Meet Upstream's New Board Members
New Year, New Solutioneers, New Reuse-olutions
As we welcome 2022, Upstream is also welcoming four new members of our Board of Directors. We’re excited to introduce you to these inspiring Solutioneers with careers across different industries who are long-time reuse advocates and have committed to joining Upstream’s mission to make throw-away go away.
Meet Linda Corrado, Ashley Craig, Rose Stephens-Booker and Daniel Velez, learn more about their reuse journey, and check out some of their New Year “reuse-olutions” that we can all work towards in 2022.
Linda Corrado
Q: Can you tell us what you do now and where you live?
A: I’m the former CEO of a gift and home decor brand after an earlier career in the fashion industry, and I'm based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Q: What’s one story about how this issue of reuse got in your heart?
A: At the start of the pandemic, everyday items that we took for granted as essential household supplies suddenly became difficult to obtain and required us to adapt and innovate.
For me, memories of how my grandmother preserved things for reuse came to mind: she found uses for empty containers of every shape and size. Though this was a result of shortages experienced during wartime, it made me appreciate what that we had mindlessly treated as disposable, we should now carefully cherish as indispensible – or “indisposable.”
Q: What is something we wouldn't know from your LinkedIn profile that might surprise us – and what do you hope to bring to the reuse movement as an Upstream Board member?
A: I've spent quite some time in Europe over the years, particularly in Italy, where my husband is from. And I've always marveled at how differently people there consumed fashion and food.
Traditionally, people choose quality over brand or trend. And likewise, grocery shopping consists of buying fresh meat and produce from the local daily markets. People know the producers and their food source – only seasonal produce is available; you can't get strawberries all year-round. They buy only what they need and what they can consume at the time. Therefore there's less need for storage, which means less leftovers and less waste.
By contrast, I recognize a problem of overconsumption here at home and in many other advanced countries. That's why I'm inspired by Upstream’s work to promote the indisposable lifestyle, and I look forward to supporting their efforts.
“I recognize a problem of overconsumption here at home and in many other advanced countries. That’s why I’m inspired by Upstream’s work to promote the indisposable lifestyle, and I look forward to supporting their efforts.”
Q: What are your New Year "reuse-olutions" or suggestions for others to help make the switch to reuse in 2022?
A: As we adjust our lifestyles after almost two years of the pandemic, I'm suggesting that we take the opportunity to establish a new normal in the way we consume and dispose of products and packaging.
Let's pause and think about the apparent short-term convenience of single-use products and how it results in an enormous impact and inconvenience in the long run. Let's go one step further than reusable water bottles. Let's challenge ourselves to change how we consume our everyday packaged goods.
Make an effort to identify every item that you typically dispose of – paper towels, grocery bags, plastic utensils – and how they might be reused or replaced by something reusable. I bet you'll find it's easier than you might think.
Ashley Craig
Q: Can you tell us where you live now?
A: I live in Los Angeles, California.
Q: What’s one story about how this issue of reuse got in your heart?
A: I think reuse has always been in my heart. My mom was a reuse advocate long before there was even a name for it, and I lived in Europe several times growing up – where there are reuse systems that really work.
Q: What is something we wouldn't know from your LinkedIn profile that might surprise us – and what do you hope to bring to the reuse movement as an Upstream Board member?
A: My LinkedIn profile is full of corporate jobs, and I've worked at seven different big companies during my career. But what's missing is my grassroots volunteer efforts. I've volunteered on several political campaigns, and I'm not afraid to go door-to-door or approach people on the street.
Through this work, I've learned that facts and statistics don't move people to take action, but emotions do. And then it's important to give people answers about how they can get involved, and also provide a community to channel their involvement.
I hope that my passion and dedication to spreading the word about Upstream, along with giving people specific ways to engage in the reuse movement, is something that I can bring to the board.
“... facts and statistics don’t move people to take action, but emotions do.”
Q: What are your New Year "reuse-olutions" or suggestions for others to help make the switch to reuse in 2022?
A: For 2022, my husband and I are going to start renovating our 100 year old home. I very much want to reuse building materials as much as possible, even though I know that often costs money and it also costs more time.
I also want to engage more directly in 2022 with Upstream and reuse efforts, and work with small companies in the reuse space that are looking for investment opportunities.
Rose Stephens-Booker
Q: Can you tell us what you do now and where you live?
A: I am based in the Alexandria, Virginia, area. And currently I serve at the pleasure of the Biden administration at the US Department of Energy.
Q: What’s one story about how this issue of reuse got in your heart?
A: I have a four year old named Ellington. I can vividly remember, as a new mom, being astounded by all that comes with having a newborn, from the many diapers being thrown out to all of the one-use pre-packaged baby food items.
So, halfway through the first year of parenthood, my husband and I looked to figure out how we could cut back on these one-use, pre-made food items, and these one-time travel, pre-sanitized, pre-packaged food delivery devices. We started making things ourselves and buying equipment that allowed us to have this reuse lifestyle for our newborn. And then we rolled with it into other facets of our lives.
We live next to this really amazing organic grocery store and they do a lot of bulk purchasing for some of their dry goods and other things. We just started small, and as it got easier to understand how to make small behavior changes, we expanded that, and started to buy things in bulk and store them in containers in our house.
And we started saving a lot of money and, quite honestly, saving time in the long run. So it really started just by making these small changes in our lives and realizing that it wasn't as mind-blowing or as hard as you would think. It's actually a lot easier.
Truthfully, it's the money-saving potential for families –low-income families, communities of color –who have a lot of these single-use items right at their fingertips. I wanted to figure out and work with organizations that can really start to infuse behavior change by looking at how one can live their lifestyle, and save money and save their time.
“The best way to encourage your own self is to be kind to yourself. And be okay with making a mistake or be okay with learning something.”
Q: What is something we wouldn't know from your LinkedIn profile that might surprise us – and what do you hope to bring to the reuse movement as an Upstream Board member?
A: One thing that will probably surprise everyone is I am a classically trained vocalist. I started singing classical music, or training, back in middle school. I had two loves of my life: one was the environment and fighting climate change and the other was music, music, music.
I have performed on many stages in the US as well as overseas. I think very fondly back on those days of performing and miss it.Once in a while, you can catch me in a community theater project just to keep my chops up, as I like to dabble in musical theater from time to time.
And what do I hope to bring to the reuse movement as an Upstream board member? Well, as a woman of color, I really hope to bring the insights of my childhood life. I was raised by a single mom who didn't have time or energy, or the additional funds, to do the extras to make life easier. It's really hard as a parent – a single parent – and it’s super hard as a Black woman. So with all of these different lived experiences I hope to infuse in the vast expertise that is the Upstream family.
I stand on the shoulders of giants and commend all the folks at Upstream for the energy and the passion and the work they're doing every single day.
Q: What are your New Year "reuse-olutions" or suggestions for others to help make the switch to reuse in 2022?
A: Don't take thyself too seriously, right? I feel like with any new year, we try to hold ourselves accountable and post it on social media. I think the best way to encourage your own self is to be kind to yourself. And be okay with making a mistake or be okay with learning something, as opposed to saying ”I'm going to commit to this.”
I would encourage people – and I'm going to do this for myself for my new year “reuse-olution” – to commit to learning a new type of way of moving through this multi-use space. And not take myself too seriously. And be kind to myself and give myself a lot of grace.
Daniel Velez
Q: Can you tell us what you do now and where you live?
A: I'm the Co-founder and CEO of Growly Delivers in Phoenix, Arizona.
Q: What’s one story about how this issue of reuse got in your hearts?
A: I got really inspired by the milkman model and wanted to figure out a way we can implement that model today with today's technology.
Q: What is something we wouldn't know from your LinkedIn profile that might surprise us – and what do you hope to bring to the reuse movement as an Upstream Board member?
A: One thing about me is that I'm very competitive – I like to play video games and do a lot of things competitively. But video games are nice because you can have a quick session in your living room for 15 minutes, and then go on with your day.
For the reuse movement, I hope to show that the milkman model can be implemented at scale – not just for beer, but for other products, as well. I'm excited to bring that to the world with Growly.
“Pick [a] reuse company and just try them out for a little bit. But just do one at a time because too many at a time will seem overwhelming.”
Q: What are your New Year "reuse-olutions" or suggestions for others to help make the switch to reuse in 2022?
A: If I was giving advice for somebody to go to reuse, I wouldn't try to do it all at one time. I just pick one thing and try to get comfortable with that and then build on that.
If you are in Phoenix, I will tell you to get Growly Delivers. But there are also other national companies doing reuse. So, I would recommend either you try out Bite – they do reusable toothpaste, deodorant and such – or try a company called Blueland, which offers reusable house-cleaning solutions. Or try Loop to get your groceries delivered in reusables.
I would just pick one of those companies – or another reuse company – and just try them out for a little bit. But just do one at a time because too many at a time will seem overwhelming.
Thanks to our new Upstream board members for sharing their stories with us and their reuse insights. We look forward to working with them in 2022 and beyond.
Learn more about our Board of Directors and connect with them on LinkedIn.
Other resources you might like:
New Year, New Solutioneers, New Reuse-olutions (podcast episode #74)
Craft Beer Takes the Reuse Route (with Daniel Velez of Growly) (podcast episode #73)
Reuse To-Go: Innovations in Take-out and Delivery Livestream
