During spring break my freshman year of college something happened that changed my life forever. While backpacking in the serenity of the Great Smoky Mountains I heard the news from a fellow hiker: our government had just invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. I knew immediately that things would never be the same for me. Powerful corrupt forces were defining my future in dangerous ways. I knew when I returned to campus at the University of Kansas that it was time to take a stand. I started organizing.

I organized peace rallies, teach-ins, debates, and movie screenings. In short doing everything I could think of to spread the “awareness” on campus about what was happening. But it soon became apparent that basic awareness wasn’t going to end the Iraq war and so I started asking the deeper question of why were there in the first place. I kept coming back to one answer: oil. The more I learned about the dangerous national security implications of our oil addiction the more I began to understand the disastrous oil consumption and fueling climate change. Since that fateful day almost nine years ago I have dedicated myself to breaking our addiction to oil and building a movement for a 100% clean energy future.