See who enables us to bring services
to thousands each year

Chris was recently promoted to Senior Manager, Safety Net Services. He first joined Community Action Marin as a Data Specialist in January 2020, bringing eight years of underwriting experience to the organization. 

In both of his roles, Chris has gained invaluable experience in short-term housing and utility assistance. Chris’s work has included providing access to all of the resources that help people in difficult times. He has also been assisting Marin residents stay housed through Community Action Marin’s rent and deposit assistance program.  

Chris was raised in the Bay Area as the middle child in a family of four kids. He now lives in San Rafael with his wife and son, and enjoys traveling, baseball, and grilling.  

Patrick Wales-Dinan is a Senior Manager, Data Analytics. He  joined Community Action Marin as Data Analytics Manager in December 2022, bringing four years of data science and analytics experience and over seven years of teaching experience to CAM. 

Patrick has served previously as Principal Consultant of Data with Stage 3 Talent. 

Patrick first began a career in data as an Instructor of Machine Learning and Data Science at General Assembly.  There he gained invaluable experience in data analytics, database management, predictive analysis, and data visualization.  Additionally, he helped in curriculum design and implementation of regression and classification models.   

Patrick was raised in Duxbury, Vermont and his mother Amy was a Peer Advocate for Vermont Psychiatric Survivors, and his father Jim is a chef. Patrick is passionate about running and coaching.   

Patrick holds a BA in Economics from Bates College.  He now lives in San Rafael with wife Annie and their son Jonas. 

Kathy Shumaker joined Community Action Marin as the Manager, Health and Nutrition in November 2023, bringing her 14 plus years of experience in Community Health. Previously serving as a Public Health Nurse with the City and County of San Francisco, Kathy provided care coordination for children with complex medical needs, conducted home visits for expectant parents, newborns, and children, and worked with medical offices throughout the city to ensure high quality pediatric care.

Before her time with the City and County of San Francisco, Kathy was employed as a nurse at Children’s Hospital Oakland, where she gained valuable experience working with multidisciplinary teams to treat and support the children and families on the surgical unit. She has a passion for whole family care, health education, and community health. She is excited and grateful to be able to continue in this work with Community Action Marin.

Kathy holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in nursing with an emphasis in Community Health from San Francisco State University.  Kathy was raised in Marin County, and now lives in San Rafael with her husband and two children.  She enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, hiking, and playing music.

Mimi Lee is the Development Manager at Community Action Marin. She first joined the agency in February 2023 as an Encore Fellow, serving as the Vice President of Program Support prior to her new position.

Mimi brings more than 30 years’ experience to this role. She has built, funded, run, and evaluated human service programs related to fair housing, families and children, mediation, and reentry court programs for those transitioning from jail to the community. She has also worked as an Organizational Consultant to entities in the public, private, and non-profit sectors on governance, management, and performance issues that get in the way of effective operations.  

A California girl at heart, Mimi was raised on the Peninsula, and has lived in Albany with her cat and fish for the past 25 years. Prior to that, she spent three years living in Southern California, and 13 years of mountain living in Mammoth Lakes, California. She has four grown children and four grandchildren.  

Mimi has a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Transformation, a Masters’ degree in Humanities and Leadership, and a Bachelors’ degree in Community Development and Social Cohesion. Mimi loves gardening, backpacking, the mountains, and wildflowers.  

Buntawan joined Community Action Marin as an Early Head Start Site Manager in July of 2020, coming to the organization with over 20 years of experience in the field of Early Childhood Education. She started with the agency, first in 2010 as an Early Head Start Teacher, then later becoming Site Area Manager, Hamilton. 

Her career first began in Early Childhood Education as an Infant/Toddler Teacher and Preschool Teacher at the Cross Cultural Family Center. In these roles, she gained more interest in individual child development, nature versus nurture studies, family studies, diversity, cultural differences, and human development. Her work included getting to know the family and the ways in which each has its own cultural values, which are reflected in their child-rearing and expectations of their children during developmental milestones.

Buntawan has a passion for taking care of others and is naturally nurturing. In her childhood, she enjoyed caring for others who needed help and this has continued on through today, as it is both fulfilling and brings purpose to her life. 

Buntawan was raised in Thailand as the middle child in a family of three daughters. She earned her Bachelor’s degree (BA) in Child and Adolescent Development and Master’s degree (MA) in Early Childhood Education from San Francisco State University. She now lives in San Pablo with her family and enjoys reading and hiking during her free time. 

Rob Palmer is the agency’s Learning and Evaluation Advisor. He joined Community Action Marin as an Encore Fellow, Director of Learning and Evaluation, in August 2022, bringing 32 years of corporate experience and four years of non-profit experience.

Rob served as Product Engineering and Technical Services Manager at Chevron, supporting their fuels, biofuels, and lubricants businesses, as well as various other roles in fuels manufacturing, supply chain logistics, process improvement & optimization, certification, and compliance.  He had the opportunity to work with a wide array of people at Chevron, including lab technicians, plant operators, engineers, data analysts, environmental scientists, and senior managers, gaining technical and interpersonal insights from each person. Rob was known for driving cross-functional collaboration & continuous improvement and bringing out the best in each member of the team.

Prior to working at Chevron, Rob volunteered for two years as a high school teacher in the pacific islands of Micronesia with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), then served two years in non-profit program support and fundraising for JVC in Washington, D.C. These experiences planted a seed of service and social justice that Rob cultivated through volunteer work while working and raising a family, with a goal of returning to the non-profit sector after retiring from Chevron.

Rob was born in Syracuse, New York and raised in the Bay Area as the oldest in a family of four children.  He has a passion for the outdoors, education, and volunteering, including making learning accessible to everyone. Rob feels privileged to join the talented Community Action Marin family and is excited to use his experience to contribute to CAM’s mission.

Rob holds a B.S. in Chemistry and an M.S. in Environmental Science from Loyola Marymount University. He lived in Los Angeles for 25 years and returned to the Bay Area in 2015. He has two sons (31 & 28) and a daughter (25) who are scattered across the west coast. Rob lives in Concord and enjoys hiking, observing wildlife, gardening, travel, and spending time with family and close friends.

Gary Neal joined Community Action Marin in April of 2011 as a night janitor working at Old Gallinas Children Center. After three years he moved to facilities maintenance.

Prior to Community Action Marin, Gary worked the night shifts at Safeway stocking shelves and UPS loading the brown trucks. He also sold electronic equipment on eBay when eBay first started. His choices all supported being a stay-at-home dad to raise his son. His true calling was Landscape Contracting which he worked at for many years.

He shares his Santa Venetia home with his son, wife, two cats, two parrots and a snake. Gary has enjoyed backpacking, fly fishing in the past. He currently likes to read in his leisure time, and has a love of gardening his vegetables, roses and an outrageous lemon tree.

He attended UC Davis, where he met his wife of 31 years, and studied Biochemistry.

Sarah Philipsheck first became part of Community Action Marin as a parent in the Head Start program in 1981. Her youngest daughter was part of the classroom located in Fairfax at Christ the Victor Church. Her granddaughter also entered the Early Head Start program at four months of age and then transitioned into the Head Start program.  

Sarah started her career at Community Action Marin, in 1981 as well, and began as an Office Assistant, after spotting an ad in the Head Start Office located in the old Larkspur/Corte Madera school. Sarah has been with CAM ever since. 

Sarah’s passion for helping children & families began when she was in High School and her economic teacher made an impression regarding the importance of giving back to a community. And to helping the ones who struggle with everyday life to gain the confidence to succeed and to become self-sufficient. To help them learn how to advocate for themselves and to push themselves up and out of poverty. That same passion continues in Sarah today, after 41 years. One of the most important lessons Sarah learned from being in the program for so long is to make sure we “listen” to what the parents are saying and making sure they know that they are being listened to. 

Sarah grew up in Massachusetts on Cape Cod, went to business school in Boston and the local Community College on the Cape. She decided she had enough school and hitched hiked with a friend out to California in 1970. Met her husband, went back home and made the move out west permanently in 1971.  

Sarah has two daughters and four grandchildren and is a recent widow after 50 yrs. of marriage.  

Jeff joined the Community Action Marin Board in August of 2022, after learning about the agency and its mission during his term on the Marin Civil Grand Jury. Community Action Marin is Jeff’s first venture in the non-profit world after a 60-year entrepreneurial career in the private sector. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and an MBA from UC Berkeley. 

Jeff was originally attracted to Community Action Marin based on the agency’s ability to deliver tangible, measurable, and impactful benefits to the low-income community. as well as the organization’s excellent leadership and stability. 

Jeff’s business career was centered in the mortgage banking industry, beginning with a Denver-based opportunity in the early 1970s. After three years learning the basics of mortgage originations, he was then recruited to join a start-up private mortgage insurance company in San Francisco where he served as a sales and marketing executive. The industry insights and contacts developed during his eight-year term became the foundation for his next chapter. 

In 1981, Jeff founded the STRATMOR Group to provide consulting services to the mortgage industry, which was transitioning from an institutional dominance (e.g., commercial banks and savings & loan associations) to independent ownership. For most of his almost 40-year STRATMOR tenure, Jeff concentrated his efforts on mortgage industry mergers and acquisitions and participated in hundreds of transactions conducting financial analysis, performance benchmarking and assessing cultural compatibility.    

Jeff retired at the end of 2020 and resides in Ross with his wife Cate.  He has four geographically scattered children and four grandchildren. 

Jennifer came to the board of Community Action Marin through service to Marin Head Start as a liaison for Policy Council, a program oversight group comprised of Head Start parents elected each year. She is fluent in Spanish and has a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of Nevada, Reno.

The mission of Community Action Marin to reduce poverty and promote equity speaks to her on a personal level and motivated her continued engagement this year as a board member.  Jennifer comes from a diverse background and being a part of the low-income community has inspired her to search out means in which to be of service to others. In this search she found Community Action Marin and is looking forward to many years of service to our community.

Mike Smylie joined the Community Action Marin Board in 2023, where he also serves as Board Treasurer. Prior to joining the board, Mike was involved with Gilead House, a Novato-based non-profit that provides transitional housing, education, and mental health support to single, often homeless, women and their children. He served on the Board of Directors at Gilead House for seven years and as the interim Executive Director for one year.   

Mike worked as an environmental consultant for over 40 years.  During that time, he worked in over 45 countries with many of the world’s largest companies in the refining, chemical, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and semiconductor/high technology industries. Prior to retiring in 2015, Mike was a Principal Partner and a member of the Senior Partner Group at ERM, the world’s largest privately-owned sustainability consultancy. Mike was also chairman of ERM’s U.S. Low Carbon Enterprise Fund (LCEF), an organization that employs an impact investment model to provide financial, technical, and professional support for low carbon entrepreneurs in the developing world.  

After retiring, Mike committed himself to community service and volunteer activities. At The Marine Mammal Center, the world’s largest marine mammal rehabilitation and research center, Mike is a major gifts officer and oversees a portfolio of major donors.  In addition, he previously served as a member of the Center’s Board of Directors and Chairperson of the Center’s Volunteer Council. 

Mike currently serves as a volunteer usher at the SF Jazz Center. He also is an assistant coach of the boys’ basketball team at Hamilton Middle School.   

Mike and his wife Beth have lived in Marin County for almost 40 years where they raised their three sons. 

Cristina joined the Community Action Marin Board in May 2023, bringing over 40 years of experience in not-for-profit Healthcare Administration with an emphasis in Finance, Strategic Planning and Ethics, Compliance, and Privacy. 

Cristina served previously on the Marin Community Clinic Board for nine years and was the board chair for two years. She has also served on multiple Marin Community Clinic board sub-committees. Cristina was the secretary of the board for the Museum of the American Indian board.  She currently serves on the City of Novato Finance Advisory Commission.  

Cristina began her career in Healthcare Administration at Marin General Hospital (Marin Health) and has worked for Sutter Health, Saint Mary’s Health System in Reno Nevada, Kentfield Rehab, and Kaiser Permanente in various senior leadership roles, developing experience and expertise in Strategic Planning, Business Development, Revenue Cycle, Financial Services, Material’s Management, Personnel Management, Contract Administration, Compliance, Privacy, Information Systems, and Physician Relations. 

Cristina recently retired (April 2023) from Kaiser Permanente as the Ethics, Compliance & Privacy Officer for Marin, Sonoma, and Contra Costa counties. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology/Psychology from the University of San Franciso. She now lives in Novato, has two grown sons, and four grandchildren.  

Alexandra Morehouse joined the Community Action Marin Board in October 2023, bringing her 25-year C-suite career experience with companies such as American Express, Charles Schwab, and Kaiser Permanente. She possesses subject matter expertise in a variety of fields including; healthcare, finance, SaaS, insurance industries, and consumer and professional services. 

Alexandra is an experienced board member for global and public companies and brings digital transformation expertise and strategic focus to her board assignments. Currently she is a board member for AIMM, a cultural diversity non-profit. She is also an advocate and national speaker for DEI and cultural inclusiveness.  

Throughout her career, Alexandra has successfully delivered technology platforms to drive revenue growth and market share. She’s skilled in data analytics, data privacy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. She also has extensive experience in managing risk and compliance at the state, federal, and global levels. 

Alexandra spent her early childhood in Japan and moved to Marin in middle school. She has a BA in Asian Studies from Harvard and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She continues to live in Marin now with her husband and they are both avid hikers and travelers. She is also a passionate naturalist, having organized and led over a dozen safaris in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. 

Andrew (“Drew”) joined the CAM board in August 2023, bringing two decades of legal experience to the board.  

Over the past 10 years, Drew has served in various in-house counsel roles at Levi Strauss, Yelp, and Guidespark (an HR software start-up), where he developed a broad range of experience in providing practical advice on general legal risk and compliance issues.   

Drew began his legal career in 2005 as a litigator at the law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP, where he spent eight years representing clients in commercial, intellectual property, and unfair competition disputes.  He also performed pro bono work to support the rights of underrepresented communities throughout California, including immigration, education, and juvenile parole reform matters. While in law school, he externed for Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (ret.) of the United States District Court, Northern District of California.   

In addition to his legal work, Drew’s volunteer interests over the years have centered on homelessness, poverty, and food justice.   

Drew holds a law degree from University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Yale University.  

He is a life-long Bay Area resident, growing up in Oakland and later living in San Francisco and Berkeley.  He moved to San Rafael in 2021. He spends as much of his free time outside as possible (including hiking all over Marin, camping throughout the West Coast and skiing in the Sierras), and enjoys cooking and seeing live music with friends.   

Robert Sindelar joined the Community Action Marin Board in June 2023, bringing 20+ years of executive experience in nonprofit management and leadership. He has served previously as a board member and Board Chair at several educational institutions and professional development organizations.  

Robert first began a career in nonprofit management at the YMCA of San Francisco, eventually going on to hold multiple leadership roles at the YMCA, Playworks, and now at Justice Outside, where he serves as the Chief Advancement Officer. In those roles, he has gained invaluable experience in fundraising, strategic planning, community engagement, board development, and operations.   

Robert was raised in Florida as the oldest child in a family of four children.  He has a passion for travel, social justice, and the outdoors. 

Robert holds a Masters in Nonprofit Management in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.  He now lives in Marin City with his husband and their two teenagers. When he’s not trying to learn about home projects, you’ll likely find him out running, playing board games with family and friends, or catching a movie. 

Mary spent most of her career at the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. During her 35 years in the Department, Mary managed all of the welfare programs as well as the Employment and Economic Assistance Division. As the Director of the Workforce Investment Board, she worked collaboratively with county employers, educational institutions, non-profits, and labor organizations.  

Although currently retired, during her tenure at the Marin County Department of Health, Mary partnered with Community Action Marin on many projects serving theirs and Community Action Marin’s mutual clientele. Based on Mary’s admiration for both Community Action Marin’s mission and the work that the agency has done in the county, she has chosen to spend her volunteer time, post-retirement working with the agency on the board/ 

Mary grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been a Marin County resident for most of her adult life.   

Violeta (V) Krasnić is a non-profit leader and a human rights advocate with expertise in human rights policy and advocacy, non-profit management, and philanthropy. Her tireless work for human rights and women’s rights, along with her commitment to collaborative action to improve mental health and well-being, has empowered the lives of tens of thousands across the globe and won her several awards.  

Violeta was born in North Macedonia, grew up in Kosovo and Serbia, and attended Columbia University for both undergraduate and graduate studies. She holds a BA in Psychology (Phi Beta Kappa) and an MA from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Before receiving her degrees, Violeta was involved in human rights and humanitarian work, and afterward, she expanded her efforts to engage with a global constituency, working in partnership with social justice organizations throughout the Balkans, Europe, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa, and in the U.S. She has extensive experience in all aspects of growth and management of programs and large portfolios, eventually becoming the Program Director for the Global Fund for Women before going on to direct the Children’s Book Project and then to found and direct The April Foundation. Violeta is currently a PhD student in the Anthropology and Social Change department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she is also the Program Coordinator for the Women’s Spirituality program. 

Deeply committed to being of service, Violeta volunteers as a suicide prevention counselor, a rape crisis counselor, a certified yoga teacher, a neighborhood emergency response team (NERT) volunteer, and a Hawaiian Hula dancer. Her previous board appointments with academic and community organizations in San Francisco and New York.  

For her outstanding social justice work, Violeta has received an Emmy® Humanitarian and Public & Community Service Award for teamwork at WITNESS.org, the 2016 City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Certificate of Honor as the Executive Director of the Children’s Book Project, and in 2018 was named the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Volunteer of the Year, also receiving California State Assembly Certificate of Recognition honoring her work against stigma and suffering of suicide.  

Violeta lives close to redwoods in Larkspur, CA with her husband, offspring, dog, cat, and a family of finches.  

Tonya Newstetter joined the Community Action Marin board in 2022, three years after moving to Marin County. She is currently head of Global Grants Operations at Salesforce, where she leads the strategy and development of core business and technology systems that power the company’s grantmaking in education, economic opportunity, community resilience, and climate justice.

She brings to the board 15+ years of experience in the social impact space, with expertise in operations, finance, technology, and organizational development.

Born in San Francisco, Tonya spent her childhood in a small town in the Sierras before returning to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley, and never left. She moved to Marin in 2019, where she now lives with her husband and son.

Sean Casey joined the Community Action Marin Board in 2023, following a career of nearly 40 years in maternal and child health and early childhood development. 

Sean was one of the first staff hired at First 5 Contra Costa when the agency began in 2000, and later served as Executive Director for 15 years. Prior to First 5, he worked on infant mortality prevention at the Perinatal Network of Alameda/Contra Costa and developed sexuality education programs at Planned Parenthood affiliates in San Francisco, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. 

Sean has also served on and staffed numerous coalitions, advisory committees and boards, including two years as Executive Committee President of the California First 5 Association; staff to the Contra Costa Children and Families Commission; and longtime chair of the Contra Costa Family Economic Support Partnership.  

Sean was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, spent one humidity-free summer in Berkeley in 1986, and never moved back. He’s also a choral singer and has performed over 80 classical works with the Baltimore, San Francisco ,and Marin Symphony Choruses. 

Sean holds master’s degrees in social Welfare and Public Health from UC Berkeley, and a BA from Oberlin College, where he majored in music. He and his family have lived in San Rafael for thirty years. 

Pamela Tom joined the CAM Board in July 2023, bringing decades of communications and non-profit work to the board.

Pamela is the founder of HPVANDME, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing education about HPV cancers, specifically HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer. Pamela launched the multimedia news site after her husband was diagnosed with HPV throat cancer—now the #1 HPV+ cancer in the US, surpassing incidents of cervical cancer. She has also established global partners to help support cancer survivors.

Prior to this, Pamela worked as a broadcast journalist at KGO-TV and KPIX-TV in San Francisco, CA. Pamela’s work as a field reporter, witnessing the fallouts from poverty, formed the foundation for her deep empathy and commitment to help others.

Pamela earned her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of California, Berkeley. She resides in West Marin with her husband and two Australian Shepherds.