GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN (March 11, 2004) - Green Building is one of the new and interesting movements taking place in the building industry. Christine Ervin, President and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, will speak at the Aquinas College Eighth Ann

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GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN (March 11, 2004) - Green Building is one of the new and interesting movements taking place in the building industry. Christine Ervin, President and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, will speak at the Aquinas College Eighth Annual Wege Speaker Series on Thursday, April 29, 4 to 5:30 p.m. The lecture, in the Aquinas Performing Arts Center, 1703 Robinson Road, S.E. The event is free and the public is welcome. Seating is limited.

Ervin joined the U.S. Green Building Council in April 1999 as President and CEO. Ervin's career spans several leadership positions in the federal, state and nonprofit sectors. From 1993 to 1997, she served as assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy's $1 billion portfolio of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. Ervin's initiatives in the buildings arena included: the EPA-DOE Energy Star partnership, collaborations with the insurance, venture capital, and energy service industries, reinvention of the appliance standards program, Buildings for the 21st Century roadmap effort, a national sustainable development center, and various climate change programs.

Before her tenure in the nation's capital, Ervin directed the Oregon Department of Energy. In addition to chairing a statewide task force on livable communities, she oversaw restructuring of regulations for citing new energy plants, closure of the Trojan nuclear power plant and implementation of the nation's most advanced building code. Previously, Ervin was assistant director for Missouri's planning and budget agency, and a project director on pollution prevention and life-cycle research at the Conservation Foundation
World Wildlife Fund.

Ervin serves on various advisory boards and task forces. She is a founding board member and officer for the Oregon Energy Trust, a nonprofit created by the state legislature to allocate $50 million each year in utility funds for energy programs.