Lauren Selman '99 | Saying “Yes!” to Opportunity
Brentwood College School ’03
UC Berkeley ’07 - Bachelor of Arts, Theater Performance Studies, Bachelor of Science, Conservation Resource Management
Founder, Reel Green Media
Lauren Selman remembers relishing every opportunity presented to her as a fourth grader in her first year at SCDS. “I loved everything we did. We made beautiful story books and built a miners’ town and a Pomo Village in the classroom. Everything we learned was interactive and integrated so that when we learned about Monet in art class, for example, we took a field trip to gardens in San Francisco to study flowers in order to appreciate the flowers in his paintings.”
Lauren now lives in Los Angeles and runs her own business, Reel Green Media, which combines her love of entertainment and passion for the environment. Just as she soaked up every opportunity presented in then-fourth grade teacher Pat Brigham’s class, Lauren is involved in a variety of projects with a variety of people who share her interests and passions.
She was the “right hand woman” for a friend running for an LA city council position, volunteered (with her mother Tina Selman) at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, teamed up with another friend to help Target “green” the sets used for its commercials, and leads bicycle and hiking tours for Backroads every summer.
Lauren is equally enthused by her work with Reel Green Media. She founded the company in 2007 to address excessive waste on movie, television, and commercial film sets. She consults with production studios and companies and visits sets offering solutions that support goals of sustainability and environmental responsibility and creating new ways to be green.
Her green consulting with the movie, The River Why, an independent film now on the film festival circuit, was chronicled in a documentary she co-produced titled Greenlit, which also is being shown at film festivals.
Lauren embraces her many opportunities, rather than allowing them to overwhelm her. “It’s not that I’m addicted to saying ‘Yes,’ as much as I see how much I can do when I do say ‘Yes,’” she said. “I’m my own boss, and my business gives me the freedom to take advantage of new opportunities.”
She also understands how she has been influenced and enriched by her network of friends, supporters, and business associates. In fact, Lauren has a delightful story about how her life was changed by something an SCDS teacher said, and it features a storybook ending that would make her fourth grade teacher proud.
“When I was in seventh grade, PE students ran laps on a dirt path circling the Luther Burbank Center campus. While I was a slow runner at the start, I worked hard to improve my endurance and speed, and succeeded in bringing my time down to a less-than-seven-minute mile,” she said. “One of my teachers, Kenny Kane, was so impressed that he told me that one day I would be able to run across the United States.”
Little did Kenny know that Lauren would take his words to heart, using them as incentive as she took up rowing in high school and training for triathlons in college. “I kept telling myself I’d better be fit because someday I’m going to run across the United States. Unfortunately after I traveled to the Amazon while I was in college, I got so sick that I couldn’t train and became so weak that I despaired of ever running across the U.S.”
However, a friend suggested that she bike across the country instead. “I realized I could do that,” she said. “So, during the summer of 2005 I did, and joined the Habitat Bike Challenge, raising money for Habitat for Humanity while fulfilling a personal promise prompted by an SCDS teacher.”
Sonoma Country Day School
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The premier, fully accredited, independent TK-8 college preparatory school in Sonoma County. Located in northern Santa Rosa and proud home of The Jackson Theater, SCDS offers a challenging academic program rich in fine and performing arts, music, world languages, and social and emotional learning. For more than thirty years SCDS has been the school that brings learning to life.
