3p Contributor: Kate Drane

Kate Drane is the Stakeholder Outreach Manager for Triple Pundit. In addition, she is the co-founder of The Can Van, a Bay Area mobile beer canning service and PresidioSpace, a business incubator/ co-working/ event space located in San Francisco. She received her BA in Journalism from Butler University and MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School where she honed her skills and passions for recruiting, networking, community building and intrapreneurship.

Recent Articles

4 Things You Can Learn from the Craft Brewing Industry

| Wednesday May 30th, 2012 | 5 Comments

Everyone loves craft beer. Photo © 2012 Jason E. Kaplan

Craft brewing is an industry that is feel-good in more ways than one. Boasting more than $8.7 billion in total retail sales in 2011 from the nearly 2000 American craft breweries (the highest total since the 1880s, per the Brewers Association), the craft brewing industry proves that it is serious business. By creating a collaborative culture that emphasizes high quality products, the craft brewing world serves up powerful lessons.

Lesson 1: Find your passion

Placing an emphasis on the “craft” in craft beer creates a culture of excellence. People are drawn to the craft beer world by their dreams, passion, and love of good beer. And the fact that it’s really fun. Currently the craft beer industry provides an estimated 103,585 US jobs.

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Raise a Glass to Green Beer

| Tuesday May 29th, 2012 | 0 Comments

Green Beer? Cheers to that! Photo © 2012 Jason E. Kaplan

Earlier this month, Triple Pundit teamed up with The Can Van to better understand the connection between two of our favorite topics: sustainability and beer!

We had the unique opportunity to sit down and share a beer at the 29th annual Craft Brewers Conference with craft beer all-stars including Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Bison Organic Beer, and more. With each new industry professional we met, and every brew we enjoyed, it came as no surprise that our appreciation for beer deepened.  These candid conversations helped us develop a clearer picture of the integral role sustainability plays in the beer industry. And that made us pretty happy about our choice in adult beverages.

We learned that you can gain more than just money by collaborating with your industry peers, that breweries (on the whole) are important community stewards, and there are a number of different ways a business can view its commitment to sustainability.

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Creating Big Impacts Through Community Engagement

| Thursday June 16th, 2011 | 0 Comments

Creating opportunities for local economies to grow creates broader impacts.

There is a growing public expectation that companies should give back to their communities in an authentic, meaningful way. Companies are taking notice and creating programs to address these demands.

The positive return for adopting a robust corporate responsibility program is resounding,as evidenced by the reception for Panera Bread’s Community Café program, (whose founder Ronald Shaich received a standing ovation for his presentation at Sustainable Brands ’11). These programs attract and retain talent, create partnerships with non-profits and provide avenues for aligning the mission and values of the company with the community.

“More corporations are already making CSR strategies part of their overall business and core competencies. They can actually maximize the return on their investments and make the greatest positive societal impact by integrating community engagement and employee volunteer programs within these efforts,” says Kellie McElhaney, Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Business at Haas School of Business (via Volunteer Match).

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