Green Champions

Dominique Hadad & Christy Cook

5.0 (9)
Society & Culture
Weekly

From energy to agriculture, retail to tech — Green Champions tells the stories of real people building sustainable solutions across every industry. Hosted by Dominique Hadad and Christy Cook, each episode provides that progress is already happening and environmental work takes many forms. New episodes every Tuesday.

4d ago

Season 7 Intro - The Conversations We Want to Have

Everyone listening is a sensor in their community. That idea, sparked by last season's conversation about neighborhood air quality sensors, sets the tone as Green Champions opens Season 7. First, a look back at the MORPC partnership: three guests, six episodes, and a peek behind the curtain at how a region moves on greenways, trails, air quality, and its 2050 sustainability plan. There is a thank-you to Brandi Whetstone for helping build the series from the ground up, and an open invitation to any organization with an event worth storytelling alongside. Then the show heads back to its roots: one guest, two episodes, every Tuesday. What follows is a wish list for the season ahead. A lifelong fascination with soil, which started with an out-of-print book called Soil and Civilization, now plays out as construction runoff eroding the ground next door. A Netflix documentary on microplastics, found even in placentas after birth, and a brother who walks into a grocery store and suddenly sees plastic on everything. Then the honest counterpoint, that packaging can keep produce fresh longer, which leaves a real question on the table: are we prioritizing the food's longevity or our health? The conversation closes on lemon groves on the Amalfi Coast, Ohio's trail network, a century ride in the works, and a milestone: this season marks a full first year of the show's current co-hosting team. Episode in a Glance 00:05 Welcome to Season 7 00:21 Looking Back: Three Guests, Six Episodes with MORPC 03:54 Back to One Guest, Two Episodes 04:44 Soil, Erosion, and Why We Are the Sensors 07:33 Microplastics and the Questions We Want Answered 09:47 Lemon Groves, Bike Trails, and a Century Ride Last Season's Green Champions Season 6 partnered with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) around its annual Summit on Sustainability, with two episodes each from: Brandi Whetstone, Director of Sustainability, MORPCJR Diaz-Hernandez, air quality and sustainability, MORPCMelinda Vonstein, Greenways Planning Studio Lead, MORPC Get Involved Hosting an event? Green Champions loves partnering with conferences and events to tell their stories. Reach out if your organization has one.Know someone working on soil, erosion, or water? Or on microplastics and health? Send them our way. We have questions.Notice a problem in your community? You are the sensor. Check your local county for resources to report soil, water, and erosion issues.Reach out to Green Champions → thegreenchampions.com Connect Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.orgCentral Ohio trail map (greenways, paved and unpaved, future connections) → centralohiogreenways.comSummit on Sustainability (October 28): morpc.org/summitonsustainabilityThe Green Champions → thegreenchampions.comSend us a message!
Oct 20

Melinda Vonstein - Greenways, Blueways, and a 1,000-Mile Vision

For most of a decade, a vision for 500 miles of connected trails across Central Ohio got the same reaction: nice idea, no money, we will be long gone before it happens. Then Franklin County voters passed a sales tax, and the math flipped overnight. The region went from spending two to four million dollars a year on sidewalks, bikeways, and trails to sixty million a year, from now on. Melinda Vonstein, the Greenways Planning Studio lead at MORPC, gets to stand up now and tell people the vision that was once too bold is not bold enough. A quarter of it gets built in Franklin County in the next five years. Now comes the payoff to Melinda's story, the work itself. She walks through what a greenway actually is and why the ones here are fully separated from traffic, the kind of trail where you can ride from North Broadway to downtown and not pass a single car. She makes the case for treating a trail as a living ecosystem, funding the trees and the invasive removal up front instead of leaning on volunteers after the fact, and shows how native roots turn a yard, or a trailway, into a flood sponge. She opens up the newer work too: blueways and a growing kayaking culture, and Trail Towns, a five-community program with Experience Columbus that gives each town its own trail lore, walking routes, Spotify playlists, and artist-made badges. And she is honest about the limit of all of it. Biking to work is only the best choice if you happen to live and work in exactly the right place, so her real job is pushing local governments to build places where that choice is safe for everyone. Episode in a glance 00:05 What a Greenway Actually Is 03:29 From "Too Bold" to $60 Million a Year 07:21 Fund the Trees, Not Just the Pavement 11:11 Native Roots and the Rise of Blueways 20:29 Trail Towns: Badges, Playlists, and Local Lore 22:21 The New Bike Map, and Where to Start Riding" About Melinda Vonstein Melinda Vonstein is the Greenways Planning Studio lead at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), where she works to plan and expand Central Ohio's greenways and strengthen connections between communities across the region. She holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and a master's in city and regional planning. Before MORPC she managed the wayfinding program for the Ohio State University hospitals, and she worked at the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), where she supported service planning during the largest transit system redesign in the agency's history, relocating thousands of bus stops. At MORPC she leads planning for Central Ohio Greenways, a network of more than 400 miles of trails with a vision for 1,000 miles of connected regional trails across a 15-county region, and she speaks at the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with Melinda Vonstein and her work Melinda Vonstein on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/melinda-vonstein-986066106Central Ohio Greenways → centralohiogreenways.comCentral Ohio Greenways Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/centralohiogreenways/Central Ohio Greenways Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/centralohiogreenways/Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.orgSummit on Sustainability (October 28): morpc.org/summitonsustainabilitySend us a message!
Oct 13

Melinda Vonstein - From Rollerblades to Regional Trails

Melinda Vonstein leads the Greenways Planning Studio at MORPC, where she plans and expands Central Ohio's network of trails and works to connect communities across the region. Her origin story starts with a broken glass table. When it shattered in her backyard a little over a decade ago, her family dug up the grass instead of cleaning up the mess, built a patio, and never really stopped digging. A casual hobby turned into about an eighth of an acre of intentional ecosystem: grapevines overhead, kiwi berries, gooseberries and other berries with whimsical names, a pond with fish, and enough fruit to make a year of jam for a family of five. One season she raised quail, and a hawk showed up to circle the yard and keep the rabbits out. She does not really call it a garden anymore. She calls it an ecosystem. That instinct to see everything as connected is the throughline of her whole career. She grew up near a trail network in Dayton, rollerblading everywhere and riding the city bus downtown long before she thought of it as her ticket to freedom. An architecture degree pushed her to think past single buildings toward how people actually move through a place, which led to a master's in city and regional planning, a first job running wayfinding for Ohio State's hospitals, and a role helping COTA relocate thousands of bus stops in the largest transit redesign in its history. Land use, public space, trees, buses, and people are one system to her, the same way her backyard is. It is why she can look at a paved trail and see a living network, and why the work of building Central Ohio's greenways landed so naturally in her hands. Episode in a glance 00:05 Meet Melinda Vonstein, MORPC's Greenways Lead 03:56 The Year a Hawk Guarded Her Garden 07:54 Rollerblades and the Bus That Set Her Free 10:42 Why Installing a Sign Never Fixes Anything 14:16 The Largest Bus Overhaul in COTA's History" 17:59 400 Miles of Trails, and a Ride From Cleveland to Cincinnati About Melinda Vonstein Melinda Vonstein is the Greenways Planning Studio lead at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), where she works to plan and expand Central Ohio's greenways and strengthen connections between communities across the region. She holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and a master's in city and regional planning. Before MORPC she managed the wayfinding program for the Ohio State University hospitals, and she worked at the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), where she supported service planning during the largest transit system redesign in the agency's history, relocating thousands of bus stops. At MORPC she leads planning for Central Ohio Greenways, a network of more than 400 miles of trails with a vision for 1,000 miles of connected regional trails across a 15-county region, and she speaks at the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with Melinda Vonstein and her work Melinda Vonstein on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/melinda-vonstein-986066106Central Ohio Greenways → centralohiogreenways.comCentral Ohio Greenways Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/centralohiogreenways/Central Ohio Greenways Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/centralohiogreenways/Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.orgSummit on Sustainability (October 28): morpc.org/summitonsustainabilitySend us a message!
Oct 6

JR Diaz-Hernandez - Did You Breathe Air Today?

The EPA can call it a good air quality day while your own street tells a different story. Residents across Franklin County kept saying exactly that, and it is why MORPC built the Community-Led Enhanced Air Quality Network, a set of sensors roughly the size of a baseball that plug into an outlet, find the Wi-Fi, and publish their readings where anyone can look them up. JR Diaz-Hernandez runs that work as MORPC's air quality and sustainability program manager, along with the daily forecasts and the alerts that go out when the air turns orange or worse. He walks through the scale that runs green to maroon, the site that will tell you your ZIP code's air right now, and why any of these rules exist at all, which traces back to Ohio and a river that caught fire. Three years of block-by-block monitoring produced terabytes of data and one uncomfortable finding. A pocket of Franklin County carries double to quadruple the particulate matter of the rest of the county, and the sensors were barely reaching it. He unpacks what the patterns mean, from the 8am and 6pm traffic peaks to the 3am spikes nobody can explain yet, and why he calls the sensors empowerment tools instead of evidence. MORPC holds no enforcement power, so the whole model runs on putting something in a resident's hands that they can carry to the EPA themselves. The project also produced a step-by-step workbook and a sensor lending library so any community can copy it. Then come the things anyone can do this week: carpool through Gohio Commute, bike the trail system, swap a gas mower for an electric one, weatherize the house. Not the big actions, the little ones. He is also on the roster at this year's Summit on Sustainability, and he closes on the idea his whole career runs on. Look out for yourself, and look out for the people around you. Episode in a glance 00:05 The Scale That Runs Green to Maroon 05:03 The Day It Hurt to Breathe in Central Ohio 09:49 When the EPA Says Green and Your Block Says Otherwise 15:15 The Pollution Spikes at 3AM Nobody Can Explain 19:13 What One Person Can Actually Do About It 23:05 Look Out for the People Around You About JR Diaz-Hernandez Mauro "JR" Diaz-Hernandez is the air quality and sustainability program manager at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), where he works to protect public health and improve air quality across Central Ohio through daily forecasting and alerts, neighborhood-level air monitoring, and sustainability programming with partners across the region. Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, he was the first in his family to go to college, earning degrees in anthropology and sociology from Amherst College and later a master's in public health from the University of Connecticut. Before MORPC he worked with the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program, helped low income and first generation students get into and through college, and served as program administrator for the Center on Climate Change and Health at the Yale School of Public Health. He has volunteered as an EMT with the Mystic River Ambulance Association, worked with therapy horses, and taught at a nature center. He leads MORPC's Community-Led Enhanced Air Quality Network (CLEAN) and speaks at the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with JR Diaz-Hernandez and his work with MORPC JR Diaz-Hernandez on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/maurodiazhernandez/MORPC air quality programs, including forecasts, alerts, and neighborhood monitoring → morpc.org/airqualityEmail JR directly → airquality@morpc.orgMid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.orgSummit on Sustainability → morpc.org/summitSend us a message!
Sep 29

JR Diaz-Hernandez - The World's Too Big of a Place to Be Bored

JR Diaz-Hernandez goes by the initials of two men. The J is his great-grandfather. The R is Roberto, the grandfather who helped raise him through his first nine years. He is now the air quality and sustainability program manager at MORPC, protecting public health across Central Ohio through forecasting, alerts, and neighborhood-level air monitoring. It started in Oak Cliff, a Dallas neighborhood where everything he needed sat within walking distance, where a Salvadoran family sold pupusas two for a dollar half a block from his elementary school, and where neighbors kept getting priced out one by one. He had no word for walkable yet, and no word for displacement. He just noticed people leaving. Low income and the first in his family to go to college, he bounced between majors at Amherst until he sat in a library and thought, if only there was a field of study that studied people. Anthropology and environmental sociology handed him the vocabulary for what he had already lived: why the affordable houses in his city sat closest to the airport and the municipal dump, and why fishing families could describe a changing climate long before any report reached them. He spent six years earning a master's in public health while working full time and riding as a volunteer EMT, built guitars and canoes in the gaps, and landed in Ohio because his partner chose Ohio State. Then came the MORPC job that was never advertised. Every turn in the story comes back to people, which is the common thread he names himself, and he carries it to this year's Summit on Sustainability with a PechaKucha talk about something most adults have quietly stopped doing, which is going outside to play. Ask him why any of it matters and he answers with a question of his own. Did you breathe air today? Episode in a glance 00:05 The Two Grandfathers Behind the Initials 06:57 The Louisiana Site That Vanished Under Water 11:15 Why the Affordable Houses Were Closest to the Dump 14:16 The World's Too Big of a Place to Be Bored 17:59 The Job That Was Never Advertised About JR Diaz-Hernandez Mauro "JR" Diaz-Hernandez is the air quality and sustainability program manager at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), where he works to protect public health and improve air quality across Central Ohio through daily forecasting and alerts, neighborhood-level air monitoring, and sustainability programming with partners across the region. Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, he was the first in his family to go to college, earning degrees in anthropology and sociology from Amherst College and later a master's in public health from the University of Connecticut. Before MORPC he worked with the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program, helped low income and first generation students get into and through college, and served as program administrator for the Center on Climate Change and Health at the Yale School of Public Health. He has volunteered as an EMT with the Mystic River Ambulance Association, worked with therapy horses, and taught at a nature center. He leads MORPC's Community-Led Enhanced Air Quality Network (CLEAN) and speaks at the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with JR Diaz-Hernandez and his work with MORPC JR Diaz-Hernandez on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/maurodiazhernandez/MORPC air quality programs, including forecasts, alerts, and neighborhood monitoring → morpc.org/airqualityEmail JR directly → airquality@morpc.orgMid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.orgSummit on Sustainability → morpc.org/summitSend us a message!
Sep 22

Brandi Whetstone - Steal This Playbook for a Sustainable 2050

For some communities, the word "sustainability" itself is the hurdle, tangled up in politics and easy to dismiss before the real work even starts. Brandi Whetstone spends her days getting past that. As director of sustainability at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, she runs Sustainable2050, the framework that has 39 communities, from small villages to the City of Columbus, moving toward the same healthier, more livable future. The trick is not a louder argument. It is meeting people where they are and showing them they are already halfway there. The second half of the MORPC miniseries gets into the machinery. A Regional Sustainability Agenda, refreshed every four years and adopted by a board of more than 100 people. A bronze-to-platinum ladder that turns going green into a friendly competition between towns. Everyday wins most people never think to call sustainability, like composting programs, tree canopy plans, and sidewalks that make it easier to leave the car at home. The standout is Mount Vernon, a skeptical community that dropped the politics, reframed the work around saving money and quality of life, and built real momentum from there. It all builds toward the Summit on Sustainability, now in its 20th year, and a keynote from Happy City author Charles Montgomery that ties the season's Common Thread theme together. Episode in a Glance 00:00 Inside the Job of Keeping a Region Sustainable 05:14 Why 2050? The Framework Behind Sustainable2050 10:04 From Bronze to Platinum: Sustainability You Can Measure 14:54 When Sustainability Is a Hard Sell: The Mount Vernon Story 18:45 What Any Community Can Borrow From MORPC 20:59 Inside the Summit on Sustainability About Brandi Whetstone Brandi Whetstone is the director of sustainability at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), a regional organization that brings Central Ohio communities together to share best practices and plan for the region's growth and sustainability. A native Ohioan from Bryan, she studied environmental policy and analysis alongside political science and government at Bowling Green State University. Before MORPC, she organized communities with Ohio Citizen Action, led the Buckeye Forest Council as its executive director, and worked on water quality with the Sierra Club. Over 16 years at MORPC she has grown from outreach specialist to director of sustainability, where she leads the region's sustainability initiatives and helps produce the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with Brandi Whetstone and her work with MORPC Brandi Whetstone on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandiwhetstone Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.org Summit on Sustainability (register, it tends to sell out) → morpc.org/summit Send us a message!
Sep 15

Brandi Whetstone - From a Toy-Factory Town to MORPC

Brandi Whetstone is the director of sustainability at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, where she has spent 16 years helping Central Ohio communities plan for a healthier, more livable future. The MORPC miniseries opens by tracing how a kid from Bryan, Ohio turned a childhood of bikes, backyard kickball, and fishing trips with her dad into a career spent protecting the places people love. Her hometown happens to be the birthplace of the Etch A Sketch and Dum Dum Pops, but it was the parks, the woods, and the field at the end of the street that shaped her. Those early roots in the outdoors became the through-line for everything that followed. From college radio DJ to environmental policy student to community organizer knocking on doors near an oil refinery, Brandi kept following the same thread: give people a voice, and use strength in numbers to bring about real change. That thread runs through her leap to lead a small forestry nonprofit, her car-free move to Columbus by bike, and her rise from outreach specialist to director of sustainability at MORPC. The conversation draws out the lived experience behind the work while pressing on how a childhood spent outdoors becomes a career designing sustainable communities. It is also a warm introduction to the Summit on Sustainability, MORPC's annual gathering built around this year's fitting theme, Common Thread. Episode in a Glance 00:00 Kicking Off the MORPC Miniseries 04:40 From College Radio DJ to Environmental Policy 09:53 The Oil Refinery Day That Made It Personal 13:18 Taking the Leap at Buckeye Forest Council 17:00 Finding MORPC and Never Looking Back 21:19 What to Expect at the Summit on Sustainability About Brandi Whetstone Brandi Whetstone is the director of sustainability at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), a regional organization that brings Central Ohio communities together to share best practices and plan for the region's growth and sustainability. A native Ohioan from Bryan, she studied environmental policy and analysis alongside political science and government at Bowling Green State University. Before MORPC, she organized communities with Ohio Citizen Action, led the Buckeye Forest Council as its executive director, and worked on water quality with the Sierra Club. Over 16 years at MORPC she has grown from outreach specialist to director of sustainability, where she leads the region's sustainability initiatives and helps produce the annual Summit on Sustainability. Connect with Brandi Whetstone and her work with MORPC Brandi Whetstone on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandiwhetstone Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission → morpc.org Summit on Sustainability (register, it tends to sell out) → morpc.org/summit Send us a message!
Sep 8

Season 5 Wrap-Up - The Conversations That Stuck With Us

Season 5 closes the way the best conversations do, by looking back at who was in the room. This wrap-up gathers the guests, the surprises, and the moments that stuck, and it marks a first: the season that welcomed a new co-host to the show. What comes through is how often an interview stopped being an interview. The real turn is the moment a guest feels seen and the pressure drops away, and suddenly everyone is just talking. The season gets replayed through its people. Nancy Zavada of MeetGreen, still trying to get freezer strawberry jam into the right hands. Vin Valentino, who could drop an F-bomb and still make a complex idea land in a single a-ha. Jake Kheel, whose island world of coral, indigenous history, and invasive sargassum turned a problem word into a resource. Andrew Shakman and his spreadsheets. Angela Huffman on food systems and the change they need. Josh Lloyd on the hidden logic behind how things get built. The season also hands out its own superlatives, before turning to what comes next. Season 6 keeps both hosts and moves the show into a conference partnership. Green Champions is teaming up with MORPC, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, based in Columbus, Ohio, around the event it hosts each fall. The gathering is about how communities plan their shared spaces for better systems, from transit and pathways to the local economy and even the political sides of the conversation. Across the season the show will spotlight key voices heading to the conference and capture what happens there in Green Champions style. Send us a message!

5

out of 5

9 Ratings

From energy to agriculture, retail to tech — Green Champions tells the stories of real people building sustainable solutions across every industry. Hosted by Dominique Hadad and Christy Cook, each episode provides that progress is already happening and environmental work takes many forms. New episodes every Tuesday.

Creator

Dominique Hadad & Christy Cook
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

137
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 Green Champions
Show Website

Green Champions