GOLD SPONSORS

About the speaker

Sherri Goodman A pioneer in sustainability and national security, Sherri Goodman is among the most respected international voices on emerging global risks, including energy and climate security, environment and public health. The Pentagon’s first-ever Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security), Sherri led efforts to transform the Department of Defense into a leader in sustainability, climate resilience and advanced energy. Today she serves as Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security. Sherri is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Global Energy Center and a Senior Associate at the Harvard Arctic Initiative. Her book, Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership and the Fight for Global Security, gives readers an inside account, from the Pentagon to the battlefield, of today’s military on the front lines of a changing climate, the energy transition, technology upheavals and new health challenges.

About the book | Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security

Threat Multiplier takes us onto the battlefield and inside the Pentagon to show how the US military is confronting the biggest security risk in global history: climate change. More than thirty years ago, when Sherri Goodman became the Pentagon’s first Chief Environmental Officer, no one would have imagined this role for our armed forces.

Indeed, for much of the twentieth century, the Department of Defense (DOD) was better known for containing the Soviet nuclear threat than protecting the environment. And yet, today, the military has moved from an environmental laggard to a clean energy and climate leader, recognizing that a warming world exacerbates every threat—from hurricanes and forest fires, to competition for increasingly scarce food and water, to terrorism and power plays by Russia and China. The Pentagon now considers climate in war games, disaster relief planning, international diplomacy, and even the design of its own bases.

What was the key to this dramatic change in military thinking? What keeps today’s generals and admirals up at night? How can we safeguard our national defense and our planet? No one is better poised to answer these questions than Sherri Goodman, who was at the vanguard of environmental leadership among our armed forces and civilian representatives. In Threat Multiplier, she tells the inside story of the military’s fight for global security, a tale that is as hopeful as it is harrowing.

About the moderator

Commander Ryan Hawn assumed the duties of Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City, Michigan in July 2024. He leads 130 officers and enlisted personnel in all-weather operations of 3 MH-60T “Jayhawks” conducting Search and Rescue and Law Enforcement operations in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as well as Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron.

Commander Hawn previously served as Chief Pilot and Operations Officer of Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Alaska, leading 60 pilots and 300 aircrew in multi-mission operations of 15 aircraft including HC-130 “Hercules,” MH-60T “Jayhawks,” and MH-65D “Dolphins” in the nation’s most hazardous aviation operating area covering Alaska, the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Arctic.

Prior to this, Commander Hawn was Director of Strategic Foresight for the Coast Guard’s Deputy Commandant for Operations in the Coast Guard Office of Emerging Policy (DCO-X) where was co-author of the Department of Homeland Security’s first published Strategic Approach for Arctic Homeland Security.

Hailing from Niceville, Florida, Commander Hawn has served in the Coast Guard for 20 years, previously as a helicopter instructor pilot conducting search and rescue and at-sea counter-narcotics missions at Air Station San Francisco, Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) Jacksonville, and Alaska Patrol (ALPAT) Kodiak – accumulating nearly 3500 hours of flight time and eighteen shipboard deployments in the Arctic, Bering Sea, Caribbean, and Pacific in both the Dolphin and Jayhawk helicopters.

In 2005 he earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy and Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2019. He is an active commercial multi engine airplane pilot, retiring from the Coast Guard in July to pursue a flying and leadership role in a major airline.

Ryan is married to the former Christiana Geletzke, a Coast Guard Academy alumni and prior Coast Guard cutterman who now researches cancer treatments as a biostatistician. In their free time, Ryan and Christiana enjoy running, windsurfing, camping, and sharing their love of the outdoors with their three daughters Zoe (13), Aletheia (11), and Nika (9).