The policies and programs of GEE-21 are recommended by the President and subject to the approval of the honorary Board of Directors of the organization. This is a distinguished group of persons from Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, and other countries (at present Australia, China, Germany, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom). Short biographies of the Directors and Officers are provided below.
GEE-21 Officers
Dr. Toufiq A. Siddiqi is President of GEE-21, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii. He is also an Affiliate Graduate Faculty in the Geography Department of the University of Hawaii. Dr. Siddiqi was the Regional Advisor on Energy at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). For the preceding 18 years, he worked at the East - West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, in several capacities, finally as Senior Fellow. He initiated in 1979 a Program on The Environmental Dimensions of Energy Policies, possibly the first one in Asia and the Pacific dealing with the linkages between energy and environmental concerns. Dr. Siddiqi is a Past-President of the Hawaii Academy of Science. He was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and has served as a Consultant to several agencies of the United Nations system, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Dr. Siddiqi has published extensively on Energy Policy, Climate Change, and other environmental issues.
Ms. Hannelore Herrmann is the Corporate Secretary of GEE-21. She is on the Membership Committee of the Austrian Hawaii Association and co-owner of Mercedes Sales. She serves also as Treasurer of PPSEAWA, a non profit International Women's Organization.
Mr. Richard A. Figliuzzi, Jr. is Vice-President of GEE-21 and President of the Hawaii based Energy Management Group. He is involved in development of alternate energy sources for Hawaii and is the state’s sole distributor of an “urban” windmill. His previous business developments were EcoSoul, Inc, and BuyHawaii.Com, Inc. of which he is the president. He has been serving as VP and Director on the Board of UNAUSA, Hawaii Division.
Ms. Ulrike Siddiqi, is the Treasurer of GEE-21. She holds an MBA degree from the University of Hawaii and was President of Europa Holdings, Inc. (1990-2004). Ms. Siddiqi has been active in a number of volunteer organizations in Hawaii. She served in various capacities on the Board of the Alumni Association of the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii. She is Past President of the Hawaii Chapter of the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association (PPSEAWA) and currently serves as Treasurer on the PPSEAWA International Council (2007-2010).
GEE-21 Directors
William Bodde, Jr. has been a US Ambassador to Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the US Representative to the South Pacific Commission. He was also a senior policy maker in the U.S. Department of State and was appointed the first Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat in Singapore. Since leaving the State Department in 1994, he has been lecturing widely in Europe, Asia and the United States. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Shidler College of Business, for many years.
Dr. David Cope is Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, the United Kingdom. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the UK Center for Economic and Environmental Development, and as the Environmental Team Leader for the International Energy Agency. In 1996, he was appointed Professor of Energy Economic at Doshisha University in Japan, and developed that University’s international program in energy and resource economics. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and of the London School of Economics. Dr. Cope is, inter alia, a senior member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and of the Academy of Social sciences.
Dr. Roy M. Green is Chair of the Western Australia Government Taskforce for Greenhouse and Energy, and Member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. Dr. Green has served, inter alia, as the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), and as Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Science and Technology. He has been an Australian Delegate to, and on the Excecutive Council of, the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission, and Vice-Chairman of the OECD Committee on Science and Technology Policy. His Honors include Officer of the Order of Australia, the Centenary Medal, and an Honorary D.Sc.. Dr. Green is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering.
Dr. Gundolf H. Kohlmaier is Professor for Theoretical and Physical Chemistry at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfur/Main (Germany). He served on the Board of Directors of the Center of Environmental Studies at the University for twenty years. He has been a visiting Professor at several academic institutions, including the University of California, Berkely; the Scipps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; the University of Paris, Orsay; the Australian National University; the Center for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Kohlmaier's current research interests include strategies for sequestering carbon dioxide in natural systems; political implementations of a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol; and a comparison of the climate strategies of the European Union and the six Asia Pacific Partnership countries.
Prof. James Marsh is Professor of International Business Economics at the Shidler College of Business, UH-Manoa. He has edited several books and published many articles on Asia/Pacific maritime businesses, trade, and financial affairs. He is a recipient of Japan’s prestigious Abe Fellowship, was the first holder of a Distinguished Guest Professorship at a Japanese university, and is a founding fellow at the International Center for Climate & Society. Prof. Marsh chairs the International Ocean Economic Potential Committee of the Marine Technology Society. His current work is in the area of climate change and business. He has a Ph.D. in international economics from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Gerald Marten is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center. He is the Founder and leader of a project on Eco Tipping Points, which has developed and disseminated innovative strategies for environmental sustainability. Prior to returning to Hawaii, Gerald Marten served as a Professor in the School of Policy Studies at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, and as a Research Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans. He was formerly a Research Associate in the Environment and Policy Institute of the East-West Center from 1979 to 1987. Dr. Marten has also undertaken research and teaching in several countries, including Canada, Mexico, Kenya, Costa Rica, Honduras, Malaysia, and Vietnam. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California in Los Angeles, and a doctorate in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Jack P. Suyderhoud has been serving as the Vice-President of GEE-21. He is Professor of Business Economics at the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University, Indiana, and has published in a number of scholarly journals. He served as the Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration for four years (1996-2000). Dr. Suyderhoud has won a number of teaching and service awards, and has been teaching in the Shidler College of Business MBA programs in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and France. He also is currently administrating the College's Executive MBA Program in Vietnam.
Mr. Kunbao Xia has worked in the field of environmental diplomacy since 1985. He was Director and then Director General in charge of international cooperation in China 's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) for over a decade. He subsequently served as China 's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and acted as Vice Chairman, Committee of Permanent Representatives of UNEP. He then was a senior staff member at UNEP, holding positions including Coordinator for Emergency Response, Chief of Capacity Building Branch, and Head of UNEP China Office. Mr. Xia is a Member of the Committee of Science and Technology of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Director of the All China Environment Federation, and Visiting Professor at the UNEP/Tongji University Institute for Environment and Sustainable Development.