Utah Keynote Speakers

Cheryl Charles

Cheryl Charles is an innovator, educator, author and organizational executive. Throughout her career, she has been recognized for her leadership, collaboration and communications skills.

Since 1978, Cheryl has been Owner and Managing Partner of Hawksong Associates, a consulting firm specializing in innovation and educational program development with emphases on interdisciplinary curricula and diffusion of innovation.

For close to 20 years, Cheryl served as National Director of the two most widely used environment education programs in North America for K-12 educators, Project Learning Tree and Project WILD, receiving numerous awards for her leadership. She currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board to the National Conservation Learning Summit, held near Washington, DC in November of 2005, and is helping to guide the Summit's five-year Implementation Plan for a New Conservation Agenda. She moderated the Summit's Conservation Challenge: A Re-Commitment to the Future, a special event convened by the Paul F. Brandwein Institute at the National Press Club in Washington DC on April 24, 2006. In 2006 she helped to launch a new campaign, Leave No Child Inside, inspired by Richard Louv book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. The campaign is an initiative of a new non-profit, co-founded with Richard Louv and others, the Children and Nature Network. Cheryl is one of the founding directors and serves as its President and CEO.

She is also a member of the World Conservation Union's (www.iucn.org) Commission on Education and Communication, and Co-Chair of the IUCN's Education for Sustainable Development Working Group.

Among her community service activities, Cheryl served as a member of the Windstar Foundation Board of Trustees from 1987 until 2002, and as CEO and Chair of the Board of Trustees for six years. The Windstar Foundation is a non-profit educational organization founded by entertainer John Denver and educator Tom Crum. She also co-founded theWindstar Land Conservancy, to conserve and manage for educational and scientific purposes a 1000-acre property in the high country of Colorado. She served as President and CEO of the Conservancy from 1995 to 2002.

Cheryl also co-founded, with Beth and Charles Miller, the non-profit think tank, the Center for the Study of Community, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and served as a Board Member and CEO from 1993 until 2000. She served also from 1991 until 2000 as President and CEO of the Sol y Sombra Foundation, a private operating foundation focused on sustainability. She served for four years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation in Albuquerque. From 2002 to the summer of 2005, Cheryl served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Business Incubator, a non-profit organization dedicated to entrepreneurship and economic development.

Cheryl is author, editor and designer of a wide variety of publications including books, articles, educational materials, and monographs. Her most recent book, co-authored with her husband, Bob Samples, is Coming Home: Community, Creativity and Consciousness (Personhood Press, 2004). She has been listed for many years in the Marquis Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the West. Cheryl has taught at the elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels; has given hundreds of public presentations and scores of keynote addresses; and has facilitated a wide variety of civic, business and educational meetings on a range of topics from developing community leadership to improving educational systems.

Since 1997, Cheryl has worked in a senior role at the national level in the financial services sector. Cheryl Charles is Senior Vice President of Communications, Research and Strategic Planning for BITS, The Business and Technology Group for The Financial Services Roundtable. BITS is a non-profit industry consortium of 100 of the largest financial institutions in the United States. BITS works as a strategic brain trust to provide intellectual capital and address emerging issues where financial services, technology and commerce intersect, acting quickly to address problems and galvanize the industry. Cheryl manages all communications for BITS-including media relations and publications. She has managed BITS' work related to privacy of consumer information since 1997, including BITS' research and educational efforts related to prevention of identity theft.

Cheryl also served from 1996 to 2001 as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for The Santa Fe Group, a New Mexico based firm specializing in strategic consulting services in the areas of emerging technologies, innovation, partnerships and alliances. She is currently a senior advisor and consultant to The Santa Fe Group.

Cheryl holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona, an M.A. from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She has been married to her husband, Bob Samples, for 32 years. They have one son, Stician Samples, of Brattleboro, Vermont.