Robert Blake & Chéri Smith: How tribal nations can lead the way to a renewable energy future
Fri, Jan 27, 4 pm
American Swedish Institute
Part of the Climate Solutions Series
Moderated by MPR’s Brandt Williams
Poetry by Strong Buffalo
Join us for a conversation between Solar Bear founder and CEO Robert “Bob” Blake and Indigenous Energy Initiative founder Chéri Smith on the different ways tribal nations can lead and benefit from pursuing renewable energy as an economic and environmental driver for their community and the wider world. Moderated by Minnesota Public Radio’s Brandt Williams, with poetry by Strong Buffalo.
About the panelists:
Robert “Bob” Blake is a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe Indians, and the Founder and CEO of Solar Bear, pronounced “Gizis-o-makwa” in Ojibwe. He is passionate about spreading the word of renewable energy through communication, cooperation, and collaboration.
Robert is the Executive Director of Native Sun Community Power Development, a Native-led non-profit that promotes renewable energy, energy efficiency, and an equitable energy transition through education, workforce training, and demonstration, as well as Chief Operating Officer of Indigenous Energy Initiative. Robert is a graduate student enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s Carlson Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) program. His passion is spreading the word about renewable energy through communication, cooperation, and collaboration.
Chéri Smith founded IEI in 2016 (formerly Covenant Tribal Solar Initiative). Her experience in mitigating climate change and restoring economies with the power of renewable energy spans two decades. Her focus areas are solar capacity building, project and program development, policy, finance, and workforce development. A descendant of the Mi'Kmaq tribe of Maine/Canadian Maritimes, she has made it her life's work to leverage this expertise for the benefit of Indigenous American communities.
At SolarCity, Chéri led workforce development and training initiatives, as well as the coordination of community, academic, and government stakeholders in the massive effort to identify and train the 1,400 employees of the 1 GW solar manufacturing plant in Buffalo, NY, and Tesla's Battery Gigafactory in Nevada, one of the largest factories in the world.
From 2009 - 2015, Chéri was in private practice, providing renewable energy and energy efficiency project consulting services to colleges, universities, and governments, including the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), and US Department of Energy SunShot initiatives: Solar Ready Vets, Solar Instructor Training Network, and Solar Career Map. From 2005 - 2009, Chéri served as Director of Education & Outreach for the American Council On Renewable Energy, where she developed and managed ACORE’s corporate, educational, and citizen-outreach programs, on an international level.
In 2010 Chéri founded Solar Campus Initiative, a now-completed project of Earth Island Institute. She serves as an advisor to the Yale School of Business and the Environment, and previously served as an Advisory Board member for the Masters in Renewable Energy degree program at Penn State, and as a Buffalo & Erie County Workforce Investment Board Director. She is an MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow, a Cordes Fellow, and a Climate Leader, trained by former Vice President Al Gore. A self-described child of the sea, Chéri lives on the shore with her family on the ancestral homelands of both the Narragansett and Seminole in present-day Rhode Island and Florida.
Brandt Williams leads Minnesota Public Radio’s Race, Class and Communities reporting team. Before taking on the new role, Brandt covered the city of Minneapolis for nearly 30 years and has focused his reporting on city and county government, public safety, courts and racial disparities. Brandt has produced investigative stories on gun violence in Minneapolis and its disparate impact on the city’s Black community. He has also written and produced numerous stories on the historical and ongoing rift between members of the black community and the Minneapolis police department.
Strong Buffalo is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, and a decorated and wounded Vietnam veteran, writing poetry before there was anything called Native poetry, starting last century, translated in more than 17 languages, 3 published books, 10 CD’s, along with lectures and performances contribute to a world where we use creativity and options other than war, racism, classism, and exploitation to solve the problems that we all share, by just being alive…