CSTPR Noontime Seminar

Climate and congress: The making of a citizen by Grant Couch, Citizen's Climate Lobby
This talk will be available via webcast here.
Grant Couch is the founder of the Conservative Caucus within Citizens Climate Lobby - a national, non-partisan group advocating for a national price on CO2 and other GhGs. Until he left full-time work Grant never gave “global warming” much thought. However after studying the issue he became convinced it is a critical reality that needs US leadership to create a solution. Today’s talk will cover his personal journey as a life-long, fiscal conservative who moved from  apathy to action on climate. Some of the issues to be covered include: Is there a meaningful solution - with a viable political path?  Is non-partisan citizen lobbying possible on such a politically polarized issue? How does Congress really work? What does it mean to be a citizen? 
Biography: Grant graduated from Lehigh University in 1971 with an MBA and a BS in Mechanical Engineering and worked in the financial services industry at a number of Wall Street firms.  He retired from full-time work in the financial industry in 2008 as the President & COO of Countrywide Securities Corp and moved to Boulder in 2008 to be the CEO of Louisville-based Sounds True until 2010.  He retired in 2015 as the Chairman of the Bank of Manhattan and Manhattan Bancorp.  Grant is currently a member of the investment committee of Aravaipa, a Colorado-based, impact technology VC fund and he serves on the Board of Zen Peacemakers International.  He is also a Zen teacher in the Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi lineage.