From Brownfield to Bright Future: Telling Your Success Story

A brownfield reuse project’s progress can hinge on who knows, and is telling, your success story. Join CCLR and NJIT for a webinar to help you share your brownfield successes to maintain project momentum, boost project support, and ensure future funding opportunities.

From Brownfield to Bright Future will detail:

• Why to tell your success story
• Who your audiences are
• How to tell your story
• What telling your story can lead to

Learn about tried and true narrative structures, how to adjust messaging for your audience, and different ways to get your story across. Our speakers include communications and brownfield professions from the EPA TAB providers CCLR and NJIT, and Mila Besich, Mayor of Superior Arizona and professional marketer and storyteller who will share her experience as a brownfield champion for the Town of Superior.

Meet Your Brownfield Success Storytellers

Lauren Ghazikhanian, Communications Manager, CCLR

Lauren Ghazikhanian manages CCLR’s promotional and communications needs. In this role, Lauren drives awareness and knowledge around brownfield reuse within CCLR’s regions to improve communities and lives through land recycling. She has a degree in Public Relations and Advertising from Chapman University as well as an Associates Degree in Environmental Science. Throughout her career she has worked on projects and campaigns for health, living wage, housing, and fair representation in California, Arizona, and Idaho. This includes nearly two decades of experience with land and water-use issues in California, where she helped facilitate conversations and understanding between landowners, elected leaders and communities around housing and conservation.

Elise Molleur, Brownfields Redevelopment Specialist, Center for Community Systems, NJIT

With a background in due diligence and environmental consulting, Ms. Molleur assists communities in understanding the technical phases of brownfields redevelopment while providing guidance and support through communal plans and actions. Ms. Molleur’s responsibilities as a Brownfield Redevelopment Specialist include the analysis and clarification of technical reports and regulatory requirements to facilitate project progression and guide the stakeholders through any potential or current challenges. She strives to dedicate her environmental knowledge and passion to assisting communities, organizations, and individuals in successfully remediating and redeveloping their brownfield sites. Her previous experience at a private environmental consulting firm includes site investigations, interviews, local and federal agency record reviews, historical and database research, and report writing.

Mila Besich, Mayor, Superior Arizona

Mila Besich is a lifelong resident of Superior, Arizona. Elected in 2016 as Mayor of Superior, she has played a key role in leading her community through the Resolution Copper Environmental Impact Statement while also actively galvanizing and leading collaborative region-wide initiatives to preserve the majestic beauty of her town and Arizona’s Copper Corridor region. Mila’s strong and focused leadership as well as her problem-solving acumen has been recognized nationally and globally, including U.S. and international media outlets, and public officials, Hispanic, women’s and other organizations.,

Collaborating, communicating and connecting groups and organizations are critical skills that Mila uses to accomplish her many public service, volunteer and business projects. She is a Flinn Brown Fellow and Graduate of the Valle del Sol Hispanic Leadership Institute.