powered rock band with a mission to deliver environmental awareness and demonstrate renewable energy use. Launching from their first performance at the farmers market in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY in 2007, the band has performed throughout the NYC area, has appeared at the SOLAR2008 convention in San Diego, CA, and has completed its first international tour “Climate Solutions Road Trip: Voices of India.” The tour by alternatively-powered vehicles across India was in collaboration with the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) and was funded in part by a US State Department performance grant.

Routinely performing as a four-piece band, Solar Punch is Alan Bigelow, Ph.D. (singer, songwriter, guitarist, and research physicist), James Dean Conklin (singer, songwriter, guitarist, and a multi-media creator), Frank Marino (drummer), and Andy Mattina (bassist and vocalist). Along with their music, the members of Solar Punch bring along an array of solar-science demonstrations to share. Will they be making fire with their Fresnel lens? Will they be baking brownies in their solar oven? They will certainly be describing their portable solar-power station, and they are eager to tell everyone about all the climate solutions they witnessed across India. For more information about Solar Punch, please visit their website: www.solarpunch.org.



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