Intelligent Must See TV
This week's Profile: Houston green goddess Sara Speer Selber reveals her mobilelife
Editor's note: Due to a Ch. 8 scheduling mixup, the Profile episode of Sara Speer Selber that CultureMap previously covered is airing for the first time tonight. More on the green goddess ...
It's hard to be a mover and shaker in Houston without knowing Sara Speer Selber.
Selber, the subject of tonight's Profile (10:30 tonight and 11 p.m. Friday night on Channel 8, Houston PBS), has been a player on the non-profit scene for over 25 years, and organizations bearing her imprint have included The Dynegy Foundation, AIDS Foundation Houston, after-school program non-profit Prepared 4 Life, Selko and Associates, BuildClean, The Project Management Team and the Bynum School in Midland.
"Sara is Ms. Supporting Local. She's all about supporting local businesses, entrepreneurs, and causes," Profile host Greg Scheinman says. "There's probably no one on as many committees as Sara, both for the environment and her organization BuildClean — which is all about building green, environmentally-friendly, air-quality-conscious spaces. She's another one of those dynamic people where they're always moving and always connecting the dots."
One of the ways Selber connects the dots is through her company, The Project Management Team.
"She works with businesses and non-profits, sets their course and strategic vision both publicly and behind the scenes," Scheinman says. "She used to be with Dynegy, ran their community affairs, cultural diversity, corporate giving, all that stuff. And she was instrumental in AIDS Foundation Houston, one of the original people that were running it and building it up."
Selber is not the first Profile subject to have multiple projects running at once (It's almost a prerequisite), but her day does seem to be the most mobile.
"We started at her house, then went around to different clients of hers — including Living Well in Rice Village and Smart Meals —and to different strategic meetings, building Web sites, crafting mission statements for her clients, seeing projects through from start to finish, meetings with anyone from Web designers to social media consultants to owners of different businesses," Scheinman says.
"In the show what we talked about a lot was her commitment to the community and how she manages to put the right pieces together to manage the projects," Scheinman continues. "We spent a lot of time talking about social media and how to use it to build local businesses. Sara has been through the traditional mold and is in her 50s. What she's really been able to do is adapt to new ways of business.
"She's Generation X and Generation Y at the same time — her contemporaries listen to her but the younger generation listens to her too because she's staying relevant."
Which doesn't mean Selber is impressed with herself.
"It's very difficult to get Sara to talk about herself, and it's very easy to get her to talk about others. So it's an opportunity to see her character by seeing the people she works with," Scheinman says. "She's one of those people who seems to know everybody. She's just helping people wherever she can, she just seemed like a good story to tell as someone who is really trying to do good and who doesn't seem to have an agenda other than good karma."
CultureMap is the official online home of Profile — and you can watch exclusive clips of all the episodes in the series (season one and the current season two) on our special Profile page.