“It’s time we stop thinking of human systems and natural systems as separate. We come out way ahead as people, communities and businesses if we learn to work with and regenerate, and not destroy, natural systems.”

 

 

Spring 2012

David’s diverse work experience includes projects in asset-based community development, business sustainability, economic development, energy and economic analysis, entrepreneurship, land use planning, learning space design, regenerative design, and resilience and adaptation planning. He has worked with clients from the local to global on a diverse range of projects.

 

Recent Work

Recently, David has been focusing his efforts on entrepreneurship—how people turn ideas into reality—and on understanding how people think and learn. A better understanding of how the brain works allows us to be more effective in how we foster creativity and innovation. It allows us to design approaches to creating, learning and working that are more intrinsically engaging and motivating, and ultimately more productive and rewarding.

In 2011 he led the team that developed the report “Developing the Seedbed for Arcata’s Emerging Entrepreneurs.” The report won the 2012 American Planning Association’s (APA) Grassroots Initiative Award of Merit for the APA’s Northern California Section. Recommendations include a range of approaches to fostering entrepreneurship in a community and region. He continues to work with communities to develop their entrepreneurial and innovation capacity as a key form of community resilience.

Since 2010, he has been working with the Washington, D.C.-based Learning Spaces Collaboratory (www.pkallsc.org) on the design of more effective learning spaces. One interesting project with the Herman Miller Company explored the potential for and design of “Innovation Spaces” on college campuses—spaces that are both innovative and designed to teach innovation. He is working with educators from the local to national level on creativity and entrepreneurship curriculum.

Over the past year, with other Greenway personnel, David has been developing the Link, a regional center for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. The Link provides co-work space, networking, mentoring and entrepreneurship development workshops, among other offerings. The Link is guided by the belief that creating entrepreneurial skills in all people—from would-be business owners to young schoolchildren to mid-life bureaucrats to retired tinkerers—can lead to greater individual satisfaction, more successful businesses and organizations, greater economic vitality and community wealth, and thriving, resilient communities.

He earned his Ph.D. (1994) in Environment and Resources and his M.S. (1990) in Energy Analysis and Policy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.A. (1985) from St. Olaf College in Philosophy and Religion. Prior to Greenway, David was a professor at Emory University, James Madison University, and Humboldt State University. He worked five years with the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation (1990-95), and nine years with the University-National Energy Park Partnership Program (1998-2007).

David has served on several local boards, committees and councils, was a school board member for six years, and has coached over 25 youth sports teams (mostly soccer). He lives in Arcata with his wife Eileen Cashman and two sons, Pearse and Kai.

See articles, presentations, book reviews and more at David’s Posterous.com site here.