Ideas sparked during Rachel’s Network annual gatherings make a lasting impression. “The meeting gave me a broader view of what sustainability is all about,” Ann Hunter-Welborn, the Fall Retreat’s co-chair, says. Ann is board chair of Hunter Industries, a California-based irrigation company. As a result of the retreat on “Venture Philanthropy and the Green Economy,” Ann has broadened her efforts to promote sustainability within her own company and externally to the irrigation industry.
“I learned about many new ways to lessen our impact on the planet, and that job is never done. I’ve been inspired to think about alternative materials to our plastics. Hearing what San Francisco is doing made me think about initiating my company’s own Corporate Sustainability Report, and I hope that it will encourage others to follow suit, not just to say they did it, but to truly gauge their impact on the environment,” Ann says. Also in 2012, Ann participated in a local PBS story about Hunter Industries’ sustainability efforts and the company’s native revegetation project, which has restored three acres of disturbed landscape to its original condition.
Ann Hunter-Welborn is board chair of Hunter Industries, a California-based leader in irrigation technologies. Ann was a founding partner of the company and worked for this family business from 1983 to 1995, stepping back into a management role in 2009. She is board treasurer of Rachel’s Network.