Staples Sophomore Brian Hershey Goes Polar

Staples High School sophomore Brian Hershey has been selected to become Fairfield County's newest Arctic Ambassador and will be heading to Canada this fall to study polar bears in their natural habitat.

Hershey was among a group of nine students — seven from Staples, one from Darien and one from Fairfield — named as "green teen" finalists in the Gault Energy-Polar Bears International Alliance for its third annual Arctic Ambassadors Leadership Camp Competition.

The program was founded in 2004 by Polar Bears International, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the polar bear's habitat through conservation, research and education. PBI's Arctic Ambassadors program identifies outstanding teens worldwide, whose leadership skills and commitment to global environmental issues uniquely qualify them to engage their local communities in the fight against global warming and the race to save the polar bear.

As Fairfield County's newest Arctic Ambassador, Hershey joins 15 other students from around the world at PBI's prestigious Leadership Camp, in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, this October where he will work alongside leading scientists, educators, photographers and filmmakers to study polar bears in their native habitat.

Hershey and his peers will learn about how climate change is affecting the planet and its wildlife, especially the polar bear, whose sea ice has been melting at an alarming rate. Some scientists predict that global warming may render the Arctic inhabitable for polar bears by as soon as the year 2030. In addition to creating and maintaining a daily blog to share his Leadership Camp experiences, Hershey will launch an ambitious campaign to inspire his peers, as well as younger children throughout Fairfield County, to be green leaders in their communities.

According to Gault Energy's Megan Smith, who served on the Competition Selection Committee, this year's competition yielded a record number of qualified applicants.

"We were extremely impressed with our applicants' leadership skills, poise and purpose," Smith said in a news release. "While the choice was a difficult one, Brian Hershey not only expressed a deep passion for the environment, but also a clear plan for taking our educational outreach to the next level. Brian's vision of using social media to inspire not only his peers, but the world at large to join in the race to save the polar bear reconfirmed our belief that as the environmental leaders of tomorrow, teens like Brian truly can make a difference."

This is the third consecutive year Gault Energy is sending a Fairfield County teen to PBI's Leadership Camp.

"As president and founder of the Staples High School Geography Club, Brian also has a special interest in ecology and zoology, which uniquely qualifies him to engage Fairfield County's residents in our collective effort to make our area a role model for change," Smith added.

Other selection committee members included: Fairfield County's current Arctic Ambassador, Redding teen Fallon Murphy, and Amy Riggio, executive director of the Westport-based non-profit organization Builders Beyond Borders.

Brian Hershey said he believes that the way we function as a society is not helping the Arctic, and that reducing Fairfield County's carbon emissions is an important first step in helping the global environment.

"I'm honored to have been chosen to be a part of the solution," Hershey said in the release. "PBI volunteers donate more than 80,000 man-hours to this cause every year. I'm hopeful that I can inspire my generation to make a big difference and look forward to leading this grassroots effort."

To help Hershey achieve his goals, the Gault Energy-PBI Alliance is inviting this year's Leadership Camp Competition finalists to join its new Arctic Leadership Council, a student body designed to extend the Arctic Ambassador's reach within Fairfield County's high school communities.

According to PBI President Robert Buchanan, the PBI model of teaching teens to teach other kids is a powerful way to ensure a legacy of commitment.

"Global warming and the conservation of the earth and its resources is a problem our children have inherited," Buchanan said. "The bottom line is that the leadership campers return to their communities with an implicit understanding that individuals can make a difference."

About Gault, Inc. and the Gault-PBI Alliance

For more than 145 years, the Gault family has been providing energy to Westport. Fulfilling his vision of transforming Fairfield County into a national role model for environmental change, in 2008, Sam Gault, the fifth-generation to lead the company, made energy conservation and education about global warming and the plight of the polar bear the cornerstone of the company's corporate mission. Inspiring homeowners to embrace "energy solutions for a greener tomorrow," Gault opened a new chapter with the non-profit organization Polar Bears International (PBI). The Gault-PBI Alliance has sent two Fairfield County "green teens" to PBI's Arctic Leadership Camp. To date, they have educated more than 1,500 children and their families about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint for the health of their neighborhoods, their communities, their planet, and the polar bear. For more information, visit www.gault-pbi.com.

About Polar Bears International

Polar Bears International is a non-profit organization devoted to worldwide conservation through education. Headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Polar Bears International (PBI) is an organization whose work is field-based in the icy North where polar bears roam. PBI believes that scientific research, educating the public, and conservation activities are the keys to saving the polar bear and its Arctic habitat. For more than a decade now, PBI's Web site, www.polarbearsinternational.org, has served as "Polar Bear Central" for all individuals and organizations with an interest in polar bears and their environment.