ABOUT

byronByron Kennard, Executive Director

Byron Kennard, founder and Executive Director of the Center for Small Business and the Environment, is a long time advocate of both the environment and of small-scale enterprise.

Working as a community organizer for the Conservation Foundation in the late 1960s, Byron helped lay groundwork for the environmental movement and the subsequent explosion of grassroots action on Earth Day. For this work, he was later awarded the Leadership Medal of the United Nations Environment Program for "distinguished contribution to the cause of the environment."

In the 1970s, he collaborated closely with the late E. F. Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful, to realize the book’s vision of small-scale enterprise as a principal protector and restorer of the environment.

Years later in the 1990s, Kennard observed that the revolution in communications technology vastly strengthened and expanded the capacity of small-scale enterprises to achieve efficiencies and to produce environmentally benign innovations. In the Information Age, small is more beautiful than ever! To exploit this new and huge potential for environmental good, Kennard founded the Center for Small Business and the Environment (CSBE) in 1998.

Byron also served as National Vice Chair of Sun Day, 1978, National Chair of Earth Day '80, the tenth anniversary celebration of Earth Day in 1980, and as Special Consultant to the EPA Administrator for Earth Day 1990.

Byron Kennard is the author of Nothing Can Be Done, Everything Is Possible, a book of essays on social and political change that the Christian Science Monitor called “a primer for the modern-day activist.”

Byron Kennard is a graduate of the Ohio State University (BA, 1959)

Executive Committee 

  • Scott Hauge, Chair, President, Small Business California; Treasurer, National Small Business Association
  • Gordon Binder, Senior Fellow, World Wildlife Fund
  • Mark Clevey, Vice President for Entrepreneurship, Small Business Association of Michigan
  • Christopher Lynch, Director, Environmental Management Assistance Program, Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  • Hank Ryan, Executive Director, Small Business California 
  • Carol Werner Executive Director, Environmental & Energy Study Institute
  • Scott Sklar, President of The Stella Group, Ltd, and Chair, Steering Committee of the Sustainable Energy Coalition

Advisors

  • Helen Anderson, Member, Los Angeles County Small Business Commission
  • John Arensmeyer, President, Small Business Majority
  • Lee Botts, Founder, Lake Michigan Federation
  • Phil Catron, President, NaturaLawn of America
  • Tim Colonnese, President, KTM Industries
  • Michael Crabtree, President and CEO, IdleAire Technologies Inc.
  • Kevin A. Fletcher, PhD., Executive Director, Audubon International
  • John Garn, Environmental Consultant
  • Tom Davis, Environmental Consultant; former Vice-President for Environmental Health and Safety, AT&T
  • Jennifer Kaplan, Founder of Greenhance LLC
  • Craig Lindell, President & CEO, Aquapoint
  • Mike McCabe, former Deputy Administrator, US Environmental Protection Agency
  • Jacquelyn Ottman, President, J. Ottman Consulting, Inc., Author, Green Marketing
  • Scott Seydel, President, EVCO Research
  • Mark Starik, Department Chair and Professor of Strategic Management and Public Policy, School of Business, George Washington University
  • Maria Thompson, President, T/J Technologies
  • Josh Turner, President of Turner Enterprise Development Group
  • Christophe Tulou, former Executive Director, Pew Commission on the Oceans
  • Michaela Walsh, Founding President, Women's World Banking

Program Consultants & Contractors  

  • Kyle Kempf, Director, Government Relations, National Small Business Association 
  • Elaine Pofeldt, Former Senior Editor, Fortune Small Business
  • Steve Bell, Program Manager, Energy and Security Group