First Lady Silda Spitzer presents the Governor's Office's plans for greening New York state's buildings to the U.S. Green Building Council.
USGBC New York Executive Director Russell Unger moderates a respondent panel that includes Rohit Aggarwala (Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning & Sustainability), Edward Ott (NYC Central Labor Council), Ashok Gupta (NRDC) and a representative of the real estate industry- The New School
Bio
Rohit Aggarwala
Rohit Aggarwala, Director of the NYC Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability within the Mayor’s Office of Operations. Aggarwala’s office is charged with creating a long-term sustainability plan to ensure New York City’s continued prosperity, growth, and health for the year 2030. On Earth Day 2007, PlaNYC was introduced. It involves 127 separate initiatives that include: housing an additional one million New Yorkers affordably; increasing access to parks, playgrounds, and open spaces; reclaiming brownfields; developing critical backup systems for the aging water network to ensure reliability; providing additional reliable power sources and upgrading existing power plants; and reducing water pollution so that waterways can be open for recreation.
Jeffrey Brodsky
Jeffrey I. Brodsky is President of Related Management Company LLC. Mr. Brodsky, who joined our company in 1982, oversees all of our property management activities. Mr. Brodsky is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York Residential Management Committee and a director of the National Housing Conference and the National Leased Housing Association. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and from New York University with a Master's degree in Business Administration.
Ashok Gupta
Ashok Gupta is NRDC's Air and Energy Program Director. He leads NRDC's advocacy in the Northeast on climate change, electric utility restructuring, energy efficiency, renewables, sustainable building design and reducing petroleum dependence.
Prior to joining NRDC in 1991, Ashok worked with New York City's Department of Telecommunications and Energy. He has a bachelor's degree in physics and math from Georgetown University and a master's degree in economics from American University.
Mr. Gupta also serves on the Boards of Directors of: Hudson River Foundation, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, U.S. Green Building Council - New York; Clean Air-Cool Planet, Citizen's Union Foundation, and, Earth Pledge.
He received Environmental Advocates' 2001 Advocate Award for leadership in support of clean air and energy and in 2003 the Environmental Professional of the Year from the Association of Energy Engineers.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment.
Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 550,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. More information is available through NRDC’s Web site at www.nrdc.org.
Silda Wall Spitzer
Silda Wall Spitzer is the founder and chair of Children for Children a not-for-profit organization which creates opportunities for young people from all backgrounds to Grow Involved, volunteering their time and resources to benefit children and others, particularly by providing books and other materials to schools in under-resourced areas of New York City. She has a law degree from Harvard Law School and a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Meredith College. Ms. Wall Spitzer began her legal career with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, specializing in mergers, acquisitions and corporate finance. She then joined The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. as a member of its International Legal Group. She is a founding Co-Chair of Project Cicero, the annual NYC book drive building classroom libraries in under-resourced schools and serves as trustee for her children's school. She served on the NY Blue Ribbon Commission on Youth Leadership as well as the board of The Children's Museum of Manhattan from 1995 until January 1999, where she was a member of its Executive Committee and chaired its Program Committee. She and her husband, New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer, have three daughters aged 12, 14 and 17.
Russell Unger
Russell Unger was appointed Executive Director in April 2007, following a distinguished career in public service. Prior to joining USGBC New York, Russell worked in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Contract Services as Assistant Director and Special Counsel for Environmental Procurement, where he was responsible for implementing a new, environmentally preferable purchasing program.
Previously, Russell served as Special Advisor on Sustainable Development to then-Speaker Miller of the New York City Council and as Legislative Counsel for three City Council committees. During his four years at the City Council, Russell drafted and led negotiations on many environmental laws, including the City’s green building law (Local Law 86) and the environmental purchasing laws he later implemented. Sometimes this work led Russell down unexpected paths, such as drafting NYC’s “Potty Parity” law to increase the number of women’s bathrooms in places of assembly!
Before working at the City Council, Russell was as an Associate at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman. He received his law degree from New York University School of Law, cum laude, and his undergraduate degree from McGill University, first class honors. In 2001, Russell was awarded the Arthur T. Vanderbilt Medal, the highest honor that is bestowed upon an NYU School of Law graduate, in recognition of his contribution to the law school. In the same year, he was awarded the President's Service Award for Leadership from New York University. Russell served on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Green Building Council, New York Chapter, from 2006 until his appointment as Executive Director.
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