Trace Collaborative - Team Members

Susannah is co-founder and partner in Trace Collaborative, as well as Co-Director of North Carolina Interfaith Power and Light (NC IPL). She received her BA in 1996 from New College of California School of Humanities located in downtown San Francisco. With studies focused on “Education for a Just, Sacred & Sustainable World” Susannah developed a toolbox of communication skills to explore the underlying assumptions and judgments of language. Attention is paid to the power dynamics of communication, response to criticism, and the importance of listening. After graduation Susannah lived and worked on a Permaculture Farm in Kauai, Hawaii with an intentional community based on the principles of “conscious evolution.” It was here that Susannah realized her role as a bridge between the future and the present.

With deep interest in the nature and purpose of the human relationship to the natural world, Susannah studied at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA. Her work focused on three different interrelated levels of human existence: the Educational/Philosophical, Institutional/Physical-Structural, and Communal/Bioregional. In 2001 she arrived in North Carolina and was instrumental in helping the Center for Ecozoic Studies (CES) incorporate as a non-profit organization. In 2004 Susannah received her Masters of Divinity and was hired as UNC Chapel Hill's first Sustainability Research Associate. There she helped coordinate the development of a Vice Chancellor’s Sustainability Advisory Committee to establish and implement policies, practices, and curricula, pushing UNC Chapel Hill into the national forefront of campus sustainability.

Susannah is Past-Chair of Historic Green’s Steering Committee, a national nonprofit transforming and revitalizing communities through education and charitable activities that integrate sustainable design and heritage conservation practices. Susannah recently served on the Board of Directors of the NC Triangle Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Heather Gay, Sr. Assoc., LEED AP BD+C, GA/C
Heather is a senior associate for Trace Collaborative in Minneapolis, MN. Heather has a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management and a minor in Urban Studies from Minnesota State University, Mankato. She has acted as the LEED Project Manager for nearly a dozen projects, ranging from New Construction to Existing Buildings, with all of the projects achieving or exceeding their initial certification goals. Heather has served in multiple roles for USGBC, both locally and nationally. As one of the founders of the Twin Cities Emerging Professionals group in 2005, Heather served as co-chair and chair through 2007, when she was voted on the board for the USGBC Minnesota Chapter, and in 2009, Heather was elected Secretary of the chapter. In 2010, she co-chaired the the midwest’s largest regional green building conference, Greening the Heartland.
Heather is also a Senior Instructor at Dunwoody College of Technology, where she developed and taught the first sustainability courses in the college’s history. Heather works across all departments on campus, teaching courses in the Arts and Science department, Construction Sciences and Building Technology department, and the Corporate and Custom Training division. Heather is also faculty advisor to a number of student groups. Heather is Chair of Historic Green, whose mission is to assist and lead in the transformation and restoration of under-resourced communities through education and service and with a focus on heritage conservation and sustainable design. Historic Green has events and projects in New Orleans, Kansas City, Roeland Park, Wichita, and Minneapolis, with more cities planned for 2012. Associations: Historic Green; USGBC Minnesota Chapter; Construction Specifications Institute; National Association of Homebuilders

Traci is co-founder and partner in Trace Collaborative, as well as Director of the Downtown Design Studio in the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She received her Bachelors in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, working with HOK directly after graduation to become the Sustainable Champion for the Houston office, leading the charge in LEED Accreditation. Finding deep interest in the psychology of designers “going green,” Traci returned to Cornell University for her Masters in Design and Environmental Analysis. Entitled “Education, Environmental Attitudes and the Design Professions,” her research looked at factors impacting environmental attitudes of designers including environmental education, learned associations and informal influences. She completed her PhD in Design at North Carolina State University focusing on sustainability within formal design education.

A past-chair of the Emerging Green Builders (EGB) Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council, Traci has consulted with USGBC on their EGB initiative for a number of years. An original member of the national committee, her involvement with national initiatives have included a national design competition, local design charrettes partnering with environmental education, annual events at Greenbuild, and local EGB efforts throughout the country. Because of her involvement in the EGB, she was granted the prestigious individual USGBC Leadership Award in Education for 2005 and was included in a group labeled as “The Re-Inventors” in Vanity Fair’s Green Issue in May 2006, in the company of established visionaries in sustainability such as William McDonough, Paul Hawken and Sim van der Ryn.

Traci has authored Green Building Guidelines for Students and Young Professionals, published by W.W. Norton in 2009. She has also co-authored a second book, Understanding Green Building Materials. Traci also serves as the Vice Chair for the Triangle Chapter of the USGBC, and Faculty Advisor to the North Carolina State USGBC Students group.