Susan Hendershot
President
Prior to becoming President of The Regeneration Project and Interfaith Power & Light, Rev. Hendershot served as the Executive Director at Iowa Interfaith Power & Light for seven years. She is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) with an M. Div. from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, a B.A. from Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, and a certificate in Spiritual Direction. Prior to Iowa IPL, Rev. Hendershot served as a pastor in both Disciples of Christ and United Methodist congregations, focusing on social justice ministries. She also served as the first Heartland Field Organizer for the ONE Campaign on global poverty. Currently Rev. Hendershot serves as co-chair of the Executive Committee for the RE-AMP Steering Committee, a network of over 170 climate, energy, and environmental organizations throughout the Midwest. Rev. Hendershot believes that climate change is a moral issue, disproportionately impacting those who are most vulnerable in our world. She gets her motivation and inspiration from her two sons.
Susan Stephenson
Executive Director
Susan oversees The Regeneration Project and its Interfaith Power & Light campaign. Susan has 20 years of experience developing and implementing issue-advocacy and electoral campaigns for environmental and other public interest organizations. Prior to joining The Regeneration Project, she served as vice president of the Oakland-based campaign consulting firm The Next Generation. Beginning in 1999, she organized and coordinated the California Global Warming Campaign, which implemented a proactive strategy resulting in several landmark legislative victories. She has been involved with California Interfaith Power & Light since its inception in 2000. Susan received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina. When not at work she can be spotted hiking in the East Bay hills or attending a local music festival. If you have a media inquiry, email Susan here. If you are on a deadline within 24 hours (weekdays), please call (510) 444-4891.
Sarah Berg
Development Manager
Sarah is the Development Manager for the Regeneration Project’s Interfaith Power & Light Campaign. She has nine years of experience working in non-profits and previously as the Development Coordinator at a Latin American solidarity organization, SHARE El Salvador. Sarah got her start in interfaith organizing during her year with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps where she worked with the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of the East Bay. She is the leader of her congregation’s “Love our Neighbor Hub” where she organizes her congregation around environmental issues and workers’ rights. She received a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from Iowa State University. In her free time Sarah enjoys bicycling around the hills of Berkeley and Oakland.
Bill Bradlee
National Organizing Director and Affiliate Liaison
Bill supports all of IPL’s state affiliates and federal advocacy campaigns as national organizing director. Previously, he served as The Regeneration Project’s managing director from July 2004 until March 2007. Bill has two decades of experience in the nonprofit world. In 2007, he and a climate scientist spent much of the year bicycling across the U.S. giving talks and doing media outreach around global warming. Bill previously worked for The League of Conservation Voters and The Union of Concerned Scientists. He completed his Master of Environmental Studies degree at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.
Suzanne Burrows
Operations Manager
In her role as Operations Manager, Suzanne oversees the day-to-day office administration, provides board support, assists with our state affiliates, and coordinates event planning and logistics, including the annual conference of state IPL leaders. Suzanne’s background is in environmental planning and management and she has a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia. She resides in Mill Valley, CA, with her husband and cat. In her spare time, she is active in her community and is past member of the Board of Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce. She is an accomplished potter and enjoys gardening and hiking the hills of Marin County.
Sarah Paulos
Community Engagement and Programs Manager
Sarah is the Community Engagement and Programs Manager for Interfaith Power & Light. She was awakened to climate action with the proposal to build a huge coal-fired power plant in her community in Iowa. Her response was to create the Cool Congregations program to help members of her home congregation reduce their energy use and care for our common home. Cool Congregations is now a program of IPL.Prior to IPL Sarah served for twelve years as the Program and Outreach Coordinator for Iowa IPL training green teams in Iowa and sixteen other states to conduct the Cool Congregations program. She developed additional educational programs including Food, Faith, Climate: Connecting the Dots, The Good Life Redefined addressing how our “stuff” contributes to climate change, Faith for Energy Equity on environmental justice, and Common Good, on advocacy. Sarah also served as Faith Caucus coordinator for RE-AMP, and trained as a secondary teacher with degrees from Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. She is inspired to do this work by her three daughters.
Jonathan Lacock-Nisly
Federal Policy Associate
Jonathan represents Interfaith Power & Light in Washington, DC as our Federal Policy Associate, and also serves as Director of Faithful Advocacy for Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA), where he oversees organizing and advocacy for DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia religious communities. Jonathan comes to this work after several years as an affordable housing advocate with MANNA, Inc, where he saw firsthand the strain that shifting weather patterns is putting on our communities. He is a graduate of Eastern Mennonite University with a degree in Peacebuilding and Development, and a member of the 8th Day Faith Community in Washington, DC.
Monet Monaghan
Business Manager
Monet has 15 years of experience in financial management for for-profit and nonprofit organizations and has been a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California since 1990. She has a BS degree in Business Administration from San Francisco State University. She has nearly completed a Masters degree in Geography/Resource Management also from San Francisco State University. While away from work, Monet enjoys hiking, tennis, and spending time with her family.
Gerald Bernstein
Renewable Energy/Special Projects
Gerald is the volunteer coordinating a variety of Renewable Energy products and projects at IPL as well as supporting CIPL with clean energy job development. He spent over 25 years providing business consulting services to companies in the transportation and energy industries, followed by 10 years with the California Community College system with responsibility for developing student and incumbent worker training programs in transportation and renewable energy. He has a BS in Aeronautics (RPI) and an MS in Engineering Management (Stanford). His favorite leisure activity is hiking and photographing diverse forest biomes.
Dr. Cynthia Cudaback
Science Advisor
Dr. Cudaback grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which nurtured an early love of the ocean. She obtained a BA in Physics from U.C. Berkeley and a PhD in geophysics from the University of Washington. Along the way, she served a few years in the NOAA Corps of commissioned officers, which operates NOAA’s vessels. She has held positions at U.C. San Diego, U.C. Santa Barbara, and North Carolina State University. Dr. Cudaback has taught at every level, from preschool through graduate school, and loves to incorporate storytelling into her teaching.
