Category Archives: #yeahthatgreenville

Beer and Napkins Event- RiverReConnect: ReConnecting People to Rivers Initiative

RiverReConnect: ReConnecting People to Rivers Initiative

Tuesday, June 9th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm The Community Tap, 217 Wade Hampton Blvd, Greenville, SC 29609 (864) 631-2525

Upstate Forever Staff Members Nancy Eisen Fitzer and Heather Bergerud Nix will present key initiatives in education and engagement to cultivate a stronger appreciation for our limited water resources and a fascination with the ecological richness of Upstate SC water resources and rivers. Several projects will be highlighted including Blueway Mapping and Upstate Adopt-A-Stream. We will follow the presentation with an ideation session targeting these two projects.

Limited to 30 Attendees

(Tickets include choice of craft beer and pizza will be served)

About our Presenters

Nancy Eisen Fitzer has been with Upstate Forever since 2005. Her responsibilities include producing our newsletters, maintaining this website, researching and writing other publications, and monitoring state legislation.
Nancy has a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from Clemson University, a B.A. in biological anthropology from Harvard, and also studied natural resource management and rainforest ecology in Australia. Her previous experience includes organizing community service projects in partnership with schools, parks, and shelters in Columbia for City Year, a national youth corps program.Nancy lives in Greenville with her husband, Matt, and three children.

Heather Bergerud Nix joined the Upstate Forever staff in 2007 and is the Director of the Clean Air & Water Program, where she leads a variety of advocacy and outreach efforts. Heather received her B.S. in Biology from Winthrop University. Before joining Upstate Forever, Heather was a project manager at an environmental consulting firm. Her main focus was wetland delineation and permitting, construction site inspections, and industrial facility inspections. Previously, Heather gained a variety of experience working at Glacier National Park in Montana, a chemical manufacturing facility in South Carolina, and onboard commercial fishing vessels in the Bering Sea.
Heather is thrilled to be able to use her technical knowledge and background to help further positive changes in the Upstate. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, gardening and traveling.

For more information contact Phil McCreight or Tony Miller

Meetup Scheduled for May 27, 2015: Engaging Creativity and Innovation of the Upstate’s International Community

As part of Beer and Napkins Community of Growth we seek to engage diverse members of our community to continue to brew innovative ideas to help individuals, communities, and organizations. We are excited to be spotlighting two leaders in the community who are devoting their energies to tap the creativity of diverse community in the Upstate

Veronica Schoell – Business Coach and Leader in the upstate automotive industry

Veronica is the founder of The Greenville (SC) International Group – Group used as a tool to increase the interaction and integration of the international community and its American friends in Greenville, SC. She will share insight into her group and some of the needs of the international community and how to engage them more.

Juan G Gonzalez, MS- Business Consultant and Entrepreneur

Juan is the owner of Innovation Builders, LLC, and co-owner of Optimum Professional Services, LLC, His is also the founder of Spanish Writers, a mixed group of published writers and writers in the works, with the common ground of finding beauty, culture and history in any language we can find them, and then share our thoughts to other cultures and communities. Beside managing his companies he is devoted to his Hispanic Innovation Exchange HiE. HiE has a bi-fold purpose: On one side, HiE intends to bring the cutting-edge events in the English (Mainstream) Innovation Market into the Local Hispanic Group Market, this process implies the use of an interface that translates into Spanish initially (other languages in the future) and promote events, flexibly, timely and on the most appropriate target market inside the Hispanic Group. The other side involves building up relationships with Spanish speaking countries and foster innovation exchange into and from this countries with America Innovation.

Come join us for this free event sharing ideas.

Space limited to 20 attendees. Snacks will be provided.

(Coffee, wine, and beer are available for purchase)

Challenge of the Week: Take Initiative

“Taking initiative pays off. It is harder to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.” Lean In-Sheryl Sandberg

Challenge: Take a BOLD step and make your ideas happen. REPEAT!

Share your ideas here to help encourage women to make their ideas happen Imagine That: #WomenLeadGVL

Community, Ideas, and Jobs: The Impact of Craft Beer in the Upstate

It’s been a few years since I realized the importance of the emerging craft beer industry. I knew something was up in my 2009 blog post Take a Step Forward with a Step Back, however I didn’t fully realize how locally important the industry would be in building community, innovation, and economic development in the upstate.

Brook Bristow , Executive Director of the South Carolina Brewers Guild shared with me the staggering economic impact of the South Carolina craft beer industry, “The latest economic numbers indicated that South Carolina sees about a $254M economic impact from craft beer, with about 3,000 jobs directly attributable to it. With the new survey results and the additional taproom sales from existing breweries, that number should now sit around $275M.” Greenville News has also spotlighted the boom in Beer tourism in Carolinas.

Photo courtesy of Anders Adermark https://www.flickr.com/photos/cmbellman/

On a personal note, our Beer and Napkins organization has benefited significantly from the community and third place that the craft beer industry has provided. From Growler Haus in Anderson, Community Tap, and Brewery 85 in Greenville, we have met amazing people and groups who are continually brewing ideas. A great example is from one of our first pitch sessions from David Thorton and Even Skjervold of SouthYeast Labs, a company that locally sources brewer’s yeast for use in beer, wine, mead, cider and liquor. Additionally the numerous home-brewing organization such as Just Brew It Anderson and Clemson Brew Crew have been a breeding ground for a number of innovations and business ideas. Examples such as these are just a drop in the barrel of companies and organizations starting and thriving due to the community and ideas this industry is providing.

We at Beer and Napkins feel that the SC craft beer industry is not just self-serving but provides the social lubricant and ecosystem for continued innovation in South Carolina. We are very appreciative of the local brewers, brewpubs, and the advocacy of Brook and the SC Brewer’s Guild. Beer and Napkins is thankful to be part of this evolution.

On March the 19^th we will celebrate the industries’ journey with our BeerStory event. Brook will be our featured presenter and we will also hear storypitches and samples from three local start-up breweries Carolina Bauernhaus Ales, Birds Fly South Ale Project, and 13 Stripes.

Please join us at Openworks March 19^th at 6:30pm for a taste and inspiration. Signup here to get your tickets BeerStory: Evolution of SC Beer

We will be using #BandN_BeerStory and #scbeer during this event