EEBA Staff

Aaron Smith is the CEO of the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA) which represents a community of over 50,000 builders and their stakeholders across North America that are truly the early adopters and innovators in driving sustainable transformation of the homebuilding industry.

Aaron has over 25 years of experience in home construction, building products, sustainability and non-profit board leadership. He has worked for companies including Kohler, Uponor and ASSA ABLOY as well as startups in Silicon Valley and his own building and remodeling company. Aaron previously served on non-profit Boards for Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC), CT Sustainable Business Council, and co-founded the CT Collaborative - Living Building Challenge.

Aaron completed his undergraduate studies at West Point and St. Cloud State University and is a 2016 graduate of the Yale University MBA program with a focus on Sustainability. He loves green building and sustainability as well as hockey, hiking, skiing, gardening and spending time with his wife, Jennifer, 3 boys and 4 cats and chickens at their home in Minneapolis.

Nancy Bakeman is the Executive Vice President of EEBA, the Energy & Environmental Building Alliance, a community of over 50,000 members whose goal is to help high performance builders thrive and drive the transformation of sustainable building across North America.

She has been with the organization for nearly 15 years and has played several different roles and adapted to lots of changes in the industry over those years.  In her past life, she spent many years in the legal profession and made the leap to the non-profit world in 2005 and never looked back.

Nancy lives in the Minneapolis area and likes to travel and spend time outside in all seasons, but mostly loves spending time with friends and family, especially her granddaughter Ari.

Brooke Bratrud is a senior Product Design student at the University of Minnesota with an intended graduation date of Spring 2021.

Her course work includes creative design methods, concept sketching, graphic design, entrepreneurship, and user experience design. She is also a member of the University Honors Program and is pursuing a minor in management through Carlson School of Management. She has a strong interest in user experience design and has had two user experience internships prior to her role with EEBA at a small software company as well as Optum/UnitedHealth Group. Outside of work, Brooke enjoys being outdoors, Nordic skiing, embroidering, and traveling!

Luodan Rojas is a recent graduate of the Medill School of Journalism and Communications at Northwestern University.

She specializes in multimedia journalism and international environmental policy. Luodan has managed communications for several sustainable construction organizations in Central America. She also worked as an intern for a Chicago-based video agency, and as an editor and graphic designer for a Northwestern University magazine. Luodan spends her free time making digital illustrations and animations. She’s excited to learn more about digital media and design at EEBA!