DNC's green queen downplays role as actress
By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published July 22, 2008 at 8:48 p.m.
Updated July 22, 2008 at 8:48 p.m.
Photo by Linda McConnell / SPECIAL TO THE ROCKY
Andrea Robinson conducts a workshop on how to keep the DNC green with the kitchen staff at the Colorado Convention Center in June.
The link between greening and Hollywood has never been far apart — remember Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar and Leonardo Dicaprio produced a documentary on global warming.
So it's probably not a huge surprise that the Democratic National Convention's first-ever Director of Greening has her own link to Tinseltown.
Andrea Robinson, a 38-year-old blonde, carries a lengthy list of acting credits to her name. Last year, she had a small role on the hit show CSI: Miami.
But her longest stint was on the Billy Ray Cyrus family-oriented vehicle, Doc.
From 2001-2004, she played Nancy Nichol opposite Cyrus. She also had small roles in The West Wing and Melrose Place among other roles that spanned from 1995 to 2007.
But the Democratic National Convention Committee never highlighted any of that when she was named as the director of its environmental effort.
When initially asked about her acting career, the DNCC said it wasn't relevant. When asked to provide a resume for Robinson, it took the DNCC a month. There was no mention of her acting background — just how she developed recycle programs on the sets of Doc and Sue Thomas F.B.Eye.
Neither she nor the DNCC would even disclose her age beyond saying it was "thirtysomething."
And when she was asked about her acting career, Robinson said it was something that was in her past. But when a call was made to the Los Angeles-based Amsel, Eisenstadt & Frazier Talent Agency, they confirmed she is still being represented by them.
None of which might have been a problem except when a conservative blog, redstate.com, noted on the DNCC's biography page for Robinson, it touted her 25 years of environmental experience.
That would mean the DNCC was counting experience from when she was 13. "Is Andrea Robinson lying about her age or is the DNC lying about her qualifications?" the redstate.com blog asked.
Robinson does hold a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of California, Santa Barbara — graduating in 1993. She helped with high-level donors while working for the Sierra Club. And Damon Jones, spokesman for the DNCC, said she had a good reputation based on her past work.
"Andrea was recommended to us by some of the people that worked at Live Earth, who we knew from working with (Al) Gore in the White House," Jones said. "On their recommendation, we met with her and decided she was the best fit for the job."
That job has been, at time, choppy.
Greening has been a huge effort on behalf of the city and the convention. With much fanfare, they launched a challenge to state delegations to purchase offsets to reduce their carbon footprint. But as of a month ago, only three states had committed 100 percent to the effort.
Since then, one more state has come on board at 100 percent and Jones said 37 states have agreed to participate in some form.
But the DNCC has come under criticism for refusing to release an internal baseline report detailing how much carbon dioxide they thought the convention would produce and how their high-profile greening efforts would reduce that number.
Such reports are standard practice in industry and help provide credibility to the work — the argument being you have to have a baseline and the public needs to know what the baseline is so that it can determine whether the efforts are legitimate.
The greening efforts also came under criticism when it was suggested no fried foods be served at the convention.
DNCC officials, along with officials with the Denver 2008 Host Committee have gone out of their way in recent weeks to let people know that, for example, fried food will be readily available at the convention.
Robinson, for her part, is mum on her background. She referred all questions to Jones.
Jones said they weren't trying to hide her background, but didn't see how it was relevant to her current job. And he again defended the 25 years of experience touted on the DNCC Web site.
"Different people construct their bios in different ways and I think at the end of the day we included what we thought was relevant to it," Jones said. "If you're looking at Andrea's bio, it shows she has been involved in environmental causes for a long time."
Staff writer Jerd Smith contributed to this report
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August 14, 2008
9:58 p.m.
Suggest removal
FCZ writes:
redstate.com, noted on the DNCC's biography page for Robinson, it touted her 25 years of environmental experience.
That would mean the DNCC was counting experience from when she was 13. "Is Andrea Robinson lying about her age or is the DNC lying about her qualifications?"