The policies and programs of GEE-21 are recommended by the President and subject to the approval of the honorary Board of Directors of the organization. This is a distinguished group of persons from Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, and other countries (at present Australia, China, Germany, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom). Short biographies of the Directors and Officers are provided below.
GEE-21 Officers
Mr. Richard A. Figliuzzi, Jr. is GEE-21 President and CEO of the Hawai’i-based Integrated Energy Systems, LLC., involved in the development of distributed alternative energy generation for Hawai’i including commercial scale solar PV and biomass-to-energy. He has been serving as VP and Director of UNAUSA-Hawaii Division.
Dr. Gerald Marten is Vice President and an Affiliate Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center. He is the Founder and leader of a project on Eco Tipping Points, which has developed and disseminated innovative strategies for environmental sustainability. Prior to returning to Hawaii, Gerald Marten served as a Professor in the School of Policy Studies at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, and as a Research Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans. He was formerly a Research Associate in the Environment and Policy Institute of the East-West Center from 1979 to 1987. Dr. Marten has also undertaken research and teaching in several countries, including Canada, Mexico, Kenya, Costa Rica, Honduras, Malaysia, and Vietnam. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California in Los Angeles, and a doctorate in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Gundolf H. Kohlmaier is Vice president (International), and Professor for Theoretical and Physical Chemistry at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfur/Main (Germany). He served on the Board of Directors of the Center of Environmental Studies at the University for twenty years. He has been a visiting Professor at several academic institutions, including the University of California, Berkely; the Scipps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; the University of Paris, Orsay; the Australian National University; the Center for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Kohlmaier's current research interests include strategies for sequestering carbon dioxide in natural systems; political implementations of a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol; and a comparison of the climate strategies of the European Union and the six Asia Pacific Partnership countries.
Ms. Ulrike Siddiqi, is the Treasurer/Secretary of GEE-21. She holds an MBA degree from the University of Hawaii and was President of Europa Holdings, Inc. (1990-2004). Ms. Siddiqi has been active in a number of volunteer organizations in Hawaii. She served in various capacities on the Board of the Alumni Association of the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii. She is Past President of the Hawaii Chapter of the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association (PPSEAWA) and currently serves as Treasurer on the PPSEAWA International Council (2007-2010).
Dr. Toufiq A. Siddiqi is Chairman of the Board of GEE-21, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii. He is also an Affiliate Graduate Faculty in the Geography Department of the University of Hawaii. Dr. Siddiqi was the Regional Advisor on Energy at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). For the preceding 18 years, he worked at the East - West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, in several capacities, finally as Senior Fellow. He initiated in 1979 a Program on The Environmental Dimensions of Energy Policies, possibly the first one in Asia and the Pacific dealing with the linkages between energy and environmental concerns. Dr. Siddiqi is a Past-President of the Hawaii Academy of Science. He was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and has served as a Consultant to several agencies of the United Nations system, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Dr. Siddiqi has published extensively on Energy Policy, Climate Change, and other environmental issues.
GEE-21 Directors
Dr. David Cope is Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, the United Kingdom. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the UK Center for Economic and Environmental Development, and as the Environmental Team Leader for the International Energy Agency. In 1996, he was appointed Professor of Energy Economic at Doshisha University in Japan, and developed that University’s international program in energy and resource economics. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and of the London School of Economics. Dr. Cope is, inter alia, a senior member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and of the Academy of Social sciences.
Amy Funk is an Air Project Specialist at the University of Illinois, and Planning Commissioner for the city of Fairview Height in Illinois. She is a co-founder of Local Earth Advocates, and organization that helps get local government support for the globally recognized “Earth Hour”. While living in Honolulu, Ms. Funk worked for GEE-21 on its Carnegie Foundation sponsored project on Water Security in South Asia. Ms. Funk has a Master’s Degree in Administration from Central Michigan University and a B.S. degree in Environmental Science and Management from Indiana University. She is the recipient of several awards from volunteer organizations covering environmental and community issues.
Ms. Anukriti (Anu) Hittle is the State's Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Coordinator, based at the DLNR. She is an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center, and specializes in climate change policy and global governance issues. She has led Washington University in St Louis' observer delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since 2014. Her research papers, media articles and appearances can be found at anuhittle.wordpress.com. She has a Master's in International Relations from Columbia University in New York, and a Master's in Forest Resource Management from Duke University.
Dr. Jack P. Suyderhoud is past president of GEE-21, and retired Professor of Business Economics at the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University, Indiana, and has published in a number of scholarly journals. He served as the Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration for four years (1996-2000). Dr. Suyderhoud has won a number of teaching and service awards, and has been teaching in the Shidler College of Business MBA programs in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and France. He also is currently administrating the College's Executive MBA Program in Vietnam.