Jon Barrows
Trainings Director - Washington, DC
Trainings [at] ssc.org / 202-548-4592

Jon started organizing as a high school student in the beautiful state of Maine. He first joined the SSC in 1998 while interning with the NH Chapter of the Club. He went on to be a founding member of the Trainings Department, helping to create the current model of SPROGs, staffing a near record number of programs over the next 4 years.

Since being a student volunteer, Jon has coordinated the Vote Environment campaign during the 2000 election for the SSC, worked as a Conservation Organizer with the NH Chapter on sprawl and forestry issues, served as the NH Chapter Chair during his two year stint at Antioch New England Graduate School (home of the nation's first Master's level degree for Advocacy & Organizing), made a foray into the world of high school biology teaching, and coordinated the Greenpeace Organizing Term.

He is now grateful to be able to return home to the SSC and help guide the organization forward as it tackles, head on, the climate challenge. There is no place more important to be than right here, right now; the climate crisis is quite possibly the gravest challenge our society has ever had to face in modern times; and as with past challenges, it will be the youth who lead the way to a solution and a better future.

When not training students to be more effective organizers, Jon enjoys contra dancing, ultimate frisbee, traveling, and writing poetry.

Jenny Bedell-Stiles
Northwest Regional Organizer - Portland, OR
Jenny [at] ssc.org

Jenny began organizing as a college student at the University of Oregon, leading a campaign to pressure campus Housing to give dorm residents the option of purchasing wind power to cover their personal energy consumption.  She also spearheaded a project to gather data for a university greenhouse gas audit.

After graduating in 2006 with an Honors degree in Environmental Studies and Political Science, she accepted a position with the environmental leadership training program, Green Corps.  In the following year she traveled across the country, organizing for Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, Minnesota Environmental Partnership, and Vermont Public Interest Research Group.  Her experiences further solidified her commitment to student organizing, addressing the climate crisis, and love for her Portland home.  Upon returning to Portland, Jenny helped launch the Cascade Climate Network, the PNW’s regional college student climate activism group.  After a brief foray into the national political scene with the National Environmental Trust and organizing for Earth Day with Focus the Nation, Jenny is stoked to be returning to her roots, working with the most passionate students to organize in the Pacific Northwest to address climate change!

When not working with fantastic, inspiring young people, Jenny can often be found biking, walking, and running the streets of Portland, making mystery smoothies, and playing disc golf or ultimate frisbee.

Maura Cowley
Campaign Director - Washington, DC
Campaign [at] ssc.org / 202-548-4594

Transitioning from the SSC's Northeast Organizer to it's National Campaign Director, Maura has been with the SSC since August of 2006. She began organizing while attending Penn State University, where she served as the president of the university's environmental activist organization for two years. During that time, she coordinated two successful campaigns and had the privilege of working with some top-notch student organizers. Together, they organized Penn State's Farm to College campaign, which asked the university to purchase locally grown produce. Following the campaign, Maura was hired by Penn State to implement the school's Farm to College program. While she was wrapping up the Farm to College program, Maura began coordinating a campaign asking Penn State to commit to a comprehensive energy policy which included renewable energy purchasing, energy efficiency and conservation and on-site renewable energy generation. The campaign was supported by over 4,500 students at Penn State and received local, regional and national media attention.

Maura graduated from Penn State in August of 2006 with majors in political science, anthropology and economics. After graduating, she jumped right into her job, which was created as a result of the SSC/Climate Campaign Merger. She is very excited to be working with dedicated and talented student leaders from across the Northeast on the issue that she believes truly is the challenge of our generation- global warming.

Aside from working with students to win rocking victories, Maura also enjoys traveling, spending time with friends, reading and hiking.

Jesse's involvement with the SSC began in the summer of 2006 as an intern, where he learned how to brew the perfect cup of coffee and developed a commitment to student organizing. Since then he has attended SSC national gatherings, summer programs, and organized the 2006 North Carolina Campus Climate Challenge Summit.

Jesse began campus organizing at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors in Public Policy and Environmental Studies. While a Tar Heel, he campaigned for a student fee for renewable energy. After successfully passing the fee, Jesse co-chaired UNC's Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee and was integral in identifying and implementing renewable energy projects on campus.

He's thrilled to be able to work with students from across the country on campaigns that will make a lasting impact. Jesse wants to be a resource for all you organizers across the country. Give him a call! Outside of the office, Jesse can be found river tubing, disc golfing, playing guitar, and in pickup games of most any sport.

Kim Teplitzky
Field Director - Philadelphia, PA
kim [at] ssc.org / 215-508-3310

Kim started organizing in college where she led a clean energy campaign at Temple University in Philly, pressuring the administration to purchase wind power. Through her on-campus work she got involved in the Climate Campaign helping create a state-wide network of student groups in Pennsylvania. She then joined up with the Energy Action Coalition where she represented the Climate Campaign at their founding meeting. She now serves on their Steering Committee helping build partnerships for The Challenge.

That same summer she attended her first SSC SPROG (summer training program) which led her to a trainings internship in the SSC's DC office. It was there she stepped up to work with the Conservation and Energy Committees and through them she helped organize the U.S. and international youth presence at the U.N. Climate Negotiations in Montreal in 2005.

She has also interned with Campus Progress where, among other things, she blogged undercover from conservative events and was a Young People For 2006 Fellow. Eventually though, she did graduate from Temple with a degree in journalism and after some brief forays into South America joined the SSC staff team in what she believes is one of the best jobs in the country.

Zo Tobi
Northeast Regional Organizer - Worcester, MA
zo [at] ssc.org / 603-305-3825

The SSC is thrilled to welcome Zo Tobi as our new Northeast Organizer! Zo has been extensively involved with the SSC prior to his hiring, and will be a wonderful resource for students throughout the Northeast.

Raised in New Hampshire by a working-class, Israeli-American father and a middle-class suburban Jewish mother from Massachusetts, Zo finished an undergraduate degree in International Development at Clark University in 2007.

In his spare time, he is a Bikram Yoga enthusiast and performs as a progressive folk-rock songwriter in the New England college scene. He maintains some musings of potentially pursuing music full-time, attending Rabbinical school, or taking up a holistic health practice, after having attended to some of the converging catastrophies of the 21st century.

Juliana began organizing during her first year at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She successfully led a campaign to get Whitman to become the first college in the state of Washington to purchase renewable energy. Over the next few years, Juliana succeeded in increasing the college's purchase of renewable energy, served as co-President of Campus Greens, and founded the Whitman Campus Climate Challenge group. She graduated from Whitman in 2007 with honors in geology.

Juliana joined the SSC after that first year of college and since then has served as a student volunteer on the Conservation Committee and the Personnel Committee, represented the SSC at the U.N. Climate Negotiations on Climate Change in Montreal and co-directed the first Northwest Climate Justice Summit. In 2006 Juliana was honored to receive the Dr. Joseph Barbosa Award from the Sierra Club, in recognition of outstanding organizing by a young Sierra Club member. She spent the summer of 2007 in Des Moines, IA as part of the team organizing the SSC's March to ReEnergize Iowa, and fell in love with Iowa.

She is extremely excited to have the opportunity to work with students in the Midwest, especially during this crucial time in terms of this country's climate policy. Students have such power to influence policy-makers and Juliana wants to help see that power develop to its greatest potential. Outside of organizing, Juliana thoroughly enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, playing her string bass, and being a complete geology nerd.