Join Friends of Merrymeeting Bay (FOMB) on Wednesday, April 13, 7pm in Kresge Auditorium, located in the Visual Arts Building at Brunswick’s Bowdoin College, for the 7th presentation of their 14th annual Winter Speaker Series. This program, “Green Business: Doing Well by Doing Good” features Gary Hirshberg, President & CE-YO of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt and is co-sponsored by the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Department.

There is no shortage of companies making money, or trying to, the old-fashioned “bloodthirsty” way never letting silly things like scruples or ethics stop them. Many of us argue, this business-as-usual practice is a one way race to the bottom. In order to survive, in more ways than one, we quite literally must change the way we are doing business. Increased sustainability in what we manufacture, consume and overall in how we live on our ever-shrinking island must become the norm as our impacts continue to grow.
 
Ahead of his time, Gary Hirshberg has led the way in merging business with social responsibility. Since 1983, Gary has overseen Stonyfield’s phenomenal growth, from its infancy as a seven-cow organic farming school to its current $360 million in annual sales. Stonyfield has enjoyed a compounded annual growth rate of over 24% for more than eighteen years, by consistently producing great-tasting products and using innovative marketing techniques that blend the company’s social, environmental, and financial missions. In 2001, Stonyfield Farm entered into a partnership with Groupe Danone, and in 2005, Gary was named managing director of Stonyfield Europe, a joint venture between the two firms with brands in Canada, Ireland, and France.
 
Before casting his lot with cows and becoming CE-YO of the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, Hirshberg directed the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school from which Stonyfield was spawned. Before that, Gary had served as executive director of The New Alchemy Institute – a research and education center dedicated to organic farming, aquaculture, and renewable energy. Prior positions include serving as a water-pumping windmill specialist and an environmental education director with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He has authored books on wind-power and organic gardening and is author of the best selling: Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World(Hyperion Books, 2008).

In addition to receiving eight honorary doctorates, Gary has won numerous awards his corporate and environmental leadership.
 
The FOMB Winter Speaker Series takes place monthly from October-May on the second Wednesday. The series, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Friends of Merrymeeting Bay with support and valuable door prizes from Patagonia Outlet in Freeport. The last FOMB presentation of this season at 7 pm on May 11 in Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library will be: “Fish Friendly Turbines?” featuring Dr. Alexander Gorlov Ph.D, Professor Emeritus from Northeastern University, inventor of the Gorlov Helical Turbine and one of only three nominees for the 2011 European Inventor Award in the non-European class.

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Part 1

 

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Part 2