Kourtnii Brown has spent 15 years working to strengthen international environmental policy and build community resilience to climate change, with field experience across the Asia-Pacific region. She most recently served as the Program Officer for The Asia Foundation's Environment Programs, supporting the development of project proposals, program strategy, annual plans, and policy research on environmental governance. Kourtnii has written numerous blogs about the environment. She's also passionate about sustainable food systems, having been a waitress at numerous farm-to-fork restaurants and active volunteer for community gardening in both D.C. and San Francisco over the past decade. Kourtnii received a MA in International Politics from American University, and a BA in International Affairs from The George Washington University.  She completed Uptima Business Bootcamp's entrepreneur accelerator program in March 2016, where she developed the cooperative plan and strategy for Common Compost with support from the Oakland community.

Riley Caron is an engineer, musician, builder, environmentalist, and handyman always in search of a new problem to solve. An analog electrical engineer by training, he has worn many hats in the solar industry since 2009 working for United Solar Ovonic, First Solar, and now Albion Power Company. Riley enjoys doing awesome things, like deploying weather monitoring stations on five continents as part of a global solar measurement campaign.  When he's not designing and building Common Compost worm bins, he manages solar rooftop development projects across the Bay Area.  Riley received his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.