Sightings | Alumni Profile

Nicholas School Alumnus Santiago Lobeira (MEM '99) Practices Sustainability at Work and at Home p.4

by Lisa M. Dellwo

  During his time at the Nicholas School, Lobeira was active in a number of student groups, and, as a student organizer for Earth Day events in 1998, he helped plan the now-annual 5K Run for the Lemurs that raises money for the Duke Primate Center. Healy recalls a Day of the Dead party when Lobeira’s wife, Olivia, arrived dressed as the mythic Catrina: a tall, skeletal figure with a large hat who represents the aristocracy and pokes fun at death. “We’d never found a person willing and able to play the part,” says Healy. Lobeira remembers it differently: “Until this day, she has not forgiven me for making her wear this funny, bony costume and pale makeup when no one else was disguised during the party.”

  Now Olivia, who studied for an MBA at Elon College during their years in North Carolina, is managing the Hotel Jacarandas in Cuernevaca, an hour away from Mexico City. As an independent consultant, Lobeira helped her to implement an environmental management system for the hotel, which now uses solar heat for their pools and recycles its kitchen waste through worm composting.

  For Sustenta, business is growing fast, “so fast it’s scary,” says Lobeira. The partners recently began selling small cactuses and seed germination kits to selected stores in the Sam’s Club warehouse chain, and are looking for other products that will perform well in retail stores.

  “The satisfaction of creating jobs, creating products, is great,” Lobeira says. And he holds his experience out as an example to others who wish to embrace environmentalism in their daily lives: “We need to change. We changed first the house and then how we work—and we are on our way to sustainability. You can do it too.”

For more about Sustenta Soluciones check out www.sustenta.com

Lisa M. Dellwo is a freelance writer in Durham, N.C.

page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

more sightings >