Tapfire’s management team has experience across multiple industries. We also draw on an extensive network of consultants, enabling us to provide you with a team of professionals who are experts in their field.

Steve Attinger, Principal and Founder

Christine Kohl-Zaugg, Senior Consultant

Pam Van Orden, Senior Brand Strategist

Steve has a background in sustainable business strategy, product marketing, business development, and corporate training. His experience includes a consulting engagement with The Natural Step, over twelve years in the Silicon Valley high-tech sector, and a finance position in Zurich, Switzerland. Steve has worked with both startup and Fortune 500 companies, including Abbott Diagnostics, Dell, Gap, HP, Intel, Mervyn’s, NEC, Oracle, Schwab, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and Symantec. Steve is a specialist in business sustainability best practices, and consults with companies to vision, design, and execute programs in this area. He is currently working with several Silicon Valley Fortune 500 companies to address climate change through efficiencies, employee education, and renewable energy certificates. He recently wrote an analysis on the trends around carbon emissions and how society will address them going forward.

From 2002-2006 he educated executives about the economics and bottom line benefits of sustainable business strategies through Silicon Valley’s Business and Sustainability Group. In 2005 he directed the first conference on “Cradle to Cradle Design” with Michael Braungart, William McDonough, and Peter Senge. Steve has spoken on sustainability for companies, conferences, radio programs, cities, non-profits, and universities.

Recently Steve led a cross-industry working group on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the electronics sector, and published an article on this topic describing the value of “product take-back” for companies.

Steve holds an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio School of Management. During his graduate work, he authored a paper, “Cradle to Cradle: What Is It, How To Get There,” where he explained the steps that companies can take toward integrating Cradle to Cradle into their business models. In addition, he authored a “Sustainable Marketing Resource Guide” that outlines trends and tactics for companies to use when incorporating environmental and social values into their marketing strategies.

Christine Kohl-Zaugg has over a decade of experience providing strategic and tactical environmental management and sustainability consulting services to a variety of business and government entities in Europe and the United States. She has consulted for various industry verticals, including: biotechnology, manufacturing, information technology, media, heavy industry (e.g. steel, oil, cement), sportswear, utilities, and wineries. This includes major Fortune 500 firms like Nike, IBM and Vivendi Universal, as well as small and medium sized businesses. During her career, Christine has worked for a national science institute, several environmental consultancies – including a large environmental engineering group and a PR/media oriented company, as well as a government agency. Christine is the Principal of EcoPulse, a woman-owned environmental consulting company focusing on using sustainability as a key to gain competitive advantage. She has experience in: greenhouse gas inventories & management, life cycle analysis (LCAs), national and international EHS regulations (including RoHS and WEEE), pollution prevention and resources management, environmental & sustainability reporting, and environmental management systems (ISO 14001, TQM).

Christine obtained her M.S. in Environmental Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich. She has been actively involved in a number of organizations seeking to advance the link between the environment, the economy, and the social fields, like the Pacific Industrial and Business Association (PIBA) and Acterra. She currently is a lecturer at San Jose State University, teaching an upper division class on “Globalization and Environment.”

Pam Van Orden's fascination with the brands we buy began in the 1950s when, as a young girl, she would spend hours studying the big glossy advertisements that appeared in popular magazines such as Life and Look. Today, she is a sought after speaker, facilitator, trend scout, and executive advisor for businesses that want to become market leaders for our connected world. Pam is founder of Enlightened Brand and publisher of Enlightened Brand Journal, an ezine subscribed to by business and brand professionals in more than 40 countries.

Throughout the course of her 30-year career, Pam has straddled two worlds, with one foot in the world of business and the other in the world of consciousness. These dual passions have led her to focus her work on the roles of awareness and integrity in building brands that succeed in the workplace and the marketplace.

Pam’s experience building brands extends across a broad base of clients and client types from small businesses and nonprofits to the Global 1000 and government agencies. Enlightened Brand clients include such leading organizations as Fritz Institute, Juniper Networks, NASA, Sun Microsystems, and Swisscom.

Prior to founding Enlightened Brand, Pam served as corporate identity manager for Intel Corporation and global brand strategy manager for Symantec. She began her career as an award-winning designer and creative director for companies such as Applied Biosystems, Atari, Matrix Pharmaceutical, Mitsubishi Electronics, and Shaman Pharmaceuticals. Pam was educated in design at the renowned Vesper George School of Art in Boston, Massachusetts.