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Speakers’ Biographies
Peter S. Adler, PhD is a planner, mediator, facilitator and a principal in ACCORD3.0, a professional network of people specializing in foresight, strategy, and cooperative trouble-shooting. Current projects include the acceleration of cooperation strategies for the ozone treaty under the UN Montreal Protocol, a negotiated “Joint Fact Finding” on pesticide used by GMO corn seed producers and their critics, and several projects on water resource management, energy production, and agricultural development.
Malia Akutagawa is an Assistant Professor of Law with both the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law and Hawaiinuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge. Malia is part of Hui Aina Momona, a consortium of scholars throughout the university community charged with addressing compelling issues of indigenous Hawaiian knowledge and practices, including the legal regime and Native Hawaiian rights associated with malama aina, and with focus on cross-disciplinary solutions to natural and cultural resource management, sustainability, and food security.
Bruce Anderson retired from the State of Hawaii in December 2013 after serving as President and Chief Executive Officer (PCEO) of Hawai`i Health Systems Corporation (HHSC), which includes the twelve public health hospitals and outpatient services in Hawaii. He was previously Director of Health of the State Department of Health and Deputy Director for Environmental Health. Bruce has over 20 years of experience in managing health and environmental protection programs and in dealing with complex environmental policy and planning issues in Hawai`i.
Denise E. Antolini has served as the Associate Dean at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa, since 2011. She joined the Law School faculty in 1996 and directed the nationally recognized Environmental Law Program for several years. Since 2006, she has spearheaded the Law School Building Excelence Project. She serves on the State Water Commission Novminating Commitee (2013) and Commission (2014-2015), was the inaugural Chair of the Honolulu City Council’s Clean Water and Natural Lands Commission, and is past Chair of the State Environmental Council. Her courses have included torts, environmental law, environmental litigation, domestic ocean and coastal law, and legal writing. She received the 2006 University of Hawai’i Board of Regents’ Excellence in Teaching Medal. She served as Chair of the American Association of Law School’s Environmental Law Section and, from 2005 until 2008, was on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Environmental Law. Dean Antolini is past chair of the Hawai’i State Bar Association’s Natural Resources Section and was selected by Hawai’i Women Lawyers as the 2002 recipient of the Distinguished Community Service Award.
Peter Apo is a former sate legislator, a current trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the president of the Peter Apo Company, LLC, a cultural tourism consulting company to the visitor industry. He has also been the Director of Culture and Arts for Honolulu, the city’s Director of Waikiki Development and served as special assistant on Hawaiian affairs to Governor Ben Cayetano.
Tusi Avegalio. Papalii Dr. Tusi Avegalio is the Director of the Pacific Business Center Program and Executive Director of the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center, both located at the Shidler College of Business Administration at Manoa. An expert on Pacific regional economic development and cultures, he straddles both worlds with ease as a business professor and ranking Polynesian Alii.
Dawn N.S. Chang is the Principal of Ku‘iwalu Consulting, a native Hawaiian, woman-owned, small business that specializes in facilitating culturally sensitive issues. Ms. Chang is an expert on land issues, environmental and regulatory requirements. Her clients include federal, state, and local agencies as well as private and non-profit organizations. She conducts cultural sensitivity and orientation courses to attorneys, realtors, developers and government agencies. She served 14 years as Deputy Attorney General and counsel to various State Boards and Commissions and is a former social worker with the Queen Lili‘uokalani Children’s Center.
Bob Fishman has held professional posts in government, enterprise, military, and teaching. Bob has served as Managing Director of the City & County of Honolulu, the first CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, as Chief of Staff and other senior positions in the administrations of four Hawaii governors, and as an enterprise professional in both business startups and workouts. Bob served as general manager of Hawaii’s Aloha Stadium and in senior roles in commercial and general aviation entities. Bob earned an MBA from the University of Hawaii and currently teaches public administration and disaster preparedness at UH. He is a retired US Army Colonel.
Howard Gadlin has been Ombudsman and Director of the Center for Cooperative Resolution at the National Institutes of Health since the beginning of 1999. From 1992 through 1998 he was University Ombudsperson at UCLA. He was also director of the UCLA Conflict Mediation Program and co-director of the Center for the Study and Resolution of Interethnic/Interracial Conflict. While in Los Angeles, Dr. Gadlin served as consulting Ombudsman to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Prior to coming to UCLA, Dr. Gadlin was Ombudsperson and Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At present Dr. Gadlin is studying the dynamics of scientific teams and collaborations and developing new approaches to addressing conflicts among scientists
Ann Gosline grew up in Hawaii in a family of scientists. She now lives in Maine and Arizona and splits her work focus between the Northeast and the Southwest. Early in her legal career, she transitioned from advocacy to bringing parties together to find solutions to thorny problems. She has 30 years of experience working with policy makers, scientific and technical experts and businesspeople on projects seeking to find new approaches to tough issues. She currently focuses on climate change and on maintaining or restoring the health of large ecosystems for the benefit of natural and human communities.
Elizabeth Kent has helped people find solutions to sticky problems for over twenty five years. Elizabeth has worked in a variety of interesting positions, including teaching swimming in the Yukon River, serving as the first female park ranger in the maintenance division at Haleakala National Park, clerking at two federal courts of appeals, practicing commercial law, as the Deputy Director at Hawaii’s Department of Human Services, and directing the Hawaii Judiciary’s Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Elizabeth is a facilitator and mediator, teaches a graduate class at the University of Hawaii, and trains in conflict resolution skills. She also designs wearable art from vintage kimono.
Kem Lowry is Professor Emeritus and former chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawaii. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii in 1976. He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Relations and Development in Asia, Sophia University, Tokyo; visiting faculty at the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina; and a Pew Fellow at the Marine Policy Program, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He has published numerous articles on planning and environmental management and has worked in Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China, the Philippines and Thailand.
Keith Mattson is President of Keith Mattson LLC, a Honolulu consulting firm specializing in urban planning and policy analysis. His recent work has focused on Transit Oriented Development (TOD) planning along the future HART rapid transit line in Honolulu and Joint Fact Finding processes to resolve complex issues and debates at neighborhood and county levels. Prior to launching his consulting firm in November 2013, he worked at the University of Hawaii (UH) for 17 years as a laboratory development project manager and economic development program director.
Carole J. Petersen (carolep@hawaii.edu) is the Director of the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and a Professor in the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. She teaches courses on international law, human rights, and gender. Carole previously taught law at the University of Hong Kong and she continues to research human rights issues in the Asia-Pacific region. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a Postgraduate Diploma in the Law of the People’s Republic of China from the University of Hong Kong.
Anne Smoke earned her BA in Journalism (1985), an MS in Travel Industry Management (2007), and received a Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution (2009) which led her to her current role as the Program Manager/Educational Specialist for the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. She coordinates the Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution and the Institute’s outreach, including conflict resolution services within the university and for the community. Anne has been an active mediator, facilitator, and trainer in conflict resolution and workplace communications for over ten years. Anne serves as president of the Association for Conflict Resolution, Hawai‘i, and as an officer for the University Network of Collaborative Governance.
Josh Stanbro was raised in Northern California on an apple farm, attended college in Los Angeles, and moved to the Big Island soon after to join his family who worked in landscaping and farming. He sailed across the Pacific while escorting Te Aurere, the Polynesian voyaging canoe from Aotearoa and worked as a carpenter apprentice after building an off-grid family home in Holualoa in 1995. Josh was inspired by the PASH case to go to law school, and earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001. For several years, Josh headed up the Trust for Public Land’s Hawai’i office and completed land conservation projects throughout the state valued at over $30 million. He has received the “Hale Aloha”, “Conservationist of the Year”, and “Green Pioneer” awards. Josh has served as the Director of the Environment and Sustainability Program at the Hawaii Community Foundation for the past 6 years.
Jan TenBruggencate is a veteran Hawai’i newswriter, science journalist, and author. He lives on Kaua’i. As the science and environment writer for The Honolulu Advertiser, he wrote the state’s first and longest-running column on the Hawaiian environment. He has won awards from the Hawaiian Academy of Science, Conservation Council for Hawai’i, Hawai’i Audubon Society, and others.
Associate Justice Michael Wilson was appointed to the Hawaii Supreme Court on April 17, 2014, after serving as a Circuit Court judge of the First Circuit since May 10, 2000. Prior to his appointment as a Circuit Court judge, Justice Wilson was the director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Chair of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, Chair of the State Water Commission and a Trustee of the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission. Previously, he was a partner in the law firms of Pavey Wilson & Glickstein and Hart Wolff & Wilson. Justice Wilson received his law degree from Antioch School of Law in Washington D.C., and bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was raised in Kailua and graduated from Kailua High School.