Bauman Graduate and Adjunct Faculty Member Featured in Huffington Post for Planting a Forest of Urban Trees

We were pleased, and proud to see one of our graduates, and adjunct faculty member, Helge Hellberg featured in the Huffington Post yesterday.  With about 15.6 million page views per weekday, a highlight in the Huffington Post is an exceptional compliment, and a wonderful recognition of a career well done.

Helge spent 8 years as Executive Director of Marin Organic, he is an organic food advocate, a sought after consultant, a distinguished speaker, and the creator and host of An Organic Conversation, a radio program that masterfully places current food and organic agriculture topics within the context of inter-connectedness and relationships, spirituality, beauty, and life.

You can find out more about Helge at his website: http://www.helgehellberg.com/about-helge/

Helge has many accomplishments and features in print, online, in broadcast and beyond.  This latest Huffington Post article discusses the work he did with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide as consultant on projects to make the hotel group more sustainable.

Helge says, “It is wonderful to see an international hotel group become a leader in the world of sustainable hospitality through LEED certified buildings, constant efforts to reduce energy, innovative recycling programs and many other initiatives, ” said Helge Hellberg, Starwood’s project consultant. ” With this project, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is now taking it even further and setting new standards for social and environmental leadership and a commitment to a sustainable future.”

Most recently Helge consulted on a project with Starwood which would result in a million apples a year for Bay Area schools that have little access to healthy food.

During Starwoods 2012 annual sales conference in San Francisco, attendees were surprised by having a young organic heirloom apple tree in their rooms upon check in.  Conference attendees were asked to bring the tree to the Convention Center to donate it to a group of students for school gardens, community gardens, and healthy school lunch programs.  The intention is that the harvest will support the school lunch programs and help to provide young people with healthier options.

The hotels general manager said, “We all were delighted by the idea of our attendees visiting the city and then leaving a living legacy…. It was really a touching scene. I think being a part of growing these trees and knowing they will be feeding school children for many years ahead really brought out the human tenderness in us all.”

As the article states: “America is rated number 1 globally in childhood obesity. We spend less on food, on a per-capita basis, than any other nation while more on medical services, on a per-capita basis, than any other nationality in the world. We’ve got some serious ‘splaining to do when 75 percent of our health care dollars are spent on treating diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and hypertension which are caused or exacerbated by eating highly processed diets.”

On this note, we would like to give a big warm thank you to Helge Hellberg and his years of continued service.

You can find the full article here.  Post to Facebook, repost, send to your friends… help us further healthful, sustainable, and organic living.  Together we can change the world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-spiegelman/starwood-apples-bay-area_b_1322637.html