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Nadine Straitt
 Nadine
Straitt has been actively involved in social-technological improvements and
sustainability at the community level since 2003.
Working with underprivileged families and elderly in rural America to
help them develop and maintain a sustainable life style.
From demonstrating healthy sustainable and green agricultural/small
garden practices, to working with families and local seniors to coordinate
practical interchanges of proven
successful practices with state of the art technology, to recycling used
structural components into useful projects to support local sustainable
projects.
Nadine was able to validate many of the concepts of
sustainable living, in less developed rural environments, through her hands on
experience in small scale sustainable food production and small business
planning and management. Growing
food for human consumption to sell, as well as, feed stocks for her own farm
animals provided her with hands on experience that was uniquely career broadening.
During this time Nadine made several trips to the Mediterranean region to
learn animal husbandry and the anthropology small sustainable business
operations first hand. Capitalizing
on her prior experience as a comptroller for a small  engineering firm, Nadine
was able to successfully explore various community sized business models that
can become the foundations for a micro-economy in developing regions.
Nadine expanded her career in renewable energy in 2007 when
she enrolled in the Wind Energy and Turbine Technology Program at
Iowa
Lakes
Community College. After which, she went on to be a
wind turbine technician with Mitsubishi Power Systems, providing operations and
maintenance services for electrical, mechanical, and hydraulic systems.
Working in alternative energy power plants located over two hundred feet
above the ground only proved to heighten her excitement for all areas
alternative energy and sustainable technologies.
 Nadine enrolled
in
Arkansas
State University's
unique Interdisciplinary Studies Program to add more specific depth to her
broadening skill base, in the areas of advancing renewable technologies,
societal development, and energy security and disaster planning. As part
of her research efforts Nadine has continued to be hands on with technology and
community development. During the
summer of 2009, Nadine participated in a sustainability project in the rural
High Nevada Desert to investigate the use of sustainable solar and wind energy
technologies to provide green off-grid power to a working farm.
Along with providing technical support for equipment, Nadine participated
in the preparation of proposals to be submitted to the United State Department
of Agriculture and the development of a conceptual outline for a Wind Powered
Aquiculture Operation for use in arid regions.
During the summer of 2010 Nadine with technical advice from professors,
designed and constructed a working demonstration model of a solar power
aquaculture farm, based on the previous aquiculture concept she co-authored in
2009. The 64 square foot facility
was powered by 45 watts of solar panels and grew a variety of edible plants both
in water flow grow beds and soil grow bed that also provide filtering and
nutrient induction.
Nadine is a well known and respected advocate of renewable
energy, and is in regular demand as a speaker at schools, and civic
organizations such as Rotary International.
She is well known by national and international academic, business, and
government leaders who are pressing the frontiers of the sustainable development
and renewable energy technology.
In addition to her academic pursuits at
Arkansas
State
University, Nadine is a wife, mother of three teenage children, a working
artist, a Deaconess in her church. Nadine’s
hope for her work in renewable energy is that her efforts will help provide a
cleaner and safer world for our children and future generations.
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