About Beth

Who's Beth? A talented writer and a passionate activist, Beth has devoted the majority of her professional life to creating greener communities - starting well before "green" was a popular trend.

In 1985, after graduating from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Religious Studies, she helped launch the "Green Revival Messenger Service." The traveling troupe of musicians, poets (including Gary Snyder) and environmental activists performed all over northern California raising awareness about rainforest destruction and logging issues and entertaining audiences with spoken word and song. GRMS was her first attempt at melding her natural aptitudes for writing, producing and organizing around important issues, with her love of live music and performance.

Rock On...For a Reason!

Time on tour with the Dead convinced Ingalls that live music audiences were an untapped resource for activism and positive social change. They just needed a nudge from the artists on stage who they idolized! She began advocating to convince the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and other notables to help spread the word about the rainforest, which was still an emerging issue in 1986. These early efforts in conjunction with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) eventually fueled a series of benefit concerts with Dylan and the Dead at Madison Square Garden in 1988. Merle Saunders created the Rainforest Band, touring extensively and releasing two albums in the early 1990's devoted to the cause, and Bob Weir later joined the Board of Directors of RAN.

The Three R's

Inspired by a stint with Ecocycle (the grassroots recycling organization in Boulder) during college, Beth went on to establish volunteer recycling programs in Taos, NM, Darien, CT and rural Bath County, Virginia. In 1992 she was hired as the first professional recycling coordinator for a multi-jurisdictional region there and soon after was appointed to state level advocacy as Chair of the Virginia Recycling Coalition's Rural Recycling Committee. She honed her professional skills in program development and management, marketing, public speaking, media relations, working with elected Boards and Commissions and engaging the public in programs to help meet state mandates.

After moving to Truckee, she helped guide the Town's young recycling program from its earliest stages. Working from 1999 until 2002 entirely in a volunteer capacity for the Town, she helped grow the blue bag recycling program and participation in it while she served as Chair of the Citizen's Waste Mangement Advisory Committee. One of her favorite memories from that time was designing the ubiquitous "Keep Truckee Green" on her home computer after CWMAC came up with the slogan at their monthly meeting in 1999!

Public Service

Leading a narrowly defeated citizen's referendum in 2002 and frustrated by the fact that she had been unsuccessful in persuading the Town to create a paid recycling coordinator position, she decided to throw her hat in the ring for a crowded Truckee Town Council race and won. Ingalls served a four year term and was Truckee's Mayor in 2006. Juggling a rigorous public service schedule with the demands of being a single parent to her three sons led her to start her own small business in 2004. Electrik Lady Productions was originally focused on music production and band publicity, but soon took on a variety of freelance communications work, which led to the recent birth of a hybrid business, Insightful Freelance + Events.