CALIFORNIA EMERGING TECHNOLOGY FUND - Key Persons
Alana O'Brien has a demonstrated history of working in non-profit organization management and is the CETF Vice President of Operations. Her current primary accountabilities: implement a statewide public benefit non-profit work plan; execute, oversee, and facilitate quarterly officers meetings, ancillary advisory forums, and annual board meetings; and engage stakeholders in strategic vetted policy initiatives and drive consensus driven decision-making. Previous employment: Bay Area Council Vice President of Operations and Signature Events; UC Berkeley Department of Rhetoric and Film Advisor; San Francisco Art Institute Office Manager of Admissions; Democratic National Convention Committee Transportation Executive Assistant; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library Assistant; US Senate Intern with Daniel K. Inouye; Center For Participation In Democracy Volunteer, Outreach Coordinator. For more information see https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanaobriensf/.
Barb Johnston Yellowlees is a former California Telemedicine and eHealth Center Executive Director, has been working in eHealth since 1995, and has undertaken both program development and research regarding clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Barb's current work at CTEC is focused on expanding healthcare access for rural and underserved populations by fostering the utilization of telemedicine technologies, telecommunications resources development, and direct funding for eHealth networks expansion throughout California.
Previously, Barb developed eMental Health programs in the United States and in Australia, where she served as an advisor to its Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Most recently, Barb was the Chief Operations Officer for HealthShare, an internet-based virtual private network in Australia allowing rural communities to access otherwise unavailable mental health services. Prior to that position, Barb worked within Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research as an eHealth Manager, where she played a key role in developing an online program designed to treat patients with depression and bi-polar disorders. Additionally, she was the Research Manager for Kaiser Permanente's benchmark study on the effectiveness of Telehomecare.
Barb is a frequent speaker on the tangible benefits of eHealth as a key component of comprehensive healthcare delivery services, and has presented papers on eHealth to the International community including the USA, Australia, Singapore, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She has also served on the Norwegian Telemedicine Counsel.
A published author, Barb's most recent work is a chapter in the book, Telepsychiatry and e-Mental Health, published by the Royal Society of Medicine in January 2003. Finally, Barb is an active member of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA), where she chaired the committee that developed the first Telehomecare clinical guidelines for the ATA.
Barb has a Master of Nursing Science, Management and Leadership.
Dr. O'Connor is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of political communication and telecommunications policy and applications. She is the author of numerous publications in both of these areas. Her numerous appointments, boards and chairs, include the: California Educational Technology Committee; Washington, DC based Alliance for Public Technology; Alliance; California Public Broadcasting Commission; Network Reliability and Interoperability Council; Bellcore's Advisory Board; ATT's Consumer Advisory Panel; Verizon's Consumer Collaborative Council; ETS international ICT literacy effort; National ICT Policy Council; and California Educational Technology Industry Task Force. Dr. O'Connor is an expert consultant and has served a wide array of business, media, telecommunications, federal and state clients and task forces. Awards and honors include an by 1990 California State University outstanding teaching award; 1994 California State University Alumni Distinguished Professor Award; 1996 Technology Leadership award; 1998 Technology Pioneer Award.
Bob Cabeza, who retired in early 2020, has been with the YMCA of Greater Long Beach for 26 years. His leadership, knowledge and skills have been pivotal to the success of the Neighborhood Transformation Partnership in Long Beach. In particular, Mr. Cabeza supported the YMCA being recognized with a national award from the US Department of Education for its highly successful community school model. Additionally, he has made unprecedented progress in working with the County of Los Angeles, the City of Long Beach, and the Long Beach Unified School District the expand opportunities in the area. For example, the Neighborhood Transformation Partnership helped the YMCA's Summer Youth Institute to provide paid summer job opportunities through its collaboration with Los Angeles County which only happened because of the Neighborhood Transformation Partnership.
Bob Cabeza has been a visionary and leader in the Digital Inclusion and youth development arenas for the past 12 years. Bob has a special focus on youth development and technology equity for underserved communities as it relates to developing both academic and workforce success. He is the founder of both the YMCA Youth Institute and Change Agent Productions social enterprise. The Youth Institute program model is expanding as other agencies and YMCAs are starting their own Youth Institute-type programs. The YMCA of the USA is currently seeking national funding to make the Long Beach Youth Institute the national model and training site, and further assist in scaling the model.
Bob Cabeza was a Z-Fellow in the ZeroDivide Foundation Program. As a Z-Fellow, Bob was able to gain new skills and tools to be an agent of social change to bring technology access to his community. He has directly trained over 5,000 youth, parents, and program staff from non-profit community-based organizations. He has been a panelist, presenter and keynote speaker for over 20 national and international conferences on youth development, family programming, and computer technology. Bob is the first non-school-based educator to be named an Apple Distinguished Educator and is a Board member of the California After School Network (CAN) as well as the League of California After School Practitioners (LCAP). Bob is presently serving on the California State Senate Task Force on Intersession and Summer Programming for Youth.
As Don and Rosemary Vial, Bob has been committed to bringing technology training and access to the underserved and low-income youth and families to empower their lives. He has been working in the non-profit arena for over 25 years, successfully creating hope and promise for those less fortunate.
Job Titles:
- Principal Consultant With Maestro Public Sector
Carlos Ramos is Principal Consultant with Maestro Public Sector. He works with leading edge Silicon Valley innovators to bring innovation and transformative technologies to the public sector. Carlos founded Maestro after completing a 27-year career in California Government where he was a key technology leader and innovator directly involved in California's technology initiatives.
During his tenure in the public sector, Carlos served as CIO for the State of California where he set California's IT strategic direction and had oversight over and responsibility for the entire State technology portfolio.
Under his leadership, California established itself as a leader in mobile computing, the use of geo spatial technologies, data analytics, cyber security, virtualization and in public sector adoption of cloud computing in the public sector. In addition, Carlos lead creative initiatives to professionalize the State's technology workforce. He established the first ever statewide IT project management office, created a project management academy and partnered with Silicon Valley to train the State's workforce. Additionally, Carlos helped bring California's innovations to other states as a member of the executive committee of the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO).
Carlos previously served as Director of the California Office of Systems Integration - with a $4.5 billion portfolio of California's largest technology projects. Carlos also concurrently held the position of Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services and was the Agency's senior technology executive. He was the principal technology advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and was responsible for the entire HHS technology portfolio.
Prior to that, Carlos served as Director of the then Teale Data Center (now called Office of Technology Services). During his tenure as director, Teale launched it's e-government platform, a new co-location service for government agencies and established a Data Center mutual assistance consortium of government Data Centers for disaster recovery and data security. Before his tenure at the Data Center, Carlos served as CIO for the California Department of Social Services.
Carlos has held many leadership commissions including:
Board Member - Google Government Innovation Advisory Board
Co-Chair - California Cyber Security Task Force
Chair - California Broadband Council
Member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of State CIOs
Director - Stephen P Teale Data Center - State of California
Chief Deputy Director - California Department of Child Support Services
Deputy Director - California Department of Social Services
Member - Governor's E-Government Policy Advisory Group
Chair - Data Center Directors Mutual Assistance & Policy Council
Chair - Government Technology Conference
Chair - California IT Executive Institute
Executive Sponsor - California IT Leadership Academy
Charlene Tatis joined CETF in August 2019 after serving as a Grants Manager for SJ learns, administered by the City Library and one of Mayor Sam Liccardo's signature programs to advance Digital Inclusion. She has also served as the Assistant Director for Santa Clara County FIRST 5 and Program Manager for the Family Resource Center Initiative sponsored by Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. Ms. Tatis was selected as the Partnership Director after an extensive 2-month open recruitment and application process.
Charlene brings to the Digital Inclusion Partnership a deep understanding of community organizations and heartfelt commitment to reaching all digitally-disadvantaged residents in San José through collaboration with all stakeholders coupled with an intense focus on outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Business Development Manager
Darrell J. Stewart is a Business Development Manager Public Sector, in the SLED (State, Local and Education) group at Intel Corporation. SLED's charter is to directly engage public sector leaders, visionaries, advocates, and industry partners. Our mission is to make a difference in the lives of citizens by harnessing Intel technologies and solutions to solve serious public sector problems and to find the intersection between Intel's business interests, the major public sector challenges, and Intel's expertise and resources.
Before assuming his current position, Darrell spent several years working in Intel's Reseller Channel Organization, where he worked with school districts to leverage E-Rate funding strategies. Before joining Intel, Darrell worked in sales for Anixter, Lucent Technologies and was the Regional Sales Manager for Brite Voice Systems, which developed a sold a number of interactive voice response products and services.
Darrell and his wife Dalys have been married for 25 years and they have three adult sons and their dog Dixie. Darrell resides in Long Beach, California.
Job Titles:
- Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Education Graduate School of Education and Information Science
Dr. Howard spoke about the integral role that school transformation, economic empowerment, and political activity all play in building a vibrant citizenry in the midst of unprecedented racial and ethnic change across large cities and states across the nation, and where California is the symbol of possibility that other states may follow. He led discussions to engage participants in examining the role community infrastructure, health and poverty play in realistic hopeful pathways for all California residents.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Associate Professor
Frances Marie Gipson is a clinical associate professor of education in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University, and also serves as director of the Urban Leadership program.
Most recently, Gipson served as the Chief Academic Officer (CAO) for the second largest school district in the nation, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). As a leader of leaders, she oversaw the instructional plan and capacity building for over 600,000 students in preschool through adult school programs - across over 20 departments.
Prior to her role as CAO, she was the LAUSD Local District East Superintendent serving over 100+ schools across the northeast and southeast Los Angeles regional communities. Her experience as a proud principal and teacher has shaped a mission of success with an "all means all" strategy. As the principal of the first complete family of International Baccalaureate Schools in LAUSD, Gipson transformed her campus from a Program Improvement school to a Los Angeles County of Education (LACOE) Promising Practice QEIA School, Title One Achieving School, and California Department of Education (CDE) Gold Ribbon Distinguished School. The Active Transformation Model resulted in a personalized campus that includes the first LAUSD district middle school dual language Mandarin Academy, Spanish Dual Language Academy, Environmental Science Academy, and two magnet schools offering highly-gifted and STEM programs. Believing in the power of preschool-16 partnerships, the school tripled the size of an award-winning MESA program and developed university partnerships. As a result, all students receive college scholarship opportunities, and the partnerships ensure that all students have access to highly personalized success pathways for A-G college and career readiness.
Gipson has also served learners as the administrator of instruction in LAUSD Local District 5 (LD5), and also as former director of Professional Development & Partnerships at UCLA's Center X. Core to the work at UCLA was the design of transformative coaching models and notably recognized partnerships with the subject matter projects. In LD5, she supported leading for learning in 150+ schools in east, southeast, and south Los Angeles. During Gipson's tenure at LD5, the district was recognized for student achievement growth models, English learner reclassification, highest district attendance rates, lowest suspension rates, greatest numbers of National Board Certification participants, and even organized the first East LA Arts Festival.
A highly regarded educator, she has published and designed quality curriculum at the district, state, national, and international levels. With this passion for active learning, she has taught educational leadership at CSULA, UCLA's Teacher Education Program, and the Principals Leadership Institute. Gipson's leadership has been formally recognized with the regional Administrator of the Year Award from ACSA; the Tae Han Kim award for humanitarian and cultural accomplishments; the CSULA Day of the Educator award for excellence in fieldwork supervision; the Excellence in Urban Leadership Award from Claremont Graduate University; Top 30 trailblazers, technologists, and transformers by the Center for Digital Education; the AALA Presidents Award; and most recently the Distinguished Alumni Award from CGU.
Gipson believes that "living in the system" and "disturbing the system" are both critical to agency and advocacy for youth, and ensure that our communities are at the center of all decisions. She is inspired to coach, mentor, and support the next generation of urban leaders who will promote flourishing urban school systems.
Job Titles:
- Chief Government Strategy Officer
As Chief Government Strategy Officer, Jeff Campbell leads Cisco's government relations worldwide. He manages a team that spans six continents and is charged with advancing issues that support Cisco's robust corporate and technology policy agenda. This includes conferring with world leaders, important legislators, critical regulators, and industry stakeholders to shape public policies that foster innovation and emerging digital technologies, promote broadband adoption, and protect global competitiveness.
Since joining Cisco in 2001, Jeff's deep expertise and background in telecommunication and internet regulation, intellectual property law, energy regulation, and international trade have helped advance the company's many priorities. During his tenure, he has successfully advocated for policies that enable the future of wireless technologies and 5G, improve the digitization of education and rural communities, dedicate billions of dollars to expand broadband infrastructure across America, and reduce barriers to digital trade, among others.
Passionate about bridging the "digital divide" and powering a more inclusive future, Jeff represents Cisco on the Board of Directors for the California Emerging Technologies Fund, which works to accelerate the deployment of broadband in unserved and underserved communities. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the Telecommunications Industry Association.
Prior to Cisco, Jeff headed the Washington, D.C. government affairs office of Compaq Computer and began his career as a telecommunications regulatory attorney for the international law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.
Jeff holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Yale University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Job Titles:
- General Counsel of Trimble
Jim Kirkland is General Counsel of Trimble, a leading technology company that delivers products and services that connect the physical and digital worlds. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity and data analytics enable customers to improve productivity, quality, safety and sustainability in a broad range of industries, including agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation and logistics.
Lenny Mendonca was the Chief Economic and Business Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. He is a Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company and a Lecturer on Inequality at the Stanford Business School.
He founded McKinsey's U.S. state and local public sector consulting practice. He also oversaw their knowledge development, Chairing the McKinsey Global Institute and the Firm's communications, including the McKinsey Quarterly. He served for a decade on the McKinsey Shareholder Council (its Board of Directors). He retired from McKinsey in 2014.
He was formerly the Chair of New America and Children Now, co-Chair of California Forward, and co-founder and Chair of Fusecorps. He was the Vice-Chair of Common Cause. He is the Chair Emeritus of the Bay Area Council and their Economic Institute, and was vice-chair of the Stanford GSB Advisory Council. He was a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development. He served on the boards of Fidelity Charitable, Western Governors University, UC Merced, The Educational Results Partnership, The College Futures Foundation, California Competes, The Opportunity Institute, Commonwealth Club, National Association of NonPartisan Reformers, and The Guardian.org. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the Board of Trustees for Junior Statesmen of America, and the Advisory Boards of Y Analytics, QB3, the Haas Center at Stanford, Third Sector Capital, The CA Community College Chancellor's Office, Measures for Justice, and the Public Policy Institute of California.
He received his MBA and certificate in public management from Stanford. He holds an AB, magna cum laude, in economics from Harvard.
He lives on the Half Moon Bay coast with his wife, Christine. They raised their two daughters, Allie and Rebecca, there and are the founders and owners of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, The Inn at Mavericks and the Pacific Standard Taproom. He is also Chair and primary owner of the Coastside News Group (Half Moon Bay Review).
Martha M. Escutia, former California State Senator, was appointed vice president for USC Government Relations, effective May 1, 2013. Ms. Escutia oversees the university's federal, state and local government relations. Immediately prior to joining USC, Ms. Escutia was a partner at The Senators, a law and consulting firm she co-founded, that provides strategic, legal, legislative, regulatory, and policy advice to a wide array of clients. She was also a partner at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips from 2007 to 2010.
Ms. Escutia was a member of the California State Senate from 1998 to 2006 and a member of the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1998. She was the first woman Chair of both the Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees.
In January, 2014, she was appointed to the State Bar of California's Council on Access and Fairness. She also serves on the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls and the Board of the California Emerging Technology Fund, a $100 million fund aimed at bridging the digital divide.
Beginning in fall 2014, she will be teaching Legislative Procedure at the USC Gould School of Law. She has also served as a guest lecturer at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and as an adjunct professor in the political science department at East Los Angeles Community College.
Ms. Escutia received her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University and her Bachelor of Science from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Job Titles:
- Interim President at Los Angeles City College
Reneé Martinez has worked in the field of community college education for over 42.5 years. Throughout her career a top priority has been to serve as a role model to all students and staff members, demonstrating what can be attained through setting positive goals and working hard. She supports her staff members by encouraging them to be independent in their work environment, to further their education and to provide good customer service to all needing their assistance and support.
In November 2021. Senator Padilla joined CETF, CAFwd and more than 30 other civic leadership groups, community organizations, and Internet Service Providers for a briefing to discuss the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Bill (BIL). Senator Padilla urged all the stakeholders to work together and forge partnerships to secure California's fair share of federal funds and to ensure the best value for California taxpayers and residents.
Sunne Wright McPeak is the President and CEO of the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), a statewide non-profit foundation whose mission is to close the Digital Divide by accelerating the deployment and adoption of broadband. With McPeak's vision and drive, CETF has positioned California as a national leader in advancing Digital Inclusion, developing and launching groundbreaking initiatives such as the Digital Literacy Executive Order, School2Home, California Telehealth Network, and public information campaigns Get Connected!, Internet For All Now, and Digital Equity Bill of Rights. CETF has sponsored several successful bi-partisan legislative bills, including the Internet For All Now Act of 2017 (securing authorization for $545 million into the California Advanced Services Fund) and has negotiated Memoranda of Understanding for public benefits in conjunction with corporate consolidations with Frontier Communications, Charter Communications, and T-Mobile.
As Secretary of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency (2003-2006), McPeak oversaw the largest State Agency. She was responsible for more than 42,000 employees and a budget in excess of $11 billion. Under McPeak's leadership, performance and productivity in all 14 Departments of the Agency improved significantly-cutting average wait times at the DMV from over an hour to 21 minutes, reducing by two-thirds the time to issue real estate licenses, and generating more than $180 million in savings. She provided key policy leadership in support of the Governor to develop and implement major investments in transportation and infrastructure while fostering groundbreaking regional "sustainable smart growth" planning advancing the "3Es" for triple bottom-line returns: Prosperous Economy; Quality Environment; Social Equity.
Before being recruited to the Governor's Cabinet, McPeak served for 7 years as President and CEO of the Bay Area Council, a prominent employer-led policy organization addressing regional economic prosperity issues. For 3 years prior, she served as the President and CEO of the Bay Area Economic Forum, a public-private partnership between the Bay Area Council and the Association of Bay Area Governments. She pioneered regional economic performance metrics to drive public policy, adoption by local governments of a regional 3Es compact on sustainable smart growth, and capitalization of equity funds to invest in low-income neighborhoods.
McPeak served for more than 15 years on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, having been first elected at age 30, and was elected President of the California State Association of Counties in 1983. When she left office, her colleagues named the Board Chambers in her honor. Prior to being elected to public office, McPeak owned a consulting business in health and human services. She served on the Boards of Directors for 2 publicly-traded corporations for 20 years. She was inducted into the National Academy of Public Administration in 2016 and received the Champion of Technology Award from the California State Fair in 2018. McPeak represents CETF on the California Broadband Council.
Sunne (whose first name is her Norwegian grandmother's family name) grew up on a small dairy farm in the San Joaquin Valley. She earned a B.A. in an Individual Major (International Medicine) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Masters of Public Heath in Health Education and Medical Care Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates from California State University East Bay and John F. Kennedy University. She and John McPeak have been married for more than 50 years and their family includes 2 sons, a daughter-in-law, and 4 grandchildren (and Breezy, the 5 th Norwegian Elkhound).