Leadership Bios

Charles Szoradi, President GREENandSAVE

Charlie brings multiple decades of hands on experience to the culture of sustainable living and cost-savings for property design and remodeling. He focuses on ‘high performance’ architecture, and in the early 90s, he wrote his Masters of Architecture thesis on sustainable design, entitled ‘Eco-Humanism’. He is a LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Accredited Professional) and he has taken an eco-leadership role at the national and regional level. In 2009, Charlie was elected to the Board of the Sustainable Business Network and selected as a member of the Green Economy Task Force, with direct participation on the Capitol Hill Delegation. Charlie is the founder and President of GREENandSAVE, which was chosen as one of the finalists of the Sustainability Awards, and he also serves as the Chief Instructor of the company’s Eco Academy. From the cover profile of Inventors Digest Magazine to the Energy Expert for US Magazine, Charlie has simply dedicated his career to green innovation.

Charlie was inspired by the potential of environmentally sensitive architecture to become accessible to mainstream Americans. Rather than just defaulting to techniques from 1970s technology and aesthetics, he created a platform to produce active/passive integrated systems. The design solutions focus on function, style, significant cost-savings, and environmental sustainability. Charlie encourages the adaptive re-use of existing structures and materials, all while maintaining an overall aesthetic that appeals to the traditional as well as contemporary aesthetics. Charlie, his wife Cynthia, and their son have recently completed the transformation of a formerly in-efficient 1950s residence that they were able to ‘re-use’ and transform rather than tear down. The home focuses on saving money as well as the environment, and it is one of the most energy efficient homes in America.

Charlie is a sought-after thought leader and speaker on adaptive re-use and sustainable design with appearances at a diverse range of leading institutions such as the Green Building Council, Brain Reserve Think Tank, and the Wharton Business School. He has served over multiple years as the Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts, where he has created programs such as Urbitec, which focus on innovative product design through recycling and re-use. He has also been featured in a documentary film that received the Director's Award at the Black Mariah Film Festival. The film specifically profiles his vision and follows the process of adaptive re-use in converting a massive 22,000 square foot abandoned church complex into a mixed use residential and commercial property. Charlie has also served as a consultant to the Philadelphia Office of Recycling across multiple years. He created the education kiosk program and the website as the cornerstone of the interactive marketing initiative.

Charlie conceived and produced a pilot Eco-Culture/Recycling show “Fix the Hut” in 1994. The show was the culmination of over twenty-five interview segments shot across the country over a two-year period. The show focused specifically on people that had created innovative habitats, furniture, fashion, and lifestyles related to adaptive re-use and environmental sustainability. This interest in communicating through eco-education programs, speaking engagements, and media has coincided with Charlie’s ongoing work in architecture and real estate development. Charlie has purchased over 200,000 sq. ft. of urban space that he has had a hand in converting from ‘left for ruin’ factories, warehouses, and schools into mixed-use residential and commercial property. Transforming neighborhoods and salvaging urban landscape has been an integral part of overall sustainability in his career.

Charlie’s early inspiration to focus on sustainability came at the end of the 1970s when he sat at a young age in a gas line with his Dad during the gas crisis. His father, who is also an architect, introduced him to colleagues that were then pioneering active and passive solar powered houses. He learned that Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House, and Charlie teamed up with two friends at St. Albans School for Boys and proceeded to build ‘Omega – The Boat of the Future’ and subsequently won the Grade School Science Fair Popular Prize with the solar powered ship. Years later, major influences have also included working in Northern California’s bay area, working in Japan for the celebrated eco-architect Kenya Maruyama, living in Eastern Europe hubs like Budapest and Prague, and rural villages and Amish communities that rely almost exclusively on sustainable living practices.

Over his academic and professional career, Charlie has traveled extensively throughout Asia, Africa, Central and North America, and Central and Eastern Europe, where he has studied specifically how people build cost-effective and environmentally sensitive homes and communities. Charlie grew up in Washington, DC and graduated from St. Albans School for Boys. He then earned his undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia and went on to earn a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Charlie is a registered architect and currently lives in Greater Philadelphia with his wife and son in their self-sustaining home that inspired the development of ‘GREENandSAVE’.

Catherine Swan, Executive Director

Catherine has more than twenty-three years of experience in fundraising, program development and management and strategic planning, and community outreach working for corporate and non-profit organizations. GREENandSAVE believes that it is key is to stay connected to the products and service providers that can help American Save money and the environment but also the non-profit organizations and associations that play such an increasingly active role in shaping the new Green Economy. She has most recently served as the Executive Director of Green Valleys Association. She has managed programs and government contracts pertaining to land use management, watershed management and pollution prevention, including a twelve-year span of work in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. Her background includes developing national and regional environmental action plans in Africa and Russia, and annual strategic plans for companies. She has led business development efforts, including proposal teams for contracts ranging from $2 to $8 million. Catherine received training in mediation techniques from the Center for Dispute Settlement in Washington, D.C. Catherine brings a wealth of life experience to GREENandSAVE that provides outstanding perspective from such a committed career to sustainability. She has served as the Executive Director, Green Valleys Association, Pottstown, PA; Technical and managerial support to The World Bank and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).; Geographic Information Service (GIS) analyst for the MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, Annapolis, MD; Project Manager for the African and Central and Eastern European Regions CHEMONICS INTERNATIONAL INC., Washington, DC; Environmental Policy Analyst WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE, Washington, DC; Trade and Investment Specialist DAC INTERNATIONAL, Washington, DC; Fund Raiser and Publications Manager for CARE, Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY; Assistant Curator for THE BALCH INSTITUTE FOR ETHNIC STUDIES, Philadelphia, PA; Community Development Coordinator U.S. PEACE CORPS, Cameroon, Africa; Exhibition Manager for THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, Philadelphia, PA

Steve Clark, Energy Auditing and Building Science

Steve supports GREENandSAVE's long term goals to drive the new green economy with innovations in property efficiency and renewable energy. Mr. Clark has significant experience in Biotechnology, Electrical Engineering, Project Management, Applied Physics & Statistics to promote renewable, economically feasible energy initiatives.

Steve holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, an MS in Electrophysics from Polytechnic in New York, and a PhD in Biophysics from UC Berkley in California. Steve holds dual Certifications for Energy Auditing from the Building Performance Institute (BPI) and the Residential energy Service Network (RESNET).

Sean Darras, Director of Eco Academy Services

While obtaining his Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Delaware, Sean held positions with a large deck builder, a missile defense company, and a sustainable real estate developer. After graduation Mr. Darras worked as a full-time Project Engineer at one of Philadelphia's largest energy companies, where he was routinely responsible for the successful execution of multi-million dollar projects. Following a great interest in the new Green Economy, Sean joined GREENandSAVE in April of 2009 after successfully completing the GREENandSAVE Certified Home Efficiency Consulting program along with the RESNET Certified Energy Auditor program. Sean has gone on to also achieve certification from BPI and earn LEED AP status. As a skilled craftsman and a mechanical engineer, Sean brings a deep understanding of the unique requirements necessary to differentiate a building project from a Green building project. At GREENandSAVE Sean is responsible for the successful matriculation of every student that enters the Eco Academy program as well as other key support services as they relate to the Optimization Services Group.

Vivi Gorman, Director of Research and Green News

Vivi heads up the GREENandSAVE team of researchers and writers. Given the dynamically changing nature of the new Green Economy, GREENandSAVE is committed to constantly monitoring the trends in product development, service tactics for energy savings, and socio-political national and international legislation and trends. Our research and daily news content is so well respected that in 2009 GREENandSAVE was selected by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to serve as their Strategic Partner to provide news and Return on Investment Data to support the ‘Green Designees’ and their Green ReSource Council. NAR currently serves over one million real estate agents and brokers, so this outreach is part of changing the inertia within such a key industry of property influencers. In 2009 GREENandSAVE was also approved as one of only two ‘Green’ trusted feed content providers to Google, which reaches millions of homeowners across the US and the world. Staying on top of the evolving green industry and serving as an eye-in-the-sky benefits the visitors to GREENandSAVE.com, the property owners that are served through Home and Office Efficiency Checkups, and the Consultants that are trained though the Eco Academy.