Staff and Board

Jared has a strong background in computers and networks. He started as a kid by breaking and fixing them, and the fascination with machines slowly became his passion. Through University he finely tuned his skills and widened his range of expertise, and he is not discouraged but challenged by difficult technical issues.

Jared is locationally and nationality challenged. He was born in a small town in Alberta, Canada, but moved out to Hawaii when he was young. After living in Hawaii for 17 years, he met his wife from Peru, leading him to a 3-year stay in the South American country. Jared then moved out to the San Francisco Bay area. Jared has traveled extensively to various parts of the world, including Third World and communist countries. His travels and experiences have enriched his life, and Jared brings his life and work experience to Green For All to better those around him.

Shamar is Administrative Assistant to Cecilia Estolano, Green For All’s Chief Strategist on State and Local Initiatives. She also provides program support to the State and Local Initiatives Team and manages Green For All’s Los Angeles office. Prior to joining Green For All, Shamar was an actress, working primarily in television and print commercials and independent films. Concurrently, she ran a business providing freelance administrative services to small businesses and non-profits. Her work with Green For All takes her full circle to environmental justice work she began fifteen years prior. Shamar majored in Science, Technology & Society at Vassar College, where she received departmental distinction on her senior thesis, “Race, Class and Environmental Justice.” She expanded her research and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan where she studied social movements surrounding unprecedented mercury dumping in southern Japan. A native of both Detroit, MI and the Washington DC-metropolitan area, Shamar is a strong advocate of social service. She has volunteered with numerous service agencies, including Aviva Children and Family Services, where she taught creative writing and yoga classes to young women at a group home in Hollywood. She currently serves on the Theatre Council of Urban Possibilities, a non-profit that works with homeless men and women in Los Angeles to transform their lives through theatre, writing and fashion.

Markese W. Bryant is nationally recognized as a strong advocate for clean energy, green jobs and energy efficiency. He began organizing his campus and his community as Green for All’s College Ambassador, educating students and faculty about energy efficiency and the opportunities presented by an inclusive green economy. He also served as Chair of the Morehouse College SGA Environmental Awareness. As a student leader, Mr. Bryant has developed advanced project management and communication skills, which enable him to lead, manage and motivate large groups of students. Mr. Bryant has been awarded scholarships from UNCF, AmeriCorps and the Bonner Foundation.

In May of 2010, Markese W. Bryant completed his undergraduate studies with a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies from Morehouse College. His training in African American Studies has given him a clear perspective on the plight of the African American community, which enables him and his team to have a better understanding of what needs to be done to ensure that communities of color share the benefits of energy efficiency and the green economy.

Alli Chagi-Starr is Green For All's Senior Community Engagement Strategist. She served as the Event Chair for the organization's launch conference, The Dream Reborn, and was the grassroots publicity lead for founder Van Jones's bestseller, The Green Collar Economy. She worked previously at Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, where she helped implement the Solutions Salon series and other large convenings, including the Social Equity track at the United Nations World Environment Day. Alli is the co-founder of the ten-year old Art in Action Youth Leadership Program and the new Green Youth Arts & Media Center in Oakland, CA. Her essays about innovative activism appear in Democratizing the Global Economy, Global Uprising, Voices from the WTO, The Political Edge and How to Stop the Next War Now. She facilitates workshops on cultural organizing for green jobs, developing creative tools for social transformation and movement building.

Vivian Chang MA brings to Green For All a background in urban planning and over 15 years of experience with community organizing, and policy advocacy to the organization’s vision of creating an inclusive green economy. Prior to joining Green For All, Ms. Chang served as the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a nationally recognized environmental justice organization focused on building leadership in Asian immigrant and refugee communities. As a well-recognized experienced organizer in the Asian community, Ms. Chang has spoken on numerous panels as well as in media outlets including KPFA (the Bay Area’s Pacifica network radio station), National Public Radio, the most popular Chinese ethnic media outlets including Sing Tao and Channel 26 KTSF. She holds a Masters degree in Urban Planning from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) with a concentration in regional economic and community development. Ms. Chang is a recipient of the 2007 Gerbode Fellowship and Oakland’s 2009 Woman of the Year award.

Mary Creasman, who directs Green For All’s education and movement building work, joined Green For All in 2009 from Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council where she worked as the Political and Organizing Director. She has led numerous winning public policy and organizing campaigns in Silicon Valley including a living wage expansion, large-scale retail and community benefits policies. Mary also served as the Political Director for the Democratic Party in Silicon Valley and managed many successful local and regional electoral and ballot initiative campaigns, including City Council races, Board of Supervisor races, county tax and bond initiatives, and the local 2008 presidential campaign. Mary graduated with honors from the University of San Francisco with a B.A. in Sociology.

As Green For All’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, Shasa Curl manages federal, state, and local policy initiatives. Prior to joining Green For All, Ms. Curl negotiated disposition and development agreements and managed large-scale redevelopment and capital improvement projects in the cities of Richmond and San Jose, California. Ms. Curl managed the completion of the Richmond Civic Center Rehabilitation. This historic renovation project was named Overall Top Project and winner of the Government/Public category by McGraw-Hill California Construction magazine and received Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) in 2009. The Richmond Civic Center Project was completed using a Project Labor Agreement and First Source Local Hiring. She holds a Master of Arts in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ryan's beliefs are deeply rooted in nature. He was born and raised in Humboldt County, California amidst the towering Redwoods, rocky coastlines, rivers and mountains. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz where he received a B.A. in film/video production. Ryan has over 13 years experience making videos and short films. He has traveled over most of the continents of the world, filming and broadening his awareness of the needs of others. He volunteered in orphanages in Africa and Tibet and a refuge camp in Thailand. He made films to help these organizations gain support and to help enlighten others of their needs. It was while participating with the League of Young Voters in San Francisco, that he was truly inspired into political activism. Ryan is an avid long distance runner and is happiest when playing music with his family and friends. His favorite animal is the Narwhal. He channels his energy to video production so that he can communicate Green for All's dedication to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Ryan is a servant warrior and his camera is his weapon against eco-apartheid.

As Green For All’s Chief Strategist on State and Local Initiatives, Cecilia oversees the organization’s State and Local Initiatives Team and Capital Access Program. She is charged with spearheading Green For All’s effort to scale public-private partnerships to grow family-supporting green jobs in cities across the United States, and advocates for broad access and opportunity in all sectors of the clean-energy economy.

Prior to joining Green For All, Ms. Estolano served as Chief Executive Officer of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA). Overseeing an annual budget of over $726 million and a work program covering 32 project areas, Ms. Estolano redefined the role of the largest redevelopment agency in the State of California. Under her leadership, CRA/LA rebuilt its housing department, adopted a landmark policy on local hiring in construction jobs, adopted a Healthy Neighborhoods policy, and created a $42 million Land Acquisition Fund to jump-start development in underserved markets like South Los Angeles.

Prior to joining CRA/LA, Ms. Estolano was Of Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLC. She represented developer, private equity fund and lender clients in land use, zoning, redevelopment, environmental, real estate, energy, and telecommunications matters.

Ms. Estolano has served on the California Coastal Commission, as a Los Angeles Special Assistant City Attorney, as a Senior Policy Advisor with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and as Environmental Policy Advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Ms. Estolano was the Deputy Chair of the Environmental Protection Agency Review Team, Energy and Environment Group for the Obama Presidential Transition Team. She is currently a member of Senator Barbara Boxer’s Judicial Advisory Committee.

Ms. Estolano is a graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law and holds an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA. She received her undergraduate degree in Social Studies with honors from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges. Ms. Estolano is a Regents Lecturer at UCLA where she teaches courses in Urban Planning.

Nick comes to us from the private sector and seeks to engage the power of the business community to further Green For All's social mission. He serves as the manager of the Capital Access program, which is committed to mobilizing financial, human and social capital to help create, sustain, and scale green jobs in the U.S. Nick brings a wide variety of business experience to the organization, having previously worked in both real estate private equity and investment management. He has also worked in business development and operational roles within the sports industry, for the former Seattle Sonics as well as the PGA Tour. This unique background serves him well in his role as the lead for business incubation and engagement. Nick holds both an MBA and a BA from Stanford University, and lives in San Francisco.

Diana is the Director of Finance and Administration for Green For All, as well as a founding member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Diana received her B.A. in Social Welfare and her J.D. at Hastings College of Law. While she is not focused on Green For All and the Ella Baker Center, she is operating a private community criminal defense practice, and serving on the boards of Bay Area non-profits Machen Center and TURF (Together United Recommitted Forever.) This San Francisco native is also a real estate broker, supporting activists and other members of her community to empower themselves through homeownership.

Rosa González is a lifelong educator, a visual and performing artist and the new program manager of Green for All's Academy. Before joining the team at Green for All, Rosa was program lead for PILA (the Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action), where she helped link political education and community organizing. She designs curriculum and facilitates theater-based workshops and townhall meetings for critical community dialogue. Rosa is also a member of headRush, a political performance and popular education crew dedicated to inspiring working class communities through original performances and participatory workshops. Rosa has a Masters in Latin American Studies from Stanford University and a Masters in Teaching from the Arts in Education program at the University of San Francisco. In her spare time, she organizes with her neighbors in East Oakland to reclaim empty lots for urban gardening and community-building.

Quentin James, Green For All’s Executive Political Aide, joined our team in June of 2010. Before coming to Green For All, Quentin worked on Capitol Hill for Congresswoman Carolyn C. Kilpatrick of the 13th Congressional District of Michigan, then as an associate with the Generational Alliance. In 2008, Quentin served as the Deputy Youth Vote Director for the Obama Campaign in Ohio, organizing over 315,000 students on 32 Ohio college campuses. At The Ohio State University, the nation’s largest university, voter turnout nearly doubled from the 2004 Presidential Election, increasing 94%. Quentin serves on the National Board of Directors for the NAACP, and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated.

Jeremy manages a portfolio of projects that advance Green For All’s mission. His work focuses on the implementation and replication of green economic and workforce development initiative at both local and national levels.

Jeremy joined Green For All early in 2008 as the National Field Director. Before that he was the National Organizing Director at the Apollo Alliance where he helped state and local coalitions of environmentalists, labor unions, civil rights groups, and businesses advocate for good jobs and clean energy. Jeremy has broad experience organizing multi-stakeholder efforts to address poverty, environmental issues, and economic development. He has worked a program director for Urban Strategies Council—a community building support and advocacy organization in Oakland, California; as a project manager for the Governor’s Oregon Solutions program; as a policy researcher for the Assistant Secretary of Environmental Justice at Cal/EPA; and as an organizer or technical assistant in a variety of other community development and environmental justice initiatives. He has master’s degrees in City Planning and in International Development from the University of California—Berkeley, and is a co-author of "Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities: Building Pathways out of Poverty and Careers in the Clean Energy Economy" (2008).

As a Policy Associate at Green For All, Stacy works with partner organizations, community leaders, and policymakers to develop and implement local policy innovations that advance an inclusive green economy that provides pathways out of poverty.  She is co-author of A Short Guide to Setting up a City-Scale Retrofit Program and author of Watershed Reconnaissance: Getting the Lay of the Land and Municipal Assessment: Partnering with Local Governments.

Stacy has a background in public interest environmental and social justice policy and law.  She received her B.A. in History from Yale University and her J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School, and is a member of the California Bar Association.  Her past experience includes serving as environmental policy advisor to two New Jersey governors and helping individuals on welfare overcome legal barriers to employment as a pro bono attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid in San Francisco.

Ying-sun is a longtime leader in the Bay Area progressive movement. As a longtime core staff member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, he was a key figure in nearly every major campaign within the local youth-and-student and prison-reform movements of the young century. Now, he is lending his strategic and communications expertise to Green For All. A native San Franciscan, he is also a musician and writer. Currently, Ying-sun is lead guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter for the San Francisco rock group Dialectic.

Simon began working on the Web in high school, and worked through college as the Sociology Department's web and network administrator. Despite the technical experience, after college he co-founded a test prep and admissions consulting business and spent nearly six years building it, eventually opening three offices in the East and South Bay Areas. Simon served as the head English/composition instructor. For the last two of those six years, Simon also worked full-time during the day for a web development company, specializing in Drupal development. In 2010, Simon joined Green For All's Online Team, and soon after divested his interests in his business. He is now honored and excited to be using his skills in service of a worthy mission.

Simon appreciates languages of any kind — both human and machine, and enjoys any activity possible deep in the mountains.

Christy Kincannon, Executive Aide to CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, joined Green For All in 2009. Before coming to Green For All, Christy worked for Working Partnerships USA as a grants administrator and prior to that, she owned her own business. As a small business owner, she worked with several nonprofit organizations to help the underprivileged. Before venturing off on her own, Christy worked in the food and beverage industry for several years as a regional bookkeeper and restaurant manager.

Ken Lewis is excited and honored to be a part of Green For All’s Strategic Growth Team. With a background in finance and customer relations he looks forward to supporting Green For All’s development activities. He has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, Sports 4 Kids, and the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. He is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, MN where he played football and studied abroad in Mexico and Spain. He lives in Oakland, loves riding BART, and enjoys exploring and discovering all of the great things the Bay Area has to offer.

Dan Martin joined Green For All in November, 2009 as the Director of Operations. Dan comes out of the Labor Movement, where he worked for United Healthcare Workers - West and its predecessor, Healthcare Workers Union Local 250 for 23 plus years. A native San Franciscan, Dan received his Bachelor's Degree from San Francisco State University where he majored in Labor Studies. After a brief period of employment with the City and County of San Francisco, Dan joined the staff of Local 250 in 1985.

Dan started his career at Local 250 as a staff member in the Union's East Bay office representing Long Term Care and Hospital workers. Over the next 23 years, Dan served the Union's membership in number of capacities including Lead Representative, Assistant Director of the Union's Long Term Care Division, and finally as the Assistant to the President of the Union for 12 years.

In 2005, Dan helped to coordinate the joining of two unions, Local 399 in Southern California and Local 250 in Northern California to form United Healthcare Workers - West, the fastest growing local union in the United States with 150,000 members.

Dan's work at Green For All focuses on staff development and the effective and efficient use of organizational resources to support Green For All's vision and programmatic goals.

Julian is an Oakland native raised behind the redwood curtain of Humboldt County. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University who came to Green For All through his organizing work with The League of Young Voters. Julian’s passion for saving our people and our planet finds a vehicle in his work as Green For All's Field Organizer.

Julian works with people around the country who are putting government investment dollars to work on a local level to build the green economy. He trains local leaders to build the green economy from the ground up by serving as the facilitator of the Green For All Academy. He trains leaders with the tools they need to communicate the promise of the green economy and to engage disadvantaged communities in support of green jobs and climate protection strategies. Julian works everyday to link local partners, lift those local best practices and models to national prominence, and leverage the success stories for large-scale change. Julian has been featured in The Nation, Wiretap magazine and The San Francisco Xpress, and has been recognized by the California Labor Archives for excellence in writing.

Ricki Weisberg Ndege is the Communications Director at Green For All. She oversees and implements strategies that advance the public image of Green For All and its programs.

Ricki began her nonprofit career at Women for Women International. During her term as Strategic Initiatives Manager, she more than doubled media appearances and attracted major national and international outlets like The Oprah Winfrey Show and 60 Minutes to feature the organization’s work on poverty alleviation for women survivors of war. She most recently worked as Communications Manager for Survivor Corps where she led communications, marketing, and re-branding strategies for the organization.

Ricki holds a BA in Women’s Studies and Psychology from George Washington University, where she received the highest department honor for commitment to service.

Claudia Preparata joins Green For All after 15 years in the labor movement championing the rights of workers in both the private and public sectors. Directly prior to coming on staff at Green For All, Claudia was Research Director at Transport Workers Union Local 100 in New York City, a 38,000-member union local representing transit workers predominately employed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the largest transit authority in the U.S. Her work at TWU Local 100 focused on policy issues relating to labor, transportation and climate change, as well as contract negotiations and arbitration proceedings with the MTA.

Claudia advised the union’s leadership and advanced issues related to federal and local financing of public transportation and legislative issues to reform transportation policy, and formulated the union’s position on sustainability and just transition, advocating on behalf of a progressive labor position on climate change and science-based targets. Claudia also conducted and supervised research for negotiations and arbitration proceedings with the MTA, her most recent contribution resulting in a widely publicized contract arbitration award in 2009 for over 35,000 transit workers in New York City.

Claudia received her B.A. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Political Science and her Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She was a Charles H. Revson Fellow at Columbia University, a fellowship program on the Future of New York City, in 2006.

Jeff Rickert comes to Green for All from the AFL-CIO Working for America where he helped to open the AFL-CIO Center on Green Jobs. There he built a strategy for the labor movement to engage the clean economy so that it produced green jobs that were good jobs.

Prior to that, Jeff provided consulting services and public policy advice on climate change and energy policy to the clients of Helios Strategies, a government relations firm. Prior to that he served as the Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff for the Apollo Alliance, a clean energy coalition of more than 300 labor, business, environmental, and community-based organizations dedicated to a public investment agenda for achieving energy independence through clean energy and good jobs. In those roles, Jeff developed expertise in all aspects of energy policy, including renewable energy development, oil savings, carbon reduction, cap-and-trade, and energy efficiency policy and implementation.

Jeff had earlier worked with the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, where for 4 years he served as an economic analyst providing assistance to AFL-CIO affiliates, their signatory employers and to labor central bodies across the country. He holds a Masters of Science in Economic Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also worked at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS). He has done extensive study of manufacturing, hospitality, health care, media, and technology.

Julie is a Regional Program Manager for Green For All. As part of the Cities team, she helps local city partners realize model programs that create an inclusive green economy with pathways out of poverty. By working to leverage all of Green For All’s resources (business, policy, communications, education, and movement building) in a group of cities, she's helping local partners create model economies that will inspire the nation.

With ten years of city, state, and national organizing experience, Julie's work has included developing and passing a model Responsible Contractor Ordinance, shaping Project Labor Agreements to create opportunities for urban communities, helping to develop the City of Paterson, New Jersey’s first green and mixed-income housing development, and building volunteer networks in coal states to help them advocate for a strong clean energy and climate bill. She is honored to have helped create these victories by working side-by-side with amazing staff and members at ACORN and MoveOn.org.

Julie holds a BUS Summa Cum Laude from the University of New Mexico, where she was a Regents Scholar. She also earned a Masters with Distinction in International Conflict Analysis from the University of Kent at Canterbury, where she was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. When she takes a break from working with an excellent team of local and national leaders, she practices Kuk Sool, a Korean mixed martial art.

As a strategist, technologist and communicator Bari comes to Green For All with a strong foundation in assisting non-profit organizations to leverage information technology and the Internet to further their mission. In 2003, Bari launched a groundbreaking online project based on newly available, disaggregated U.S. Census data. In the form of a searchable online database, the work made critical connections between socio-economic disparities and health care in Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the United States. In 2005, he launched the South Asian Forum (southasianforum.org), another groundbreaking online resource that documents the history of community organizing by South Asians in North America and provides current resources to community-based organizations, activists and individuals in the South Asian diaspora. He holds a Masters degree in International Relations with a focus on global economic justice issues. Bari brings his passion for social justice work to his personal life as well. He has worked extensively on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation between 1998 and 2000 where he remodeled a home for transitional children and later built a straw-bale home for a Lakota family. Bari has also studied and taught Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed techniques to examine and heal personal and societal oppressions.

Sarah Shanley Hope is honored and excited to direct Green For All's strategic relationships with financial partners and stakeholders. Prior to joining Green For All in January 2009, Sarah managed customer insight research and corporate brand strategy for Cargill. In May 2007, Sarah received her MBA in social entrepreneurship and strategic marketing from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. Since Fall 2005, Sarah has also led numerous consulting engagements on brand strategy, marketing communications and fundraising for a range of government and non-profit clients in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Buffalo, NY and Oakland, CA. Before business school, Sarah worked as the Individual Gifts Manager for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and as the Volunteer Coordinator for the Arianna Huffington Campaign for Governor during the California recall election.

Ladan Sobhani is a Program Manager at Green For All where she is developing a Community of Practice, a program established to connect practitioners so they may share expertise and collaborate in order to advance their work while contributing to the national effort to build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Ladan graduated from UC Davis with a major in International Relations and minor in Environmental Economics. Following graduation Ladan spent a life-transforming year in Venezuela teaching English and learning Spanish. Her eye-opening travels in Latin America led her to work for two years at the International Forum on Globalization where she researched and wrote about the environmental impact of economic globalization and helped to organize large teach-ins on the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. Ladan went on to spend five years at the human rights organization, Global Exchange where she worked on a variety of campaigns including: a response to the California Energy crisis, organizing protests against the war on Iraq, and leading political fact finding delegations to Iran (the country of her birth), Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Israel.

Vien Truong is the Senior Policy Associate at Green For All. She supports and collaborates with community leaders and policymakers in the development and implementation of green jobs policies and programs in states throughout the country.

She has worked with a California State Senator, researching and developing state law, and a U.S. Chief Magistrate, researching and analyzing issues before the federal court. Vien was the founding instructor for the Legal Assistance Program for Clarita Career College, a legal training program for entering legal professionals. She also taught Street Law at Castlemont High School, a program that teaches law to high school students. She was the Community Economic Justice Law Fellow at the East Bay Community Law Center, helping to develop innovative, long-term economic development solutions to address the systemic problems confronting low-income communities.

When she's not at work, Vien is a staunch advocate serving her community.  She is the Vice Chair of the City of Oakland's Planning Commission. She serves on the boards for the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC).  Vien is also a Full Circle Fund Community Fellow.

Vien holds a B.A from the University of California at Berkeley. She also holds a J.D. from the University of California at Hastings College of the Law.

As the Strategic Growth Manager with Green For All, Jen leads the Strategic Growth Team’s individual donor strategy and infrastructure. Prior to Green For All, Jen was the Individual Giving Officer and Associate Director of one of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates and its action fund in the country. Since 2003, Jen has managed a variety of collaborative fund raising, membership building and public policy strategies and initiatives at national and community non-profit and political organizations in New York City and Hartford, CT.

Jen received her MA in Gender and Politics from NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Studies and holds a BA in French and Political Science, with a focus in Gender Studies, from Loyola University in Maryland.

Monet Zulpo-Dane helped launch Green For All in 2007. Trained as an attorney, Monet has overseen Green For All’s executive office, first as Assistant to the President and then as Assistant to the CEO. She now brings her management skills and her commitment to social and economic justice to her new role as Staff Director. Before Green For All, Monet worked at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights for many years, first as an Organizer and then as Development Director.

Donald Cohen is the co-founder and president of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a San Diego-based research and policy center. Cohen has over 25 years experience as an organizer and trainer in strategy, policy and organization. He is the former Political Director of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He also has served on the Workforce Investment Board, the Legislative Committee of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor's Affordable Housing Task Force and the Mayor's Committee on Smart Growth. Currently, Cohen is a member of the advisory committee for the Helen Edison Endowed Lecture Series at UCSD. He serves on the Board of Directors of both the Partnership for Working Families and the Horizon Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank.

Juliet has a Masters of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in environmental and urban studies from San Francisco State University. Prior to becoming Director for Urban Habitat, Juliet was the Associate Program Officer for Neighborhood and Community Development at The San Francisco Foundation. She was responsible for all aspects of grantmaking in the areas of workforce development, housing, homelessness, economic development, community development, and neighborhood planning.

Juliet has served on numerous regional and local boards and committees, including the Oakland Homeless and Low-Income Taskforce, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the San Francisco School of Volunteers, and the Alameda County Public Health Disparities Taskforce. She currently serves on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the Boards and Steering Committee of Transform, the David Brower Center, the Partnership for Working Families, and the White House Environment and Climate Taskforce.

Cynthia Ryan is Principal of The Schooner Foundation, a progressive family foundation that focuses internationally on human rights, peace & security and economic opportunity. Domestically, the foundation supports progressive media, campaign finance reform, the green economy, investigative reporting, and judicial reform. They seek to honor human dignity, think big, and act where trustees see the greatest need and opportunities for leverage locally, nationally and globally. Ms. Ryan is a current or former trustee of the Fund for Global Human Rights, the Nation Institute, the Ploughshares Fund, Green for All, Women for Women International, National Braille Press, and the National Association of Health Education Centers. She is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, Global Philanthropy Forum, Peace & Security Funders Group, the International Human Rights Funders Group, and Grantmakers Without Borders. She has served on the Women’s Leadership Board and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, both at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She was the Outreach Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. She is currently a partner in the Democracy Alliance. Cynthia received her Bachelor of Arts from the New School for Social Research in New York and a Masters of Arts from the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London in England. She is a contributing author in the book Women, Philanthropy and Social Change: Visions for a Just Society. Cynthia currently resides in Washington, D.C.