Apollo Alliance Fetes Clean Energy, Good Jobs at Right Stuff Awards Gala

SAN FRANCISCO – The Apollo Alliance will celebrate a year of clean energy progress and leadership tonight at the group’s annual Right Stuff Awards gala in downtown San Francisco. The dinner and VIP reception will be held at the St. Regis Hotel, where Apollo will honor five exceptional individuals whose work exemplifies Apollo’s mission of catalyzing a clean energy, good jobs economy. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a leading voice in Congress on behalf of working people, will deliver the evening’s keynote address.

The Right Stuff Awards Dinner raises awareness and financial support for Apollo’s work to promote clean energy and good jobs in the United States. Apollo’s unlikely and diverse coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders is working together to transition America to a 21st century clean energy economy. Inspired by the Apollo space program, the Apollo Alliance promotes investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technologies, as well as education and training for the next generation of clean energy workers.

This year’s Right Stuff Award winners include:

• Fred Krupp. In his 25 years as head of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Fred Krupp has overseen the organization’s growth from a small nonprofit with a budget of $3 million into a global leader in the environmental movement. Krupp is widely recognized as a champion of harnessing market forces for environmental ends, such as the market-based acid rain reduction plan in the 1990 Clean Air Act that The Economist hailed as “the greatest green success story of the past decade.” Today, this approach has become the leading model for solving the climate change. Krupp is coauthor, with Miriam Horn, of New York Times Best Seller, Earth: The Sequel – The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.

• Barbara Byrd. As secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, Byrd has been at the forefront of Oregon’s efforts to create green jobs and become a more energy-efficient state. In her role as head of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, she worked for the passage of Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009, which created a statewide, low-interest loan program for home and small business weatherization. She is also active on climate change and green jobs regionally—as a leader of a group of labor unions that is participating in the development of a regional cap-and-trade program called the Western Climate Initiative. Internationally, Barbara attended the UN Climate Change Convention in Bali, Indonesia, as part of the first official U.S. labor delegation to participate in these discussions.

• Keith Cooley. As president and CEO of NextEnergy, one of the nation’s leading accelerators for alternative and renewable energy technologies, Cooley and his team are striving to make Michigan the Silicon Valley of alternative energy production. Keith and NextEnergy are bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in clean energy investment to Michigan by promoting the region’s wealth of manufacturing resources and skilled workforce that were created by the automotive industry. These resources have positioned Michigan to capitalize on the clean energy revolution.

• Terry O’Sullivan. The general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), O’Sullivan is regarded as an innovator by the newest generation of labor leaders. Working with the U.S. Department of Labor, Terry and LIUNA have developed a breakthrough national weatherization training program to help meet the demand for the thousands of skilled workers that will be needed to weatherize America, including technicians, installers and energy auditors. By taking the lead in training America’s clean energy workforce, Terry has shown that if a green job is also a good job, we can truly transform our economy and save our planet.

• Sally Prouty. When she was director of the Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps, Prouty created the ‘Corps to Career’ program, where she demonstrated that formerly incarcerated young people could leave juvenile justice correction centers, secure jobs, and become stewards of the environment. Today, service and conservation corps, in partnership with unions and workforce development and educational institutions, provides green jobs training across the country. As president of The Corps Network, Prouty has been the driving force behind a national Clean Energy Service Corps that will help to retrofit American cities and put corps members on pathways to successful careers in the clean energy economy.

“All of tonight’s honorees are exceptional leaders who represent the unique alliances that are coming together to put millions of Americans back to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs,” said Phil Angelides, chairman of the Apollo Alliance. “Our 2009 Right Stuff Awards recipients are visionary pioneers who are creating opportunities for society’s least privileged and helping America lead the way to the new green economy.”

Right Stuff Awards sponsors include: Steven M. Silberstein, Matter Network, Environmental Defense Fund, SEIU, Kimo Cambell, Gamesa, Change to Win, Ellen Pao and Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., Tides Center, LIUNA, Regis and Dianne KcKenna, Northern California Carpenters, American Income Life Insurance the UFCW, Robert Adler, BrightSourceEnergy, EcoAmerica, and The Corps Network.

For more information, contact Apollo’s communications director, Sam Haswell, at (415) 371-1700 x201.

###

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of unlikely and diverse interests – including labor, business, environmental, and community leaders – advancing a bold vision for the next American economy centered on clean energy and good jobs.