Board and Staff

Since 2004, Gay Nicholson has led Sustainable Finger Lakes (formerly “Sustainable Tompkins”) in designing and implementing an integrated program to advance the creation of a more sustainable regional community. Gay emphasizes a systems approach to working with partners to build the infrastructure and social capacity for more sustainable ways of living and working. Gay participates in a number of local partnerships related to energy and climate, equity as an economic driver, and sustainable agriculture.

Gay left a career in sustainable agriculture to work in environmental advocacy and education with Cornell’s Program on Ethics and Public Life, and as executive director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust before leading the creation of Sustainable Tompkins. She has been an active volunteer in numerous community and environmental organizations, providing leadership from the local to the national level.

Gay’s undergraduate degree (with High Distinction) is in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia (1979), and her Master’s (1982) and Doctorate (1991) are in Crop Physiology and Integrated Pest Management from Cornell University.  She currently serves on the boards of HeatSmart Tompkins and the Tompkins County Planning Advisory Board.

Jessica Swindon grew up in Syracuse, NY next to Onondaga Lake (the most polluted lake in America) which evoked her deep appreciation of the Finger Lakes region. She holds a B.Sc from SUNY Cortland and an M.Sc from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies where her work focused on carbon and nitrogen cycling in rangelands. She currently manages a soil and plant ecology lab that focuses on sustainable agriculture in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell University.

Jessica’s work with Sustainable Finger Lakes focuses on land and resource management including harmful algal bloom education and prevention and carbon offset projects with a focus in agriculture. Jessica is often at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market selling locally made CBD and spends the rest of her time with her dog Ruby.

Neil specializes in developing technology to transform complex data into useful and accessible information. As an early pioneer and proponent of the internet in 1994, he served as a consultant to over 50 countries, helping them develop and implement communication strategies online and bringing people from different backgrounds together. Today, Neil advocates for sustainable communities and growing a network of people that practice solving persistent social & environmental issues through new ways of inquiry.

Alex Andrasik is the adult services librarian at Penn Yan Public Library, where he strives to serve everyone in his community through a balance of entertainment, education, and engagement.  Deeply invested in social causes, he has helped to found the LGBTQ+ social and advocacy group Keuka Compass and the activism-oriented Finger Lakes Justice Partnership, and has become involved in the Penn Yan Action Coalition’s advocacy around immigration issues.  He is the co-founder and co-editor of Bluff & Vine, the Finger Lakes’ premier independent literary magazine.  Long concerned with sustainability issues, Alex hopes to learn more about what communities can do to protect our region and our planet, and to be a part of the solution as a member of the Sustainable Finger Lakes board.

Dan Antonioli is a licensed general building contractor, permaculture designer, and green developer. A cultural change agent with a passion for sustainability and social justice, his interests span a wide range of social, economic, and technical areas. He holds a Masters in transpersonal psychology from Sonoma State University and a BA in psychology from UC Berkeley. Founder of the Laytonville Ecovillage in Northern California and a small urban ecovillage in Oakland, CA, he has a personal and professional interest in the role that community plays in shaping a sustainable future.

Dan split his childhood growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Great Basin desert of Nevada in a multigenerational construction family and has seen the negative impacts from development both urban and rural. After many years of pioneering work in California, Dan made a decision to move to upstate NY and now resides in Dryden where he’s creating a net zero energy historic restoration. His current focus is in bridging preservation and sustainability.

His company, going-green.co, focuses on the nuts and bolts of sustainable systems as well as comprehensive plans. His combined background in permaculture and construction allows him to put round pegs into square holes, which is something he enjoys doing.

Roger Beck grew up on a dairy farm in the Town of Dryden and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Agricultural Engineering. After serving two years in the Navy Seabees, he started Beck Construction, a company doing excavation and grading work.

During the following decades, this company changed its operations and it is now Beck Equipment, located in Preble, NY. Beck Equipment rents, sells and services construction machinery and employs twenty-five people.

Over the years, Roger has worked to get information to the public about a wide variety of issues. To continue these efforts, he is starting a not-for-profit called 21st Century Facts. Roger serves on the board of Sustainable Finger Lakes and is a member of the Ithaca Sunrise Rotary.

Bio coming soon!

Joel Rabinowitz grew up in Ithaca. He holds a BA from Cornell and a masters degree in Anthropology from the University of Texas. Following a career in the development offices of Cornell and Ithaca College, he served for eight years as executive director of Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve, and then as its secretary and treasurer.

Joel was drawn to help establish Greensprings out of his concern to promote a sustainable regional environment. He had previously served on the board of the Finger Lakes Land Trust during Gay Nicholson’s tenure as its director, and he helped lead its early fundraising efforts. In 2004, Joel chaired several of the Sustainability Salons that Gay organized and that led to the founding of Sustainable Tompkins.

Joel is currently the treasurer of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Finger Lakes, and is a volunteer for Greensprings, serving on its Finance and Ecological Advisory committees. He is also contributing to an oral history project about Greensprings.

Sawbailtal grew up in a refugee camp on the Thailand/Burma border and lived there for more than 14 years. On June 19, 2011, he came to the United States as a refugee from Myanmar (also known as Burma) and settled in Ithaca, New York. Sawbailtal knew very little English when he arrived in the United States, so he quickly enrolled in the TST-BOCES English as a Second Language (ESL) program to learn more English. A few years later, he received his GED and then went to TC3 to learn accounting and earn his accounting degree.

For the first few years after graduating from TCS, he worked for Get Your GreenBack Tompkins as an energy navigator and community educator organizer. He found he enjoyed learning about energy and doing billing and joined Sustainable Finger Lakes as the organization’s bookkeeper in 2021.

Sawbailtal enjoys learning about climate change and looks forward to working with and sharing his knowledge with Karen and Burmese communities.

Holly came to Sustainable Finger Lakes with a background in organizing and workforce development. In her previous position she assisted advanced manufacturers in creating and expanding their registered apprenticeship programs. Holly has worked as an organizer with mobile home tenants, head start teachers, healthcare workers, and condo service workers. Her commitment to earth stewardship has led her to positions promoting sustainable transportation, recycling, residential energy efficiency programs, and distributed wind power.

Holly grew up in Buffalo and spent 25 years in the western U.S. before returning home to New York State. She came to Ithaca for the beautiful natural world, the sense of community, the creative spark, and the possibility of living in co-housing. She feels blessed to be working with Sustainable Finger Lakes on the most important issues of our time: climate, equity, and the transition to a sustainable economy.

Kristinko recently joined Sustainble Finger Lakes as the Tenant Engagement Coordinator Intern. He was born and raised in Albania, but currently resides in Virginia. This coming fall, he will be a senior at Cornell, pursuing his studies in Environmental and Energy Economics. His exposure to electricity markets in his classes made him realize the significance of strong, reliable grids and the democratization of energy generation. Recognizing that electricity is crucial for everything we do, he firmly believes in ensuring equal and uninterrupted access to this essential resource.

During his time at SFLX, he has had the privilege of working with tenants all over the City of Ithaca, guiding them through the onboarding process for our Clean Energy Equity Pilot. It has been a truly rewarding experience to offer additional support to low and moderate-income tenants transitioning to clean energy. He is eagerly looking forward to the growth and expansion of our pilot program and is thrilled to continue making a positive impact in the pursuit of equitable and sustainable energy solutions for all.

Sofia is from New Jersey, and is a member of Ithaca College’s class of 2024 where she is studying Communication Management and Design with a minor in Sociology. She is passionate about using her communication skills to create social change and spread important messages to the public, and is strongly interested in issues of climate justice, sustainability advocacy, and public policy. She previously interned for the Friends of the Chemung River Watershed, which sparked her interest in environmental and sustainability non-profit work. Sofia is very excited to be joining Sustainable Finger Lakes to learn about local environmental issues, efforts towards sustainability, and the people who make it all happen. 

Sasha Paris grew up in Ithaca and graduated from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, with an interdisciplinary blend of studies in human-environmental interactions. Her career has focused on nature education – former workplaces include Acadia National Park, the New England Aquarium, and the Finger Lakes National Forest – and supporting others’ endeavors to strengthen communities and protect the living world.

She has volunteered with Sustainable Finger Lakes since 2012, assisting with public outreach and administration of the Neighborhood Mini-grant program, and joined the staff in 2014 as the program’s coordinator.

She also currently works as a visitor center assistant at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and has volunteered with numerous local organizations, including Loaves and Fishes, the Ithaca Children’s Garden, and the Paleontological Research Institution’s Museum of the Earth.