Key Personnel

Lamont C. Hempel, PhD, President

A co-founder of Blue Planet United, Monty Hempel is the Hedco Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of Environmental Programs at the University of Redlands, in Southern California. His professional interests focus on environmental science and politics, sustainability, and marine environmental studies, with particular emphasis on international coral reef protection, human dimensions of climate change, renewable energy policy, wilderness preservation, and human population stabilization. His teaching and research is strongly interdisciplinary and guided by the goal of pragmatic idealism.

Hempel is the former president of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) and serves on the boards and executive committees of several organizations, including the U.S. Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD) and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Prior to his Redlands appointment in 1999, Hempel was a faculty member and administrator in the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University, specializing in environmental policy. In addition to his academic work, he has developed and directed model citizen involvement programs for state and local government (1975-76), served as a regional project manager for the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Program (1977-78), consulted at home and abroad on sustainable development (1980-present), and was a candidate for the United States Congress from California (1986).

Hempel has served as a member of U.S. NGO environmental delegations to Brazil, China, Thailand, and Nepal. For the past eight years, he has led an annual one month university class/expedition to Palau to study marine ecology and sustainable development. In 2007, he was a faculty member on Semester at Sea (University of Virginia).

Hempel’s publications include Environmental Governance: The Global Challenge (Island Press, 1996), Gandhi’s Significance for Today: The Elusive Legacy (Macmillan, 1989, co-edited with John Hick), and Sustainable Communities: From Vision to Action (Hewlett Foundation/CGU, 1998). He has also written, filmed, and produced more than a dozen environmental video documentaries, with subjects ranging from coral reef protection in Palau to the world views of Desmond Tutu.

Hempel has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate University, an M.A. in International Environmental Policy from the Claremont Graduate University, and a B.A. in Ecology and Public Policy (joint degree UWW, 1974) from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Marilyn Hempel, MA, Executive Director

Marilyn Hempel is the co-founder of Blue Planet United. Since 1994 she has edited the Pop!ulation Press, and written articles for other publications. She continues to do that and to oversee Blue Planet United projects.

Marilyn was a member of the NGO delegation to the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. Since participating in the conference, she has given hundreds of speeches to organizations throughout the United States. In 1995 she was a delegate to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. In 1999, she was chosen to be part of a U.S. NGO delegation sponsored by UNFPA, sent to China to study and observe their emerging voluntary family planning and poverty eradication programs.

In 2008 she received the prestigious Paul Harris Fellow award from Rotary International, in appreciation of significant work toward the better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world.

Marilyn presently serves on the Board of Directors of Population Communication, and on the Advisory Board of Population Media Center. She has sat on the Boards of Directors of ZPG and the Population Institute.

Marilyn grew up in Southern California—and in East Africa, where her father was Chief of the Social Research Section of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. She holds a Masters of Education from McGill University (Montreal, Canada), an M.A. from the Claremont Graduate University, and a B.A. from Pitzer College.

Julian H. Scaff, MA/MFA, Creative Director

Julian is a designer and creative director with expertise in the fields of User Experience Design, User Interface Design, Interaction Design, and Environmental Design.

Julian has taught and lectured at universities in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, and is currently Lead Instructor for the UX Design Immersive program at General Assembly in Los Angeles. As a designer and creative director he has worked for many tech companies including Monster.com, JobTrak, Idealab, and NASA/JPL contractor MPC Research. He is the author of the artist book Jamal & Damilola and the audio design book Sketch Your Soundscape. In his spare time, Julian makes sound and video art, environmental art, and electronic music. In 2015 he delivered a TEDx talk in Los Angeles titled “Designing Change for Good” on the critical relationship between design thinking and social and environmental activism.

Julian holds an M.F.A. in Art and Design from the Dutch Art Institute, an M.A. in Film and TV Critical Studies with an emphasis in New Media from UCLA, and a B.A. (honors) in Media Studies from Pitzer College.

Linda Moore, CPA, Director of Finance

Linda Moore has a BA in Business from the University of Louisiana, and a CPA license from the State of California. She has owned and operated her own accounting and tax preparation firm in Claremont, California, since 1981. She has overseen the Blue Planet United and Population Press finances since 1996.