Susan Garrett Email & Phone Number

Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Asheville, North Carolina Area

We help sustainability leaders and their teams build the resilience, trust, and collaboration needed to innovate and thrive in a rapidly changing world. We offer a comprehensive, structured approach to creating a highly engaging, resilient corporate climate by:1) carefully assessing needs and co-creating tailored solutions for building collaborative relationships and communication skills in the workplace, 2) training and coaching leaders to embody strengths-based management and long-term sustainability awareness, 3) helping to embed environmental and social purpose into your company's employee experience, 4) building team trust and employee engagement around a common mission, and 5) creating a workplace focused on innovation, ecological sustainability, and well-being. We help you ignite passion in your leadership and employees through the power of a purpose-driven culture.

Asheville, North Carolina Area

I directed the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program as part of the Veterans Services of the Carolinas team at ABCCM. This workforce development and social sustainability program helped homeless veterans complete training and education, attain living wage work, and move from surviving to thriving. I managed a team of 8 case managers to help homeless veterans across 26 counties in western NC to overcome barriers to personal sustainability such as lack of financial management skills, outdated training, poor soft skills, inadequate childcare, lack of transportation, legal issues, and more. Our work helped them become work-ready and gain meaningful employment. In order to support employment for our veterans, I built relationships with employers looking to embrace inclusiveness and who wanted to give our veterans opportunities. We worked to overcome systems-level issues such as transportation access to good-paying jobs. As a result of our work, over 200 formerly homeless veterans gained employment and over 82% of them sustained employment over a one-year period. I was one of 3 program leaders from across the country invited to present Best Practices at the national conference for the Department of Labor's Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.

Asheville, North Carolina Area

I coached and connected with a wide range of people in order to help our homeless veteran clients to be successful: the veterans, diverse employers, site supervisors, fellow staff, colleges, and community agencies. I gained in-depth experience in how to coach creatively to help people focus on their strengths to overcome enormous barriers and achieve their goals. Oftentimes, their biggest barriers were attitudinal or due to a lack of soft skills. I was able to compassionately coach veterans to overcome self-confidence issues, learn conflict resolution skills, and see their strengths so that they could believe in themselves, complete their education and gain employment. In some cases, I was able to support transformations that were quite profound, such as helping veterans successfully pursue long-held career dreams, and mend long-broken family relationships.Additionally, I managed a program that put veterans to work on-site at ABCCM. I worked with six ABCCM Site Supervisors at ABCCM's Warehouse, Veterans Restoration Quarters and Crisis Ministry to understand their hiring needs. Working with case managers, we collaborated to recruit and prepare veterans for open positions at ABCCM sites. Operating in an HR role, I fielded and helped to resolve conflicts and issues coming from the site supervisors and the veterans.

Asheville, North Carolina Area

I coached young parents, aged 18 - 24 who were living below the poverty line. This job was a huge education in systems-level barriers to getting out of poverty. It also helped me understand the importance of visualizing your success and cultivating positive self-talk and support from others as keys to achieving success. I have applied this learning in my coaching business because I have found many of the principles of success are the same whether you are a single, young parent or a millionaire executive.

Asheville, Nc

In this role, I managed a team of six case managers plus a non-profit subcontractor to recruit, train and assist low-income people into green jobs. We partnered with local schools and companies to train and hire LEED Accredited Professionals, Weatherization Technicians, Solar Thermal Installers and Biofuels Technicians. To be eligible, people in the program had to live in areas of high poverty and be unemployed, low-income, or have a criminal background. We received national recognition from the Department of Labor for being the only Pathways Out of Poverty workforce development grant recipient in the nation to achieve our training goals and passing rates. We also put our graduates, employers, and representatives from economic development, job skills agencies, social service providers, the City and County to work to create a Weatherize Asheville Campaign. The Campaign was designed to explore across agencies how to help ex-offenders get employed and to assist local green businesses to reach new audiences and to stimulate job growth. These conversations led to community initiatives such as the Re-entry Roundtable and the greening of 17 Asheville restaurants.

Asheville, North Carolina Area

As an eco-entrepreneur, I did strategic sustainability planning, LEED commercial building consulting and design team facilitation, and taught permaculture and sustainability courses. A couple of examples of our work included:* LEED AP educator and facilitator for the Buncombe County Social Services Building in Asheville, NC. I educated the owner, architect, engineers and other design team members on the concepts of energy & water conserving design, optimizing indoor air quality, building commissioning, embodied energy in materials selection and all other concepts related to achieving LEED certification. I facilitated the team to select which LEED credits to pursue to achieve LEED Silver.* Sustainability Consultant for The Lovett School, a private K - 12 school in Atlanta, GA. I guided the Executive Committee and Sustainability Committee (including students) through planning activities over several months to ensure a comprehensive strategy that would deliver measurable progress, be integrated into the curriculum and give a framework for continuous improvement after my services ended. Today, Lovett is recognized as the Atlanta leader for K-12 school sustainability.

Greater Atlanta Area

I developed a new program, the Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI), to assist Sustainability Officers in cities across the U.S. in their sustainability efforts. Managed staff, worked with Sustainability Officers and contributed expertise to develop new SCI website content including defining sustainability principles for cities in Land Use, Water, Energy, Resource Management, Transportation, Community-Building, etc. and creating a searchable database of vetted best green policies. I also built rapport with the Surdna Foundation and the non-profit ICLEI, which resulted in team funding of an Urban Sustainability Directors’ Network, which has helped directors across the country to share strategies to overcome barriers in their cities’ progress.

• Envisioned and managed Southface Sustainability. Initiated and managed strategic planning of Southface Energy Institute’s sustainability plan with the entire staff of 45 people. Led Sustainability Team to implement the plan across all departments. Monitored company progress toward CO2 reduction, green procurement and other sustainability goals. Sustained staff participation and excitement about initiatives.• Program Manager for Grants to Green program. Developed new program to serve Atlanta area non-profits seeking to move toward sustainability. Developed new services such as Comprehensive Sustainability Planning, Green Procurement Analysis and Transportation Analysis. Led research teams and charrettes with clients to forge organizational Sustainability Plans. Oversaw work quality of engineers performing energy audits. In the first 6 months after implementation of recommended energy efficiency retrofits, Atlanta nonprofits who received grants had achieved on average a 16% decrease in energy costs.• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Administrator for 4 new City of Atlanta Fire Stations and the Public Safety HQ Annex. Coordinated the creation of an Atlanta city-wide Green Cleaning Policy for all city buildings. Assistance and charrettes for 12+ LEED projects. Instructor for LEED courses to prepare students for the LEED AP exam.• Project Manager for Atlanta Green Roofs Initiative. Achieved the inclusion of green roofs in Georgia’s energy code and Georgia’s Stormwater Management Manual.

Masters In Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability, (Based On Systems Thinking & The Natural Step. Leadership, Strategic Planning, Industrial Ecology)

Permaculture Design Certificate, Permaculture (Regenerative Systems Design)

Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (Cpcc)

Education record

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), English