CUB Bids Farewell to AmeriCorps Member Heather Kendall

In the fall of 2013, Heather Kendall began her AmeriCorps service year here at CUB as our Community Outreach Specialist. She soon found herself awash in policy concepts around electric vehicles and coal, as well as how to generally stick up for utility consumers – concepts she needed to understand so that she could talk about them at street fairs and other public events.

Heather was indeed out and about, organizing and/or participating in over 40 events during her time with CUB and directly talking with more than 2,200 people. Those are big achievements and a record anyone could hold up high. But two key contributions exemplify Heather’s time with CUB.

Heather is a creative person. That trait was exhibited in several ways: gaining a reputation as a PowerPoint whiz, making a great partnership deal to ensure she would have an electric vehicle at most of her public events; the list goes on. However, her creativity was especially on display as she teamed with a fellow AmeriCorps member who was working with Portland Public Schools.

Together, Heather and Angela put together a presentation targeting elementary and middle schoolers about the role of energy in our lives. Knowing young students’ penchant for fidgeting, Heather and Angela came up with “the energy dance” that allowed the kids to get up out of their chairs and move like electrons, windmills, and other parts of the energy industry. The Energy Dance is an outstanding example of Heather’s penchant for getting people involved, which is the whole point of outreach anyway.

Heather is also a bit of a risk-taker. After all, she moved to Portland from Ashland (where she’d gotten her second bachelor’s degree) to take the AmeriCorps position. That takes some moxie. But in a real case of putting her beliefs into action, Heather took some of her AmeriCorps colleagues to the Oregon coast for a meeting in an all-electric vehicle.

For months, she’d been reading and talking about “range anxiety” (the fear that your electric vehicle will run out of power, leaving you stranded) but here it was, staring her square in the face. Undaunted, she got information from the EV Ambassadors for guidance about charging station locations and all the information she’d need to get her team safely to the coast and back. Despite a little drama from a non-working fast-charger (that was solved by a restart of the charger after a toll-free call to the company), Heather made it there and back with charge to spare both ways.

Heather was a terrific colleague and all the CUB staff hopes there will be a time when we can work with her again. In the meantime, we congratulate Heather on her new job working for the City of Portland’s Parks Bureau at the East Portland Community Center.

Good luck, Heather and thanks for a great year!

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