WE ARE YOUR ALDER.
We believe our efforts can transform the narrative around climate change. We are driven, daring, curious and loving, committed to standing strong in the face of adversity.
Melanie Adamson
Founder & CEO
Mel believes the right story can change how people think, how businesses grow, and ultimately, what gets built. With more than 25 years of experience spanning journalism, public relations, brand strategy, and business growth, she has built a career connecting complex ideas with the people and markets that matter.
She leads teams that turn complicated technologies into compelling narratives, build market credibility, and connect brand strategy to measurable business outcomes.
Beyond Alder, Mel is a Venture Partner at Lichen Ventures, an early-stage climate technology investment firm. She also founded Tofu, a climate marketing community of more than 1,500 members, mentors emerging entrepreneurs, and supports organizations working to address the climate crisis. Her career spans work with utilities across the globe, energy agencies, and climate and energy technology companies, giving her a broad perspective on the people, policies, and technologies shaping the energy transition.
SHANE WOLFSMITH
Managing Director
Shane prides himself in helping clients reach places they didn’t know were possible. When working with clients and agency teams he believes deeply in what they can achieve together by inspiring, guiding and building together.
He’s a proven client leader with 30 years of experience focusing on delivering integrated, value-driven marketing solutions that solve business challenges, engage audiences, and grow brands for clients. He’s led multidisciplinary teams to deliver impactful work for leading global, national, regional and local organizations.
Shane’s past experience includes client, organizational and board leadership roles at Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Grady Britton, AHA/Finn Partners, American Express and Northwest Academy. He has years of experience working with purpose-driven brands engaging audiences to create more good in the world.
BRIAN DIXON
Creative Director
A longtime creative leader, Brian has shaped and implemented some of the Northwest’s most recognized and respected brands, including many in the energy efficiency sector. He has led initiatives for NEEA, partnered with Forth Mobility, and spearheaded Puget Sound Energy’s carbon-zero campaign — turning technical complexity into clear, compelling stories.
Brian excels at recognizing an organization’s north star and illuminating it with strategic standards, templates, and processes that ensure accuracy, cohesion, and consistency across every touchpoint. With a collaborative mindset, disciplined project management, and careful stewardship of resources, he delivers visionary ideas grounded in real-world execution.
His commitment to the environment extends beyond work, spending his free time immersed in the rivers and mountains of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
MANDA BOREALIS
Senior Designer
With over 21 years of experience building distinctive brands and bringing bold ideas to life, Manda combines strategic thinking, creative instinct, and a sharp eye for detail across brand identity, digital design, and web. She thrives on solving complex challenges, pushing creative boundaries, and helping purpose-driven organizations stand out in a crowded landscape.
Outside of work, you’ll find Manda screen-printing in her basement or hiking a Pacific Northwest trail with her daughter and their corgi sidekick, Bodhi.
Cami Marez
Digital Marketing Account Manager
Cami has worked in B2B and B2C marketing for the last six years. She has experience in various industries, including healthcare, fintech and climate tech. Although she’s a jack of all trades in marketing, she especially enjoys helping companies build their marketing strategies from scratch and working on demand generation to bring new customers to their doorstep. When Cami isn’t working with clients to help their visions come to life, she’s busy traveling the world, trying new foods and plotting new ways to make friends.
Nick Lloyd
Senior Writer
Nick turns complex climate technology into clear, compelling stories for founders and operators across the clean energy sector. With 13 years bringing complicated products to market, he combines editorial sharpness with a knack for cutting through technical and regulatory complexity, aligning stakeholders around messaging that moves audiences to act.
Before Alder, Nick led writing and editing for clients including Chase, Google, PwC, and Charles Schwab, spanning web, video, podcast, and print. A Grinnell College graduate based in Portland, Nick brings the same storytelling instinct to his community work. He led the Edison Street Mural, a 336-foot Black Lives Matter installation examining his own street’s role in two centuries of systemic racism in Portland, a project that raised more than $16,000 for local anti-racist nonprofits and earned a Silver in the Side Show awards’ Social Good category.
Our Trusted Advisors.
Bettina Grab
Company builder & B2B growth leader
Bettina is a company builder, B2B growth expert and startup advisor obsessed with using climate technologies to make an impact. As Alder’s Partner and Chief Growth Officer from 2021 to 2024, Bettina played a key role in driving the agency’s growth, overseeing business development and marketing functions, as well as advising clients on effective growth strategies. She’s a thought leader and speaker on go-to-market strategies for climate tech companies and mentors startups through Third Derivative, the Unreasonable Group and Cleantech Open. Before pivoting her career to climate tech, Bettina led B2B marketing efforts for global tech and services companies for over 15 years. She’s an avid yogi, hiker and baker of German sourdough bread.
Josh Keeling
SVP, Chief Commercial Officer, UtilityAPI
Josh leads teams responsible for developing, designing, and deploying turnkey virtual power plant offerings for utilities and wholesale markets. He is a thought leader in DER integration and has conceived several industry-leading programs in distributed flexibility. Often called to speak on topics such as FERC Order 2222 implementation, interconnection reform, and integrated distribution planning, he teaches the next generation of energy managers at his alma mater, Portland State University. He is a voting member of the Regional Technical Forum, RMI’s eLab Initiative faculty, and an active contributor to various standard-making bodies around grid integration and flexible loads.
Carrie Maultsby-Lute
Head of Partnerships, Oakland Campus, Northeastern University
Carrie is passionate about nurturing the next generation of sustainability leaders. She is the Director of the Center for Transformative Action at Mills College at Northeastern University and teaches marketing courses at Mills College at Northeastern University and at Presidio Graduate School of Business. In 2021, Carrie was awarded a Love Takes Action award by New York Life for her role in supporting small businesses in the community during COVID. Carrie has partnered with over 130+ organizations to discuss solutions and build models for combatting long standing societal problems. Carrie has a B.A. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Mills College.
Kristina McMillan
Co-Founder, Argyle Earth
Kristina is a published thought leader with over 20 years of startup experience. She helped build TOPO, a sales and marketing tech firm, which was sold to Gartner in 2019.
Emily Pearce
Director of Client Engagement,
Evergreen Energy Partners
Emily comes from energy efficiency stock. With almost 20 years working in energy efficiency and business in both commercial and residential markets leading strategic initiatives for utility partners including developing and designing innovative programs, introducing new technology to the marketplace and implementing programs across the U.S. Emily brings her partnership, business development and strategy chops to partners, clients and teams with passion and exuberance every day.