About Blue Marble Institute

Blue Marble Institute seeks to create a healthier world through science and sustainability education; space and scientific exploration; and, leadership and ethics training. Blue Marble is a Tucson-based 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 2005. Initially named Global Sports Alliance USA with a mission to use the ubiquitous appeal of sports to promote sustainability and environmental science education, the organization changed its name and broadened its mission in 2011. Blue Marble remains affiliated with Global Sports Alliance Worldwide, which was founded in 1999 in Japan by Dr. Tatsuo Okada in partnership with Sony’s founding family.

United Nations Under-Secretary General Kiyo Akasaka receives Champions for Change book from a middle-school student at UN Headquarters during Blue Marble’s 2009 Champions for Change Program launch.

Champions for Change athletes (Greg LeMond, Anne Quemere, Marcos Diaz, Natalie Spilger and Chris Dickerson), author and Under-Secretary General sign carbon declaration.

Board of Directors

Jane Poynter, President
Jane lived sealed in the artificial world of Biosphere 2 for two whole years. Her training led her to ride the Australian Outback on horseback, and sail across the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. She managed the design and operation of the farm where the crew grew its food. She is the author of The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 and Champions for Change: Athletes Making a World of Difference.

Jane is President and a co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation, which develops technologies for extreme environments like outer space. Jane has had experiments in her patented self-sustaining habitats flown on the International Space Station, the Russian Mir Space Station, and the U.S. Space Shuttle. She has also worked with the World Bank on projects to mitigate global climate change. Jane has appeared on hundreds of television and radio shows, and has been interviewed for many magazine and newspaper articles about Biosphere 2 and her work in space and the environment.

Betty Barton, Member
Betty has worked on aspects of global sustainability, social accountability and clean energy since the mid-1990s.  For 14 years she has been a Public Policy Advisor at the law firm Patton Boggs where she specializes in issues involving strategic assistance, issue advocacy, crisis management, and policy innovation.  She helped launch the White House initiative, Technology for a Sustainable Future and the EPA Innovations Task Force Aiming for Excellence. She was appointed by the US EPA Administrator to the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology’s Compliance Assistance Advisory Committee. She also provided consultation and implementation guidance on "first-ever" internationally certified environmental management and social accountability programs for major multinational food companies.

Previously she lived and worked in Washington, DC and Alaska, spending time in places and engaging in endeavors that remain close to her heart. Among her fondest memories was her work in Bush Alaska, which included several years as a circuit riding city manager serving communities dotted throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. As she looks back, she knows it is a corner of the world that vividly demonstrates the importance of careful environmental practices exercised by each of us.

Richard DeBernardis, Secretary Treasurer
Richard is President of Perimeter Bicycling Association of America, a non-profit that produces the largest cycling events in the southwestern United States, including El Tour de Tucson. He also co-founded El Tour de Mt. Fuji in Japan, a cycling race around the sacred landmark to promote personal and environmental health. Perimeter has raised millions of dollars for non-profits through its events and races.

Richard has cycled around the perimeter of the contiguous United States, as well as Japan’s largest island, Honshu. He was founding President of Global Sports Alliance USA, the non profit dedicated to sustainability and environmental sciences education through sports that has now become Blue Marble Institute.

Taber MacCallum, Member
Taber has worked at every level of command on a research vessel, sailing to over 40 ports and over 30,000 miles around the world. He served as Dive Master for a project to reintroduce two captive research dolphins to the wild as well as underwater ship salvage operations. Taber led the design of the analytical systems for Biosphere 2, and was a crew member in the first two-year mission living and working inside the three-acre materially closed ecological system which supported the life of the eight human inhabitants.

Taber is CEO and co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation. He has led the design of a sealed Martian greenhouse for the Jet Propulsion Lab, and conceived numerous technologies including a novel Mars space suit system for NASA, as well as hazardous environment life support technology for U.S. Navy divers. He led experiments on the International Space Station, Soviet BioSatellite, U.S. Space Shuttle, and the Russian Mir Orbital Station. He has published numerous papers resulting from his work at Biosphere 2 on space biology, technology development, medical issues and on the experience of living and working in an Isolated Confined Environment.