Kathy Ging, M.A., G.R.I., has been a full-time Realtor for 30 years. She has provided excellent service to those in many occupations: law, engineering, academia, medicine, nonprofits, first time buyers. Kathy has an MA in English from U of N Carolina, Chapel Hill, has lived in Oregon 42 years and graduated 1st in the class at Muskingum College, Magna cum laude.
Kathy taught a first time home buyer class for 7 years through the City of Eugene Adult Education program.
Kathy facilitated sale-transition of 2,200+ acres of urban-rural homesteads and sustainable forests most of which are now organically managed and has facilitated the sale of many organic farms. She is on the Membership Advisory Committee of Oregon Tilth and served on Eugene City Club program committee.
A Master Gardener, she developed a garden that grows year round in Willamette Valley's unique micro-climate: without protective coverings. For year round eats see LiberatedSalad.com
She has promoted energy efficiency and ecological business practices for homes, gardens, farms.
Kathy co-directed three Lane County, OR, Energy Round-Up Forums with volunteers and a Lane County Commissioner attended by 400 people. Energy Round-Up had many sponsors: Climate Crisis Working Group, EWEB, EPUD, Eugene Weekly, Helios Network, West Wind Forest Products, OR Dept of Energy & NW EcoBuilding Guild.
Kathy directed or co-coordinated 25 renewable energy events: 1st Southerv OR Energy Fair, Visions for Humanity, Ashland, (1977), Rogue Inventors Days, 7 mini fairs, Oregon Energy Round-Up, State Fair 1981-83, Energy Independence Days, Eugene-Springfield.
She catalyzed the addition of Energy Park to the Oregon Country Fair in 1981 (formerly OR Energy Horizons). Kathy co-founded the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, SW Oregon Chapter, in Eugene, and was secretary for seven years helping to organize 70 educational events, spearheading the movement to green the Eugene library, the beginning of a transition by the City of Eugene to its current proactive stance toward green building practices. Eugene staff have since influenced other municipal building departments to go green.
She attended the 1st New Energy Movement conference in Portland, the 1st Solar Electric Power Summit, Salem, Oregon Solar Energy Industries Association Solar Expo, Portland and SEER gathering, Willits, CA.
While doing post-graduate work at the University of Oregon, she initiated the revised performance based personal income renewable energy tax credit in the Oregon legislature in the late 80s after 85% of the solar businesses state and nationwide had gone bankrupt because tax credits had sunset. She helped to organize the statewide momentum to win its passage 22 to zip a day before summer solstice in the second attempt to secure passage. She has a solar water heater on her home.
This tax credit for home owners, renters sunset Dec. 31, 2017. When passed, it was widely considered to be the best renewable energy personal income tax credit in the country.
Kathy has been a member of environmental and energy groups: Solar Oregon, American Solar Energy Society, Climate Solutions, Citizens Utility Board, 3Estrategies, OSPIRG, Co-Op America, Beyond Toxics, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Sierra Club, Families for SAFE Meters.
She was on the Technical Advisory Committee of Eugene Mayor's Sustainable Business Initiative, on a Statewide Green Building Committee & panelist twice at HOPES EcoDesign & Arts Conference at U of O. In the 80s she was on the grant giving committee of the Federal Region X Small Scale Appropriate Technology Small Grant Program. She has been a prime mover of an informal Energy Network Group that has met with staff of EWEB, Oregon’s largest publicly owned utility.
In 1981 Kathy lobbied the EWEB board to assign staff to research solar electric power (PVs); EWEB funded a part time position then. She also co-sponsored the first local all day photovoltaic seminar with former EWEB Commissioner Jack Craig.
In 2006 Kathy testified to EWEB Board that they should consider researching the idea of becoming a distributed utility where power is produced on rooftops, in yards and in neighborhoods (see Rocky Mountain Institute's PDF, Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size; SmallIsProfitable.org.)
She has advocated EWEB setting up micro grids which in 2016-17 they will be planning to do.
In 1997, Kathy won the First Citizen Activist of the Year Award from Friends of Eugene for exceptional community service and in 2000 she was chosen as one of 15 socially responsible business persons nationwide featured in the yearly publication of Co-op America now Green America.
In the 70s she founded Community Skills Bank & co-founded SUNERGI (Southern Oregon New Energy Institute) and was later secretary of the Oregon Campaign for Public Power (OCPP), an organization that tried to form a dozen new public utility districts in Oregon. She did volunteer work to help Emerald Peoples Utility District get energized.
