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Board of Directors and Staff Members

Board Members

Cary Church is a community project manager, local historian, and cofounder of the Local Transition Town Chelsea Network, where he helped get Chelsea on the national Register of Historic places, and organized the city’s first Earth Day celebration in 2008. He has been an avid sustainability enthusiast for many years, and is a regularly attends a range of academic conferences. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador in the early 1990’s, where he participated in many community development projects and taught English. Cary has a degree in engineering and is now studying sustainable energy engineering as a graduate student at Lawrence Technological University.

Jeannine LaPrad is President of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, a national organization focused on education and workforce development. Jeannine is responsible for strategic leadership and management as well as the development of policy and program innovation and evaluation work within the state of Michigan and other states nationally. Jeannine has spent the last 12 years researching and promoting innovative economic, education, and social policies and practices that help people successfully engage in sustainable work and lifelong learning. Her work has been focused on helping reshape adult and postsecondary education to make it more accessible for low-income, low-skilled workers. More recently she has been working with states and communities on the development of policies and programs that help increase the number of jobs and skilled workers in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable electricity, and agriculture and natural resource conservation. She has a Bachelor’s degree in organizational psychology and communications and a Master’s degree in higher education policy from the University of Michigan.

Joan Martin is a retired public educator and biologist. She designed and directed a citizen science program called Adopt-A-Stream for the Huron River Watershed Council from 1991 - 2011. In addition to engaging residents in studying and caring for the river, she directed stream festivals and the Millers Creek Film Festivals for several years. Prior to that she was she studied insect physiology at the University of Michigan for her Ph. D. following a broad college education for a BA at Swarthmore College. Joan has published 14 articles in refereed journals.

Susan Santone is the founder and Executive Director of Creative Change. A former classroom teacher, she specializes in instructional design and training for sustainability, ecological economics, and cultural issues. As head of Creative Change, she has led multiple curriculum reform and teacher education initiatives, working nationally with public schools, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Under her leadership, Creative Change has developed a broad client list ranging from Purdue University College of Engineering to the United Nations. Her expertise in sustainability education has landed her a role as content advisor for children's media being developed by public TV producers WGBH. She is also an adjunct instructor in Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University, where she has taught "Schools in a Diverse and Democratic Society" and "Teaching Ecological Economics." She earned teacher certificates in social studies, music, and TESOL; and has a Master's degree in Intercultural and International Management from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Shari Saunders is a faculty member at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She works with prospective teachers in the university classroom as well as in school sites. Her primary responsibility is facilitating the development of future K-12 teachers to become empowered educators who are committed to working toward social justice in education. Some of her areas of interest include place-conscious education, restorative justice practices in education, and school lunch reform. She has a Master’s degree in Learning Disabilities from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia.

Ken Thomson is an attorney with Hooper Hathaway in Ann Arbor. His past education related experience includes policy work for the U.S. Department of Education and serving as an Education Policy Fellow for Governor Granholm. His focuses are teacher quality, English language acquisition and NCLB. He earned a BA, a Master's of Public Policy, and a law degree from the University of Michigan.

John Warbach is a Professor at Michigan State University and Associate Director for Faculty Research Development of the Land Policy Institute. He is Co-Chair of the MSU Extension Greening Michigan Institute, Sustainable Community Prosperity Group, a team of faculty and field educators. He is also Co-Chair of the Faculty Learning Community on Innovation Adoption in Sustainable Development & Placemaking, and Chair of the MSU Creativity Initiative Health and the Built Environment group.
John currently coordinates research initiative development and teambuilding, curriculum development and the Michigan Higher Education Land Policy (MIHELP) Consortium. He also teaches Smart Growth and Strategic Decision Making, and previously taught at the State University of New York. He earned his PhD in Urban Forestry from Michigan State University, his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California-Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University. In conjunction with his Ph.D. studies he also completed a minor in environmental psychology from the University of Michigan.

Staff Members

Lisa Babe is the Curriculum and Program Specialist at Creative Change. A former ESL, secondary science teacher, she brings a strong understanding of environmental and social justice issues to her work at Creative Change. Over the past two years, she has developed sustainability curriculum which included a portfolio of lessons focused on Sustainable Energy Systems for high school students. In addition to this, she has also assisted in professional development programs for secondary science teachers with a focus of integrating sustainability in the disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics. Prior to working at Creative Change, Lisa was an adjunct instructor at Alpena Community College, where she taught business math with a focus on democratic values, equity, and local civic engagement. She also served as the educational coordinator for the NOAA, Paleoclimatology Program in Boulder, CO. During this time, she created secondary science materials that introduced students to concepts related to global warming, human induced climate change and the social and economic impacts of climate. She earned a secondary science teaching certificate in Colorado and holds a current Michigan secondary science certificate. She has a Master’s degree in Secondary Science with an emphasis in ESL from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Elissa Trumbull is the Communications and Outreach Coordinator at Creative Change. She brings with her a professional background in youth education, program management, and partnership development experience in the nonprofit sector. She is a teacher with expertise in food and agriculture education and has worked in numerous school, university, and community settings. Elissa also works with the Fair Food Network and is a founding and current board member of The Agrarian Adventure, an educational non-profit organization working in partnership with public schools to enrich students’ connections with food, health, community, and agriculture through curriculum integration, schoolyard food production and farm-to-school programming. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Education and History from the University of Michigan with a secondary social studies teaching certificate and has served as an Americorps*Vista member.

Trent Stevens is the Curriculum and Support Specialist at Creative Change. Trent has fifteen years experience with adults who have developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, working as a direct care and home care worker. He discovered his passion for teaching while later working as a skills trainer and job coach. He earned his Associates degree in elementary education with Honors from Washtenaw Community College and was awarded a scholarship to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Special Education at Eastern Michigan University.