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Mentors

Meet the Green University 2012 Mentors!

Michelle Paratore
Consultant, Bain & Company

Michelle Paratore is a Consultant at Bain & Company, a global strategy consulting firm. She received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in June 2012. Prior to business school, Michelle spent three years as an Associate Consultant at Bain, working with clients in the ecommerce, private equity and healthcare industries and leading the office’s Green Team. Michelle has worked closely with Teens Turning Green since 2009 when she completed a four month full-time project building a strategy for the organization’s collection of eco body care products. In addition to her MBA, Michelle holds a BA in Economics from Brown University, including one year of course work at the Universitá di Bologna in Bologna, Italy. She lives in Mill Valley with her husband.

Eben Schwartz
Marine Debris Program Manager, California Coastal Commission

A staff member of the California Coastal Commission since 2000, Eben Schwartz runs Marine Debris and Public Outreach programs for the Public Education Program. Eben directs California Coastal Cleanup Day, California’s largest volunteer event. Eben also serves as the Chair of the California Ocean Protection Council’s Marine Debris Steering Committee, in which role he helped craft and pass the Council’s Resolution on Marine Debris and its corresponding Implementation Strategy. Eben also serves as the Chair of the Marine Debris Action Coordination Team for the West Coast Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Health, which is currently drafting an overall marine debris strategy to be used as guidance for comprehensive marine debris programs in Washington, Oregon and California. Prior to his work with the Coastal Commission, Eben worked in conservation programs at the Sierra Club, at both the local and national levels. Eben recently completed a two-year program as one of the inaugural members of the Catto Fellowship with the Aspen Institute, designed for emerging leaders in the environment and energy sector. Eben holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University. 

James Dong
Senior Associate Consultant, Bain & Company

James has been a long-standing advocate for sustainability for many years.  In his youth, he collaborated with a non-profit to build, test, and publish a book of lesson plans (in adherence with state education policy) on environmental education topics for local teachers.  He has also been involved launching a Green Pharmacy Program to collect household pharmaceutical waste, a potent pollutant with many unknown effects, for safe disposal.  James believes that a critical enabler of sustainability is how we do business.  As such, he is helping to build out Bain & Company’s sustainability & corporate responsibility practice, in addition to undertaking strategy projects for large technology clients.

Ryan Lechner
Associate Consultant, Bain & Company 

Ryan is an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. Ryan graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.Sc. in Commerce, concentrating in finance. In his spare time, Ryan enjoys cycling, climbing, watching movies, and cooking.

 

 

Laura O’Donohue
Program Director, Local Food Lab 

Laura works as the Program Director for Local Food Lab, a sustainable food business incubator in Palo Alto, CA. Previously, she worked at Stanford Prevention Research Center studying the effects of policy in childhood obesity prevention. Laura sits on the board of Slow Food San Francisco, where she founded and directs their annual Childhood Obesity Bay Area Conference. Laura’s goal is to create a food system that is both delicious and promotes wellness for all those involved.

 

Jorge Lee
Founder, Marin House Cleaning L.L.C.

Jorge is an avid self-starter passionate about using entrepreneurial principles to further broader social, cultural and environmental goals.  After graduating from Cornell University in 2007 with a degree in psychology, Jorge founded Marin House Cleaning L.L.C., a nontoxic housecleaning business servicing the clients of the San Francisco Bay Area.  The first and only Bay Area Green Business Program certified housecleaning business in Marin County, Marin House Cleaning has been responsible for making hundreds of homes healthier for residents in the Bay Area as well as significantly reducing the toxins that enter the outside environment.  In 2010 Teens Turning Green and Marin House Cleaning partnered to launch Teen Turning Green’s own nontoxic cleaning line, which can be found in retailers throughout the Bay Area.  Jorge received his Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University in 2012.

 

Nicole Koedyker
Student, Drexel University

Nicole is a 3rd year student at Drexel University studying Business Administration and Sustainability In Urban Built Environments. She is president of the Drexel University Sierra Student Coalition, Drexel’s only student-run environmental group, a member of the Drexel Green Sustainability Council, and works on various projects around campus in order to make Drexel a more sustainable university. She has a passion for reading and educating herself about sustainability in cultures and business, educating those around her about living a more environmentally-friendly life, and attending various youth environmental conferences. She enjoys riding her bike around Philly to local coffee shops and cooking with fresh food when she’s not too busy with homework.