After graduating from the University of Texas Adam went on to an award winning, seven year run with legendary Texas advertising agency GSD&M. In 2002, he co-founded the Butler brand development studio. His studio helps companies, nonprofits and civic institutions design communications that steward, protect and promote the natural world.
He is a founding board member of Farmshare Austin and the Frio Valley Cycling Extension, and serves on the Shield Ranch Wild for Good Committee. Adam is married with three sons and lives in Austin Texas.
Linda Christie earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas Tech University, graduating summa cum laude, and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law. She practiced law in private practice from 1983 to 2005, concentrating on real estate, banking, and oil and gas law. She also served as Associate General Counsel for Harris Methodist Health System and Cook Children’s Medical Center, specializing in managed care.
In 2005, Linda joined the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) as Government Affairs Director, where she served until 2025. In that role, she was responsible for monitoring and managing state and federal legislation, regulations, and policies affecting the District’s mission. She was an active member of the National Water Resources Association and the National Waterways Conference, working closely with industry leaders, federal agencies, and members of Congress on water policy initiatives. She was instrumental in advancing federal legislation that strengthened water supply policy through several Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) authorizations.
Kira is the founder and CEO of Adaptive Water, whose mission is to accelerate Texas’s transition toward water sustainability. Adaptive designs, builds, and operates facility-scale systems that enable commercial and industrial sites to capture, treat, and reuse underutilized water sources like rainwater, graywater, and AC condensate. By eliminating dependence on potable water for applications that don’t require it, these systems lower costs and strengthen long-term water security while easing pressure on shared resources. Alongside her work in water infrastructure, Kira is also an active steward of Texas’s biological heritage. She cultivates native plants to support biodiversity, with a focus on species that are endemic, threatened, or endangered, and supplies them to habitat restoration projects across Central Texas in partnership with organizations like TreeFolks and Central Texas Seed Savers.
Elizabeth Fazio Hale serves as the CEO/General Manager of the Gulf Coast Authority (GCA), where she oversees wastewater treatment and water reuse systems serving industrial and municipal partners across Texas. She has extensive experience in water policy, infrastructure funding, and utility management.
Prior to joining GCA, Liz served as ED/CEO of Riverbend Water Resources District in Northeast Texas, leading regional water planning across three counties. She also served as Director for Natural Resources in the Texas House of Representatives under Chairman Allan Ritter, where she helped develop the State Water Implementation Fund (and Revenue) for Texas (SWIFT) /(SWIRFT) and oversaw the passage of hundreds of pieces of legislation impacting Texas water resources.
Liz serves on the boards of the Texas Lyceum, Texas Conservation Fund, Texas Water Association (TWA) and associated Risk Management Fund (TWARMF), the Texas Water Foundation, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), and Texas Water Trade.
For over three decades, Golemon was a Partner with Brown McCarroll, LLP, where he was the senior member of the environmental team. From 1992 to 2006, he served as General Counsel for the Texas Chemical Council, the association representing the approximate 80 chemical manufacturing operations in Texas. He was a founder of the State Bar of Texas Environmental and Natural Resources Law Section and during a 30-plus year tenure in the American Bar Associate (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) Law he held numerous leadership positions. In 2008, he was inducted as an initial Fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers (ACOEL). He presently serves on the Executive Council of the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Center for Energy, Law and Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Golemon served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1961-69, which included tours in Cuba, Okinawa, Taiwan and Vietnam.
John Hall is the President and CEO of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), a research hub providing independent analysis on energy, air, water, and resilience issues to shape scientific solutions for a sustainable and equitable future. He has been a thought leader and practitioner on the impacts of energy on air quality, the environment, communities, and climate for the past thirty years. His policy and research expertise include environmental justice, clean energy, climate resilience, and emerging technologies that reduce air and climate pollution while supporting economic growth and job creation.
Before joining HARC, he chaired the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the predecessor agency to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Hall left a lasting mark on TCEQ by implementing the Mickey Leland Environmental Internship Program. He also served in leadership roles at Environmental Defense Fund, focusing on clean energy efforts in ten of the largest states, and vehicle electrification initiatives in Texas.
Elizabeth Jensen is a board member at Texas Water Trade.
She currently serves as the Michael L. Smith Managing Director of the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame, which conducts rigorous impact evaluations that identify the innovative, effective, and scalable programs and policies across the United States that help people move permanently out of poverty. She also serves as a Senior Advisor to the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, a global venture philanthropy firm supporting early stage, high impact social enterprises, where she was previously a Managing Director leading their Texas office.
She is a veteran of the White House, U.S. Department of Education, and Capitol Hill,where she developed her expertise in education policy. She was the Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute and served on the White House Domestic Policy Council staff and as Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to that, she worked for two United States Senators on domestic policy issues and consulted on education and workforce issues with major foundations, companies, nonprofits, and policymakers.
In 2008 she founded Mandell and Associates, a strategic consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. Mandell currently works with electric and water utilities, and with clients in energy and environmental industries to create successful business development strategies that range from policy development to legislative advocacy to communications and public outreach campaigns. Mandell graduated from The University of Texas at Austin. She has been involved in many community activities in Central Texas, including Friends of the Children, the American Heart Association, and the Center Child Protection. She and her husband have three children.
