Patricia Chase

I have always loved wandering around cities. When I was a teen and my peers were saving for a car, I was saving for my first trip to Europe, which I took just after high school graduation. This love of cities turned into a career when I was living in Denmark. I was so impressed by the bicycling infrastructure, energy and waste systems, well-designed and vibrant public spaces, and more that I wanted to share their accomplishments with people who could learn from them and apply them to their own cities, including politicians, real estate developers, architects and others. This lead to 15 years of researching cities worldwide, and this book.

Here's my official bio: A sustainable development strategist, Patricia has has facilitated the public, private and NGO sectors to come together to provide better stewardship of the environment while improving local and regional economies through exposure to global best practices. Her clients, at the company she founded in 2003, i-SUSTAIN (www.i-sustain.com) have included cities, states, NGOs and businesses. i-SUSTAIN is a collaborative firm that actively seeks out partners in every sector to improve people's lives while using less resources and producing less greenhouse gasses.

In recognition of her work with i-SUSTAIN, Patricia was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2007 “for creating a uniquely effective program to educate and inspire political and business leaders through international models of sustainable design and development.” Patricia has served as a Board Member of the Cascade Bicycle Club, the largest bicycling organization in the US.

From childhood, when she sold homemade popsicles to neighbors in the summer, Patricia has been an entrepreneur. Prior to i-SUSTAIN, from 1987 to 2001, she owned and operated Chase Bobko, a leading Seattle high-tech firm. She was one of the first women owners of a technology firm. The firm had up to 200 employees and worked for major corporations such as Microsoft, Boeing and Motorola along with many leading dot.coms. Chase Bobko was honored by the Washington State Software Association for creating and funding “Kids on the Web,” a program in the late 1990s in which Chase Bobko staff taught under-resourced teens web development skills.