Mela Bush

Pamela(Mela) Bush is a Native Bostonian of American Indian and Cape Verdean parents, who has spent decades organizing and advocating for transit equity and environmental justice. She brings a wealth of wisdom and experience to her community and beyond. She formerly served as the Acting Director and Lead Organizer for The Greater Four Corners Action Coalition serving the 4 Corners community for 14+ years. During this time she led the community process to win, fund and see to fruition the siting and construction of 4 new stations on a near dormant train line. She has been championing the fight for transit justice for the 100,000 plus riders and residents along the Fairmount corridor in Massachusetts.

She is the Director of Transit Oriented Development and T Riders Union (TRU) at Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) in Roxbury’s Nubian Square. TRU is an empowered network of MBTA Riders fighting for Transit Justice and Equity. She is the Former Chair of and now serves as the Special Advisor to the Fairmount Indigo Transit Coalition, and an active member of the steering committee of ACTION4Equity and many other Transit Advocacy Coalitions.

She has served as the regional Vice Chair of Co-op Power’s Board of Directors and Represents Co-op Power on People's Solar Energy Fund. As a member of Co-op Power, she founded the Boston Metro East Community Energy Cooperative(CEC). In addition, she worked to start and assist in community engagement with Co-op Power’s Boston Energy Efficiency Team.

Mela has conceptualized, started and run an award winning small business. Sew & Sow Atelier in Boston the business was a brick and mortar tailor shop. This experience brings lived experience of the challenges of operating a small business.

Mela is a 2007 Senior Fellow of the Environmental leadership Program and an Aspen Ideas Scholar. She is an esteemed lecturer, panelist and ambassador for Environmental Justice, Community Engagement/organizing, Transit-Oriented Development, and energy democracy and Climate Justice.

Alphonse Knight

As a youth, Alphonse was known for his experimentations with electricity and electronics on his island home in Nevis, West Indies. After 5 years working in the field of electricity he came to the US to further his education. He became involved with solar cells as part of his training, and he visited solar installations and manufactures of solar panels. He then became a member of Co-op Power where he was exposed to the reality of alternative energy: wind, solar and geothermal. As an active member of the Co-op Power, he works in his community to get the word out about the best ways to get affordable solar in Boston. Through his influence, his own church, Second Church in Dorchester, became the first house of worship to install affordable solar and this expanded to other churches in the region. Alphonse is part of the Dorchester Food Co-op Solar Committee.

Lenwood Coleman

Lenwood Coleman is Founder & Visionary Chair at Legacy Ventures, leading in community development, clean energy, affordable housing, grants, and community empowerment. Air Force Vet, committed to positive change, holistic solutions, and education for generational stability.

Mcgowan Southworth

Mcgowan Southworth is a renewable energy consultant dedicated to helping NYC multi-family co-ops get their share of the distributed, renewable energy paradigm shift. His passion turned into a business after he led his 70 unit Brooklyn co-op to install solar panels and smart submetering in 2012. At that time the solar industry was not geared to serve multifamily buildings, so he co-founded Brooklyn Power to serve this community.

In 2014 Mcgowan directed the development of Brooklyn Power’s meter reading and submetering billing software with a focus on apartment-level engagement platform. While he maintains a boutique submetering service, the software has been adopted as the basis for larger submetering enterprises throughout the world. In 2018 he founded PowWow Energy, an education platform which seeks to help students visualize their energy usage and connect the dots between individual consumption, its impact on their school, the grid, and the environment.

As a consultant Mcgowan’s work has encompassed a broad range of sustainability efforts - incentive/rate/financial modeling, contextual design, energy storage, smart sub-metering, community solar, EV charging, heat pumps and building envelope retrofits. He participates in a number of professional and enthusiast groups to stay on the cutting edge of policy and new technologies. In a quickly developing industry, Mcgowan welcomes new challenges and enjoys innovating to solve multi-faceted problems.

Prior to his work in renewable energy, Mcgowan was an award-winning songwriter and in-demand musician/producer. Making the leap to sustainable energy was not outlandish - his roots in renewable energy and design-build trades stem from the Southworth family-owned Garland Mill, a water-powered sawmill-turned design build firm in northern NH that has been in operation since 1856. garlandmill.com.

Lynn Benander

Lynn builds community ownership of sustainable energy resources and works with Co-op Power's network of Community Energy Co-ops to develop consumer, producer, worker-owned and other locally-owned businesses that meet basic energy needs. Ms. Benander brings expertise in community finance, participatory planning, and governance to support new business development and job creation. She has provided fundraising, strategic planning, marketing, executive search management, business planning and technical assistance consulting to hundreds of businesses in the Northeast including Cabot Creamery, Collective Copies, Northeast Cooperatives, PV Squared, Hillside Organic Farm and Pizza Company, and River Valley Market. Lynn Benander lives in Shelburne Falls, Mass. and serves on numerous cooperative and community boards and formerly served as her town’s finance committee chair.

Kwaku Asare

Kwaku Asare has been with Renew for three years and over and through that was linked to Coop Power. He has been on the board of Co-op Power for three years. As someone who wants to achieve the green community initiative, he has been advocating for the use of Renewable energy mainly solar but has welcomed others such as wind. Kwaku has also been involved in other organizations such as Neighbor to Neighbor which deals with Housing issues, and the Heart Partnership which is concerned with retrofitting old houses in Massachusetts. He has also been involved with Mass Renew Alliance which tries to bring together different organizations that have been linked to environmental and climate advocacy. Kwaku is also a member of the New England Grassroots and Energy Equity.