Our Team

Lenwood I. Coleman is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in: federal, state, private sector partnerships and community development. Mr. Coleman has served in various leadership positions throughout his career in community focused organizations: Legacy Foundation Non-Profit, Prolific Solutions LLC, South West Community Development Corporation, and the South Washington West of the River Family Strengthening Collaborative to name a few. As a Disable Veteran (Air Force) he has served his country with distinction.

He is committed to improving lives and families through the process of empowerment: economics, training, housing, health, and employment. Resulting in a quality of life that brings pride and respect back into each community touched by our vision.

Nadya has spent more than 10 years in the nonprofit healthcare industry; specifically serving blood cancer patients and their families by building strategic partnerships with national corporate, collegiate, and community organizations. Nadya co-founded a national program called Be The Match On Campus, which now has more than 85 collegiate chapters of students dedicated to improving the lives of patients waiting for life-saving bone marrow transplants. At Groundswell, Nadya uses her relationship-building, account management, and customer service skills to cultivate and grow our strategic and community partnerships.  She is also working with cross-functional teams to ensure that we are building a respectful, efficient, and world-class customer service model to support and serve our community solar subscribers. Nadya is a proud Alum of Florida A&M University and takes great joy in co-parenting her brilliant and rambunctious little girl.

John has worked in the solar industry for years, working as an consultant for residential solar development with Solar City while working to bring a better energy solution to residential areas in DC. While working within the solar industry, John saw the issues with how big solar companies operated and how the focus on profit left many families out of the clean energy economy who most desperately could use its benefits, so he set out to join Groundswell, a place he felt would allow him to further pursue his desire to impact the people who really needed a better choice in energy.

John also has a background in computer programming and software implementation, working with the Groundswell team to implement efficient and effective business processes to better deliver our programs to the communities we serve.

Dant'e King, Director of Community Engagement for Groundswell, not only serves his community as a social advocate for energy equity, education and environmental justice, but is also a pastor, author and philanthropist. A Washington D.C. native, Dant’e sees his work in community solar as an extension of his ministry.

His passion for renewable energy began when he worked at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant and Brandon Shores coal plants. There he saw first-hand the dangers of fossil energy. He believes one of his major responsibility as a community leader is to teach, reach and equip the community as it relates to equitable energy and wealth creation in minority communities. In his position at Groundswell, Dant’e is able to respond to that personal charge and be a face, voice, and activist in the mission to increase access to clean and affordable energy to low-to-moderate income families.

Distinguished as a community pioneer in redevelopment of all impoverished areas of life, he’s a civil rights activist geared to meet the spiritual, social, physical, and economic needs of its people. He's the Co-Founder of the Southern Maryland Action Coalition (Now TRUST), a faith-based initiative providing family living, recreation, career development, and counseling.  Dante also sits on the board of the Empowerment Movement.

He lives by the mantra, "We have one world that each one of us is responsible for".

Bernie brings to Groundswell a proven track record as an innovator, coalition builder, and strategic planner in the public and non-profit sectors. Dedicated to empowering organizations to evolve new capabilities in response to emerging challenges, Bernie has helped senior executives work across organizational silos to implement collaborative solutions. A community organizer at heart, Bernie is a skilled facilitator who has led organizations through successful lean six sigma and human centered design management transformation processes.

Prior to joining Groundswell, Bernie served as a senior political appointee in the Obama Administration at the US Office of Personnel Management. His responsibilities included overseeing the implementation of government-wide initiatives as part of the President’s Management Agenda. Bernie led the Federal payroll consolidation initiative, accountable for $300M in operating expense at five Federal agencies and launched a government-wide shared services initiative to eliminate redundancy in human resources management projected to eliminate $1 billion in duplication and waste.

Bernie has deep experience as an entrepreneur, successfully raising venture capital and building successful organizations in new technology-driven market spaces. He is the founder of Omnipod, a messaging and collaboration technology provider that was acquired by MessageLabs (now Symantec) in 2005. He is a graduate of Williams College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Kristal's background in communication and passion for advocacy for those in need brought her to Groundswell in 2015. Kristal received her BS in Communications and is currently pursing certification in Human Resource Management. As the Operations Manager at Groundswell, Kristal provides support and administration for all Groundswell's programs. Before coming to Groundswell, Kristal directed a childcare center, which allowed her to hone the skills of task management, administration, record-keeping, and budget development, while providing care to children from low income families.

Kristal has served in her local church assembly as a Sunday school teacher, children's choir director, praise team leader and volunteer for special events. While dedicated to serving others, one of Kristal’s greatest joys is being a mom. Even as a working mother, she still finds time to do the things she loves, like sewing clothes and singing—she has performed in stage plays and musicals and has sung at the Kennedy Center with the Maryland State Honors Chorus.

Kristal's desire to make a difference in her community through service, and her belief that everyone has the right to equality, are the foundation of her work at Groundswell.

Nina is a recent graduate of the the University of Texas at Austin, having earned a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and an interdisciplinary certificate in Sustainability. While attending school, she contributed to several clean energy studies through the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She was also actively involved in service efforts, with soft spots for low-income students, families dealing with cancer, and Austin’s homeless population. She also led a student team in designing, funding, and constructing a community center in a South Indian village. As a first-term project manager, she emphasized strong team, client, and community relationships, setting the groundwork for a resilient and empowering year.

Having lived in several parts of the world and now making a home in DC, Nina aims to bridge her STEM background with socioeconomics, urban planning, and social media to strengthen and support communities around the globe.

Michelle Moore is CEO of Groundswell, a nonprofit whose mission is building community power. A social entrepreneur and former White House official with roots in LaGrange, Georgia, Michelle is a relentless agent for change with a passion for connecting clean energy with economic growth. Her accomplishments range from building the global green building movement to leading the sustainability team for the Obama Administration. Since joining Groundswell in 2015, Michelle has led the organization to deploy a market-based model for community solar that shares power and savings with low income families.

Prior to joining Groundswell, Michelle served from 2009-2011 as Federal Chief Sustainability Officer at the White House.  Her accomplishments included launching the GreenGov initiative, which engaged Federal agencies and the military services to improve energy use, saving up to $11 billion in operating expenses. Michelle also worked with the President’s Jobs Council to launch the Better Buildings Challenge, which implemented $4 billion in public and private investment in building energy efficiency – cutting energy use and creating jobs at no cost to taxpayers.

From 2011 – 2013, Michelle launched and led infrastructure project delivery as Senior Advisor to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Designed to cut red tape and accelerate decision-making on more than $300 billion of job-creating infrastructure projects, this government-wide initiative encompassed regulatory reforms of Federal permitting responsibilities, implementation of collaborative project management systems, and online dashboards designed to improve sustainability, transparency, and speed.

Previously, Michelle served as Senior Vice President of the U.S. Green Building Council, where she worked to make the LEED Green Building Rating System a globally recognized brand with more than 6 billion square feet of registered and certified buildings around the world. During her tenure, USGBC grew from approximately $17 million a year in annual revenues to more than $100 million per year.

Michelle got her start in sustainability in 1997 as Director of eBusiness for Interface Inc., where working for Ray Anderson showed her how to connect people, planet, and profitability; and the pathway to “doing well by doing good.”

Michelle is an honorary Senior Fellow at the Council on Competitiveness, where she organized leading business and labor organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, the National Association of Manufacturers, Brookings, and Building America’s Future as co-founder of Infrastructure Week. Michelle currently serves as a Board Advisor to the Smithsonian Science Education Center, on the Sustainability Council for PG&E, and as a Senior Advisor to the International WELL Building Institute.

Michelle holds a Bachelor of Arts from Emory University and Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Michelle’s work is rooted in her faith, and the charge to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Emily Robichaux is passionate about sustainability, social justice, and the role of socially responsible businesses and enterprising nonprofits in reducing environmental and social inequality. She is pursuing a master’s in sustainable business administration in the Bard MBA in Sustainability program to help lead the change to a more just and green society. A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she has lived in DC since 2005 and brings experience in finance, data analytics, and strategy as well as over a decade of program and project management expertise. Emily was a 2016-2017 Net Impact Healthy Food Fellow, providing resiliency consulting services to the DC Central Kitchen, and she was a member of the winning team in the 2017 Columbia University Energy Symposium Case Competition. Emily holds bachelor’s degrees in French Studies and Government from Smith College and is grateful to have received an American Association of University Women Career Development Grant for her graduate studies.

A LEED Accredited Professional with nine years of green building and sustainability consulting in the federal sector, Dave brings a strong technical grounding in clean energy issues and data analysis as he focuses on deepening the impact of Groundswell’s work. Before coming to Groundswell, Dave played a leading role in developing sustainability plans for government agencies and increasing the resilience of federal buildings to the effects of climate change. Dave also served as a Technical Reviewer for a major World Resources Institute (WRI) report on greenhouse gas emissions accounting in the U.S. public sector. Outside of the office, Dave can be found onstage with The Washington Chorus and out on the field in local recreational soccer leagues. Dave grew up in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and is a proud alum of Middlebury College in Vermont.

Becca graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor’s of Arts and began her career in marketing with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, where she worked as a manager in the Communications Department. At the conclusion of the games, Becca accepted a position in sports marketing with Nike and relocated to Philadelphia PA. She missed her Southern roots, and after four years relocated back to Atlanta to accept a position with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta as Director of Marketing for the Aflac Cancer Center, where she spent six years. Becca and her family relocated to her husband’s hometown of LaGrange GA in 2010 where she pursued her long-time passion of photography, founding a successful portrait photography business. She was voted Best Family & Senior Photographer in Troup County for two years straight by the LaGrange Mom’s website.

In 2015, Becca was named Director of the Sweetland Amphitheatre, and tasked to oversee the completion of construction for the $8 million dollar, 2,500 capacity venue as well as the launch and ongoing management of the facility including marketing, advertising, artist booking, sponsorship development, community events, and volunteer management. Under her leadership, Sweetland played host to internationally recognized and Grammy Award winning artists including the Beach Boys, Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill, The Temptations, and more. Sweetland enjoyed sold out concerts for nearly all the major shows hosted under Becca’s direction, and she raised nearly $400,000 in sponsorship support during her tenure. On a personal note, Becca is mother to three funny and fabulous children, Ella (15), Addie (13) and Finn Duke (9) and wife to her amazing (and ever-patient) husband of 18 years, Ed.

With more than twelve years of experience in mass communications and public relations, Kristina contributes a strong background in strategic marketing, advertising, community and media engagement to the Groundswell team. Dedicated to assisting civic outreach and volunteering for service projects across the globe, Kristina spent eight years active in the United States Air Force as a Public Affairs specialist.  Through various programs, she has traveled to more than 25 countries, published 200+ articles, and led campaigns reaching 50 million people worldwide.  An alumnus of the University of North Texas,  she is currently working to complete a Master’s of Science degree in Mass Communications while still continuing her service to the Air National Guard. Kristina is an advocate for financial literacy and equity, and aspires to use her skill set to improve quality of life for disenfranchised communities and make a difference through service and volunteerism.