#ADPTDC13: Denise Fairchild of Emerald Cities Collaborative to Give Opening Plenary

Thursday, June 6, 2013 | 3:30 p.m.
Plenary Session: Empowering Millennials to Create Change
Presenter: Denise Fairchild, President & CEO, Emerald Cities Collaborative
This is the both the best of times and the worst of times. The worst is the unprecedented level of global change and the uncertainty and insecurity that come with change.  Our environment, our economy, our civil society are in a tailspin. The tools for mediating these new and often turbulent terrains are evolving slower than the change itself. The good news is that a new generation of idealists – the Millennials – are coming of age to navigate these murky waters. But this is only if we effectively prepare them for this brave new world. We cannot use old methods for addressing this new world; we need to redesign our educational system for major social and economic transformation. Millennials need skills to tackle tomorrow’s key challenges, including sustainability, civility and global citizenship, and above all, ambiguity.  These challenges are best addressed through experiential learning focused less on service-learning (learning how to do what is already being done) and more on innovating social change experiences for Millennials, so that they may deliver in these new times.

Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) is a national non-profit network of organizations working together to advance a sustainable environment while creating economic opportunities for all. Headquartered in Washington D.C., ECC is working in ten “Emerald Cities” nationwide.

You’ll find more information about Emerald Cities Collaborative here.

Denise Fairchild, Ph.D. is the inaugural President of Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC), a national non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. with affiliates in major urban centers across the United States. Fairchild was recruited in 2010 to launch ECC, a coalition of labor, business and community-based organizations organized to accelerate the growth and distributive benefits of the emerging green economy.

Fairchild has dedicated over 30 years to strengthening housing, jobs, businesses and economic opportunities for low-income residents and communities of color domestically and internationally. In 1995 she founded and directed the Community and Economic Development (CED) Department at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, as well as an affiliated non-profit community development research and technical assistance organization, CDTech. She helped launch the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), an initiative of Los Angeles Trade-Technical College to provide inner city residents with career and technical education for high growth/high demand jobs in the L.A. region, with a focus on the green economy. From 1989-1994, Fairchild directed the L.A. office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and is credited with raising over $100 million in equity, grants, and loans for community-based housing and commercial development projects and, generally, with building the non-profit housing and community development industry in the L.A. region.

Her civic and political appointments have included the California Commission on Regionalism, the California Economic Strategy Panel, the California Local Economic Development Association, the Urban Land Institute National Inner City Advisor, the Coalition for Women’s Economic Development and the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board. She also served as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s special advisor for South L.A. Investments.

For more information about the 2013 ADP/TDC National Meeting, visit here.