People
Green Village Philadelphia Staff
Managing Director
Zoe Selzer joined Green Village Philadelphia as managing director in March. She brings a strong community building and urban planning background to the organization and a deep enthusiasm for the mission. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Denver and a Masters’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado, Denver. Before pursuing her graduate education, Zoe worked for a non-profit in Denver doing green building advocacy and fundraising. Throughout graduate school and beyond Zoe worked on revitalization projects in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. In late 2008 she left Denver and moved to Philadelphia. Before joining GVP, Zoe worked at Rutgers University in Camden doing public policy research and community development. Zoe enjoys travel, food, and spending as much time outside as possible.
Green Village Philadelphia Board of Directors
Co-Chairs
Lindsay Gilmour is a founder and co-chair of Green Village Philadelphia. She has 32 years of experience in the food industry and is the chef and owner of Organic Planet Handcrafted Foods, providing personal chef services and culinary education that focuses on local, sustainable and healing foods for clients with specialized dietary needs. Lindsay is a local food systems pioneer, founder, and former manager of the Fair Food Farm to Institution and Farmer Outreach Projects. She continues to serve this organization as president of the board of Fair Food. Lindsay also serves on the board of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and on the Employer Commitment Committee of the Green Economy Task Force, a coalition committed to a comprehensive approach to sustainability in Philadelphia and creating green-collar jobs for Philadelphians with barriers to employment. Lindsay is a 2008 fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.
Terrie Lewine, D.C. is a founder and co-chair of Green Village Philadelphia. Terrie opened Back to Life Wellness Center in Philadelphia over 12 years ago. Her center offers transformational bodywork, seminars, and workshops in personal growth and community health. She leads communication workshops specializing in Non-Violent Communication and offers private sessions for singles, couples and groups. Her most profound interest lies in designing human life back into a relationship with the natural world and the impact that incorporating socially regenerative practices and customs will have on the health and well-being of our communities.
Board Members
Diane Gentry is a founder of Green Village Philadelphia. Diane is a resource development specialist for Bryn Mawr College. Diane has worked in the City of Philadelphia for over 10 years, encouraging innovation, entrepreneurial development, and cooperative problem-solving in both for-profit and non-profit organizations, most recently at the Wharton Small Business Development Center. She has a background in program development, grant writing, and do-it-yourself green home renovations, including the City’s first green roof on a Philadelphia row home.
Lynn Mandarano, Ph.D., P.E. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Regional Planning and a Research Fellow for the Center of Sustainable Communities at Temple University. Dr. Mandarano teaches graduate-level course such as sustainable community design and development, collaborative planning, studio and thesis/final project. The William Penn Foundation and Claneil have funded her research and role as a co-investigator. She is also one of the founding steering committee members for the Urban Sustainability Forum, a monthly lecture series on sustainability in Philadelphia held at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Lynn joined the board in 2009.
Karen Meidlinger, Ph.D. is a founder and past co-chair of Green Village Philadelphia, and a founder and managing principal of Meidlinger Partners, a sustainable private equity firm. She shares responsibility for all major functional operations of the firm, which include transaction sourcing, structuring, negotiating and divesting, working with portfolio companies, and handling relationships with limited partners. Her deep innovation management and business development experience, combined with her passion for making a positive difference to the planet, brings a strong sustainability focus to Meidlinger Partners. Meidlinger Partners recently launched, together with Benchmark Asset Managers, a cleantech fund, Meidlinger Partners Sustainable Investments LP.
Before this, Karen worked on various innovation management projects at Johnson & Johnson for four years. Karen also spent five years at the Science Center, where she ran the business incubation program. She is a former Associate Director of the Wharton Small Business Development Center. She holds a PhD in marine ecology from the University of Southampton in the UK and an MBA from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Karen is an active Friend (Quaker) and serves as the socially responsible investment committee clerk at the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia.
Bob Pierson is a founder and treasurer of Green Village Philadelphia. Bob is locally renowned as a local food systems pioneer and is the founder and owner of Farm to City, bringing real farmers and real food to Philadelphia area communities through farmers markets, the Winter Harvest Buying Club, and the support of CSA farms. Former coordinator for the Philadelphia Partnership Recycling Program, a community based recycling effort. Bob is also a founder and board member of Common Market, Philadelphia’s first wholesale local food distribution enterprise.
Max Zahniser has a broad background in architecture across various building types. After practicing architecture for several years, and at both green and traditional firms, Max went on to the U.S. Green Building Council, where he spent a couple of years running LEED for New Constructions certifications and later served as LEED Process & Integration Program Manager. He has contributed to developing several LEED rating systems and certification processes and managed USGBC’s relationship with Google, Adobe, Autodesk, and others. Max has been cited and/or quoted as an expert on green building, LEED, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Building Design + Construction, Metropolis, Contract, Environmental Building News, and in live interviews on an NPR station. He also recently acted as a contributing author for a recently published book, titled The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building: Redefining the Practice of Sustainability.