HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:
Three topics, you choose two. You’ll have 30 minutes at two of the three tables. 

Brought to you by OSU Extension Service Lane County

Table Topic 1: Composting for Dollars

Cindy Wise -- (Table Moderator) Compost Specialist Volunteer Coordinator at OSU Extension Service Lane County
Cindy will introduce us to composting and help evaluate various option for handling food and waste in your business. She’ll walk through three examples of ways you can compost, including the pros and cons as well as costs and savings associate with an onsite system, a direct pickup system (connecting individuals with organics to be composted) and a commercial option.

Dave Kayfes -- (Case Study) Master Gardener Compost Specialist
Dave Kayfes will offer his expertise in the direct pickup system and will offer guidance to businesses who are interested in working with this type of composting option. Dave is a former RG sports writer. Dave is a Master Gardener with the OSU Extension Lane County and a Master Gardener Compost Specialist since 2001. Dave volunteers throughout the Lane County Community doing organics recycling and is a passionate advocate of the benefits of composting in the community. Dave was awarded the 2006 Lane County Individual Trashbusters Award for his contributions to organics recycling in the county.

Rodney Bloom --  (Case Study) Operations Coordinator for Gerlinger Hall, UO
Rodney will share his success stories of how he’s helped the Fifth Street Public Market reduce their trash bill and establish a vermicomposting operation on site. He is the Operations Coordinator for Gerlinger Hall on the UO campus. He is a former board member of The Worm Digest, a vermicomposting publication that began in Eugene. He is a recognized expert in the field of vermicomposting and manages the composting operation for FOOD for Lane County's warehouse.

Table Topic 2: Landscaping for your Customers

Ross Penhallegon -- (Moderator) Horticulture Agent, OSU Extension Service in Lane County
With 44 years in agriculture and 26 years with the OSU Extension Service, Ross has a long history of working with Master Gardener volunteers and the commercial horticulture industry. He will talk about planning or renovating a business landscape to help save you time and money.

Mike Kemp -- (Case Study) Owner of Northwest Gardenway
Mike is a commercial landscaper who works with small- and large-scale businesses.  In the past few years, he has seen the need and desire of local business to become more sustainable, use less chemicals and reduce the over-all costs for business in the realm of landscape maintenance.

Georgios Karabinis -- (Case Study) Landscape Business Owner
Owns his own landscaping business.  He works hard to implement sustainable landscape techniques with his business clients.  He will talk about principles of wise watering, taking lawn care to the next level and keeping pests at a minimum.

Table Topic 3: Gardening for your Employees

We will look at how businesses and employees can get involved in a variety of gardening-related projects including: Growing their own food, becoming supporters of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, or growing food for local distribution, including FOOD for Lane County.  

Dorothy Cruickshank -- (Moderator) Master Gardener, Retired Educator of 30 years
Dorothy is a retired educator with 30 years in public education. She continues to remain an integral part of the community through her involvement in various garden groups such as president of the Eugene Garden Club, as chair of a plant NERD night for the past 10 years as well as delivering presentations and workshops around gardening. Dorothy received her undergraduate degree in Education through OSU and her masters in counseling with the UO. 

Donna Berg -- (Case Study) Owner, River of Life and OSU Extension Service Master Gardener 
Donna Berg has been a Master Gardener for many years. She has taken her knowledge from the Master Gardener program and is now implementing these principles successfully into various businesses such as Fifth Street Public Market and the Oakway Mall. She will talk about how vegetables, edible landscape and flowers really have a positive influence in the community and a direct return on business profitability.

Join us for another great GreenLane Sustainable Business Network luncheon where we will meet, greet, share, educate, celebrate and embrace the movers and shakers living, working in and supporting our local economy. We are a network of businesses and non profits who support the triple bottom line approach to business practices. Come see what your GreenLane members of the community are doing to help support our local economy and community!

Come join us for a great opportunity to network with your GreenLane Sustainable Business Members! We will have lunch, tips from one of our GreenLane business members promoting sustainable business practices, a time to introduce ourselves and do some networking, sharing of your wants and needs in the business community, a chance to give kudos to GreenLane businesses who are doing a good job and a speaker presentation from one of our members or a community representative. We encourage guests to come see what we are all about.

Upcoming Events: GreenLane Networking Luncheons & Speakers

March 3rd: Arbor South Architecture- Bill Randall & Dan Hill

March 17: Bell & Funk- David Funk

March 31: Ninkasi Brewery-Nikos Ridge

Join GreenLane for our First Anniversary Party.  If you're interested in sustainability and networking with other local Lane County businesses, please join us!

Food
with food from Wild Duck Catering, beer provided by Ninkasi and Oakshire

Speaker
Tom Osdoba, Director of the UO Center for Sustainable Business Practices

Music
Paul Prince will be performing

If you're a member, and would like to host a table at the event, please email theperkins_4 [at] msn [dot] com (Alan Perkins) for more information.

Special thanks to our sponsors:
Northwest Community Credit Union
Ninkasi and Oakshire

Our first meeting of January 2010 will involve the nominations and elections of a new board of directors along with networking with fellow GreenLane members.

Questions, comments: Kristena Cox, kristena [at] greenlane-sbn [dot] org

The month of May we're meeting at Hole in the Wall BBQ in Springfield.

All members of GreenLane are welcome to attend these events, and to bring guests. Guests are invited to attend twice before being required to become members.

Kristena Cox is the chair of GreenLane's Networking Meetings. During the meetings, each attendee will be given a minute to talk about their business in front of the rest of the group. Afterwards we will have two speakers, who will share their sustainable efforts with the rest of the group. There will also be time for attendees to discuss their sustainability questions/problems with the rest of the group--with networking time at both the beginning and end of the luncheon.

To date, these meetings have been very well attended, very exciting, very dynamic. We hope you will join us to get to know others making sustainability a priority, pass and refer business, and enjoy the company of some very fun folks.

Questions, comments: Kristena Cox, kcox [at] windermere [dot] com