Our board
Meet the Earth Team Board
Mark Westwind
President
Mark Westwind has over 40 years professional and technical experience working with businesses, community agencies and non-profit organizations. His firm, Westwind Associates, has operated successfully as a business and technology consulting firm since 1996. Mark was the founding Director of the Contra Costa Software Business Incubator (1997) and the founding Associate Director of John F. Kennedy University’s Center for Entrepreneurship (1999). He left JFKU to become the Director of Business and Network Development for an interactive television start-up (2000). As a certified Business Advisor for the Contra Costa Small Business Development Center, Mark has designed and implemented training programs for entrepreneurs and business owners. Mark is the co-author with Dr. Tapan Munroe (former Chief Economist for PG&E) of “What Makes Silicon Valley Tick?”. Internationally, Mark served for four years as the U.S. Associate for Canton Venture Capital Company – a $100 million Chinese venture capital firm. Mark has over fifteen years of experience designing, developing, deploying and supporting data management systems for numerous Bay Area and national businesses and non-profit organizations. He is a Certified Administrator (2009) and Certified Developer (2011).
Mark currently teaches Executive Entrepreneurship as an Adjunct Instructor for John F. Kennedy University’s MBA Program. He also taught Small Business Management at Los Medanos College. Mark was an award-winning business/technology instructor (2011) for California Resources and Technology in subjects including web development, ecommerce, social media marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) systems for small businesses.
Caedmon Bear
Treasurer
Caedmon Bear is a financial planner and investment manager who lives with his wife and two teenage children in Walnut Creek, California. Caedmon’s life-long passion for financial wellness and helping others inspired him to create Honeycomb Financial. When not working you can find him spending time with his family, tending to his garden and bees, and hiking or cycling the trails of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sierra.
Hope Frye
Human resources comittee
Hope is a practicing lawyer and now legal advisor on immigration and human rights issues since 1978. She is the founder of PROJECT LIFELINE, a human rights organization formed to provide humanitarian aid to victims of the zero tolerance policy that has and will indefinitely continue to cause thousands of mothers, fathers, and children to be arrested and detained without provision of basic need. Project Lifeline is dedicated to advancing understanding and discussion of the human rights issues involved in this detention across the spectrum of political opinion, ethnicity, socio-economic standing, geography and all other barriers that make it difficult to talk about this highly charged problem.
Leading Flores v Sessions site visits and detainee interviews to facilities detaining immigrantchildren in behalf of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL). Assisting CHRCL with the initiation of reunify.org. Representing Tibetan refugees and religious leadersand work on human rights issues (1998-present).
Paul Wicks
Secretary
Paul Wicks has been leading software development projects for three decades. He was the first technical lead for OnStar™, and has provided management and technical direction for companies in the fortune 500 as well as small startups and non-profit organizations. Paul studied science and mathematics at the University of Michigan, and has a degree in graphic design from the Center for Creative Studies. A deep understanding of visual design, software engineering, and management provides perspective that supporrts improved communication, in the course of a project. He has experience serving on boards of directors and is commited to the goals of EarthTeam. Paul is particularly focused on the role of data visualization in public discourse regarding the environment, and our role in its current and future condition
John Steere
Program committee
John Steere is an environmental and watershed planner with over 30 years of experience in the public, non-profit, and consulting realms, managing collaborative environmental plans and studies and open space initiatives. He is an expert in public involvement facilitation, environmental compliance and permitting, and watershed management planning processes. He works for Contra Costa County’s Watershed Program as a Watershed Planner and as independent environmental consultant with Green Planning Collaborative. He holds a joint masters in City Planning and Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley and an BA from Harvard College in Environmental Studies and Psychology. He is president of Berkeley Partners for Parks, bpfp.org, a nonprofit he established in 1993 as a fiscal and technical support umbrella for local parks, paths and creek groups; he has facilitated the creation of two parks in Berkeley including Halcyon Commons and Presentation Park. He has also served as a director on the boards of the Berkeley Ecology Center, the Urban Creeks Council, and Livable Berkeley
Manuel Alonso
Executive director
Manuel is part of the Board of Directors by virtue of holding his position as Earth Team’s Executive Director (ex officio). Participatory rights of ex officio members may or may not be limited by Earth Team bylaws. Ex officio members may abstain from voting. Unless bylaws constrain their rights, however, ex oficio members are afforded the same rights as other members of the body, i.e., debating, proposing motions, voting, etc.
Whitney Dotson
Advisor
Mr. Dotson was elected to the Board of Directors in November 2008. A long-term resident of Parchester Village in Richmond, Dotson is a well-known community activist who served as president of his neighborhood council and now serves as Vice Chair. He is the president of North Richmond Shoreline Open Space Alliance, a group of community and environmental organizations and individuals working to save access to the open space along the northern shoreline of Richmond. Mr. Dotson also served as the Associate Director of the Neighborhood House of North Richmond, a non-profit agency that provides services to North Richmond residents, and is Vice Chair of the Community Advisory Group monitoring the cleanup of Campus Bay and UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station. Prior to being elected to the board, he served as an appointed member of the Park District Park Advisory Committee. Dotson holds a masters’ degree in Public Health Planning, Administration, and Education from UC Berkeley
Vladimir Foronda
Advisor
Vladimir Foronda is a Development Research Analyst at Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest environmental law firm. He joined the EarthTeam board in Fall 2011 and currently serves on the fundraising committee. EarthTeam is a fantastic organization that promotes the issues Vlad cares about: education, empowering youth to take on leadership roles in environmental issues, and improving our communities. He earned a dual degree in Sociology and Development Studies from UC Berkeley.
Joe McBride
Advisor
Joe R. McBride is an Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture and Forest Ecology at the University of California in Berkeley. His teaching and research was focused on urban forestry and forest ecology. In recent years he has investigated the role of urban forests in air pollution reduction, characteristics of urban forests within different geographical regions, and potential impact of global warming on urban forests in California. He received a B.S. degree in Forestry from the University of Montana and M.S. (Forestry) and Ph.D. (Botany) degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.
Doug Karpa
Advisor
Doug is an environmental lawyer with professional experience in environmental sciences and education. After finishing a Ph.D. in plant evolutionary ecology at Harvard University, Doug worked extensively with faculty at Indiana University on educational issues and practices where he focused on using Service-Learning models to promote civic engagement and environmental literacy. This work inspired Doug to get more involved in the public sphere and led him to study environmental law at Berkeley Law School. Doug is currently the Legal Program Co-Director at Turtle Island Restoration Network.
Katharine Barrett
Emeritus
Katharine D. Barrett became President of the Board for EarthTeam when she retired in 2008 from the University of California Botanical Garden. Ms. Barrett has more than thirty years of professional leadership in science education. During her tenure at the Lawrence Hall Science (1975-2005) she developed diverse programs for teachers, students and the public, including the Family Health Program, Teens Exploring and Achieving in Math and Science (TEAMS), and Celebrate the Whale. She is an author/developer of science curriculum materials including: Schoolyard Ecology, Aquatic Habitats, Learning About Learning, Losing Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Change. While at the botanical garden she co-authored Math in the Garden and Botany on Your Plate, and co-directed the Growing Learning Communities Project, funded by the National Science Foundation to implement math and science in 30 school gardens using the practice of lesson study. She got her start as a high school biology teacher and loves working with teens
Michele Perrault
Emeritus
Michele Perrault is the International Vice President of the Sierra Club. She served as the National President for the Sierra Club from 1984-1986, and again in 1993. In addition to EarthTeam, Michele presently serves as a board member of Greenseal and Greenbelt Alliance. Michele’s professional experience includes working as an environmental educator with the Wildlife Conservation Society and a middle school science teacher. Michele received her BA from Hunter College. She has served as a former adviser to three US Citizen Advisory Commissions. What drew Michele to EarthTeam was the organization’s knowledge, the work of its founder, and the amazing activities of the staff and students. She hopes to encourage the kind of opportunities for youth that enabled her to be involved in the environmental protection movement.