Tia Nelson directs the Outrider Foundation’s climate program. She is internationally recognized as a champion for environmental stewardship and climate change education. She spent 17 years with The Nature Conservancy in government relations, as a policy advisor for Latin America, and later as the first director of the Global Climate Change Initiative. For this work, she received the EPA’s Climate Protection Award in 2000. Tia returned home to Wisconsin to serve as Executive Secretary to the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which included a gubernatorial appointment as co‐chair of Wisconsin’s Task Force on Global Warming. She is the daughter of Gaylord Nelson, former Wisconsin Governor, Senator, and founder of Earth Day.