Welcome to Arkansas Clean Cities!

I'm excited to be welcoming you to the Arkansas Clean Cities Coalition and to be serving as the Coalition's Coordinator.

My name is Karen McSpadden, and I'm a Program Officer at Winrock International. As an extremely short introduction, I'm a Chemical Engineer with a long-time interest in clean energy and renewable fuels. I'm also an MBA who is fascinated with entrepreneurs and technology commercialization. In addition to serving you as Clean Cities Coordinator, I also work with Winrock's Innovate Arkansas program and other Winrock renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives.

While I am extremely excited to work with Clean Cities, you might have guessed that it is not anywhere close to my full-time job! So, I am approaching this role as a facilitator, resource, cheerleader and promoter for all of you: stakeholders working on the ground to advance alternative fuels, fuel economy, and alternative transportation measures in Arkansas! Whether you're a fleet manager, biofuel producer, policy-maker or bus rider, there is a place for you in the Coalition. We welcome you and need your participation!

The goal of Clean Cities is petroleum reduction in the transportation sector, and our success will be measured by the number of gallons of petroleum fuel we reduce each year (I actually have to come up with a number and report it to the Department of Energy!). So, our primary focus will be on achieving results through active projects within the state.

What those projects are is yet to be determined. Your interests and excitement will help determine where our Coalition will focus its energies. As a first step, please join us on August 26th in Little Rock for our first stakeholder meeting as a statewide Coalition. And, please participate in the discussions on this on-line community to engage and help move Arkansas forward toward reducing our reliance on petroleum!

Thank you for your interest, and I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work with you!