going green and beyond
panel profiles

Lynne Kiesling, Moderator
Senior Lecturer
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Lynne Kiesling is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Northwestern University, and in the Social Enterprise at Kellogg (SEEK) program in the Kellogg School of Management. Her specialization is industrial organization, regulatory policy, and market design in the electricity industry. In particular, she examines the interaction of market design and innovation in the development of retail markets, products, and services and the economics of “smart grid” technologies.

Kiesling’s research explores the lack of retail price transparency under traditional economic regulation, and the extent to which retail markets that allow rivalrous competition can lead to the development of products and services that enable consumers to control and manage their own electricity use on several dimensions, including environmental impact.

Kiesling has a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Economics from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

Daniel J. Gisser
Director, Corporate Marketing
Eaton Corporation

Daniel J. Gisser (Dan) is Director of Corporate Marketing at Eaton Corporation, in Cleveland, Ohio. Gisser joined Eaton in June 2006. He leads Eaton’s marketing programs related to corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and alternative energy across all of Eaton’s business groups. These efforts are focused on creating a portfolio of green products and services, responsibly communicating these green benefits to customers and other stakeholders, and promoting the association of Eaton’s brand with sustainability.

Before joining Eaton, Gisser worked for 10 years at Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. Gisser was instrumental in creating and building two high-tech, entrepreneurial start-up electronics and specialty chemicals businesses within Kodak in the flat panel display industry. He joined one of these as employee #3, serving in strategic marketing and product line management roles as the business grew.

Gisser was awarded his AB from Dartmouth College in 1987, PhD in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1992, and MBA from the University of Rochester in 1996.

Pat Houston KSM MMM ’95
Vice President
Booz & Company

Patrick Houston is a partner in the operations practice of Booz & Company, a premier global management consulting company, based in New York. He has over 13 years of experience focused on supply chain and sourcing issues primarily in the consumer and media industries. His expertise lies in driving strategic operational and organizational change in creating essential advantage for his clients.

Houston received a dual master’s degree, with distinction, from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management (MBA) and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (Masters in Manufacturing Management). He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering, summa cum laude, from the University of Southern California. He has co-authored several industry-related articles, most recently, “Start with Sourcing (Leveraging Sourcing to Achieve Your ‘Green’ Strategy),” Strategy & Business, Third Quarter, 2008.

Ryan Ruskin KSM MMM ’94
President and COO
The Ruskin Group

Ryan Ruskin is currently the President and COO of the Ruskin Group (TRG). TRG is an industry-leading packaging company, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (operations headquarters in Chicago, Illinois), with operations throughout the United States. Ruskin is responsible for business development and general management of this 105 year-old family business, founded by the Ruskin family in 1893.

Prior to joining TRG, Ruskin was a management consultant with A.T. Kearney in Chicago, Illinois from 1994 to 1998, where his practice focused on supply chain and manufacturing strategy, including work with several Fortune 50 companies. Ruskin also led both recruiting and training initiatives while at A.T. Kearney.

Ruskin graduated from Princeton University in 1990 with a BA in history. He also attended Northwestern University where he received an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and an MEM from the McCormick School of Engineering, both in 1994.

Eric Wilmot
Principal Strategist
frog design, inc.

Eric Wilmot spearheads the sustainability practice at frog design and integrates system thinking with a life-cycle approach to design and development. The goal is to deliver innovative business strategies, portfolios, new products, and services that leverage sustainability criteria for driving insights and approaches to solving problems. Wilmot speaks widely on the topic of design and sustainability, and continues to build expertise by using design to develop opportunities and solutions for frog clients, non-profits, university programs, and city governments.

Wilmot graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University and more recently engaged with the Institute of Design-IIT in Chicago to establish a curriculum on the topic of Sustainability and Design where he also received a Masters of Design Strategy.

Wilmot now lives in New York and practices in frog’s Manhattan studio.