ZERO WASTE NORTH BAY - Key Persons
Bea Johnson and her family produce a mere pint of trash per year since 2008. Dubbed "The Priestess of Waste-Free Living" by the New York Times, Bea has been featured on TV shows and in publications all over the world. She shatters misconceptions, proving that zero waste can not only be stylish, but also lead to significant health benefits, and time and money savings. With her simple 5R methodology and blog turned bestselling book (Zero Waste Home, translated in 26 languages, #1 on Amazon waste cat.), Bea initiated a global movement. She has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to adopt waste-free living, open unpackaged shops, conceive reusable products, and launch organizations.
Leading spokesperson for the zero waste lifestyle, she has completed 17 international speaking tours and given talks in 59 countries on 6 continents. Her clients include Google, Amazon, Starbucks, TEDx, the European Parliament and the United Nations. She is a Grand Prize winner of The Green Awards, and a French native who currently lives in Mill Valley, California.
Job Titles:
- Resynergi Co - Founder, President and CEO
Brian Bauer, Resynergi Co-Founder, President and CEO. Mr. Bauer graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and from UCLA Anderson School of Business Management. He has served as Vice President Sales and Marketing for TriAccess Technologies (acquired by TriQuint Semiconductor). Further upon acquisition, Mr. Bauer was business unit manager for the acquired group at TriQuint, bringing the entity to market leadership and high profitability. Mr. Bauer has extensive experience marketing complex systems at major communications equipment manufacturers, and has also served as Director for International Marketing Manager at Advanced Fibre Communications, Motorola, Gluon Networks, and NextLevel Communications. Mr. Bauer has established himself as a telecom industry leader, building sales and marketing programs covering over 50 countries globally, and now brings his stalwartness to the recycling and recovery space.
A third generation resident of Long Beach, California, Captain Charles Moore grew up in and on the Pacific Ocean. His father was a industrial chemist and avid sailor who took young Charles and his siblings sailing to remote destinations from Guadalupe Island to Hawaii. Charles attended Lowell Elementary, Rogers Junior High and Wilson High before attending the University of California at San Diego where he majored in Chemistry and Spanish. After 25 years running a woodworking and finishing business, he founded Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Long Beach Organic simultaneously in 1994, to deal with urban runoff through creating organic community gardens and reforesting the giant kelp off the southern California coast. In 1995 he launched his purpose designed, aluminum hulled research vessel, Alguita, in Hobart, Tasmania, and organized the Australian Government's first "Coastcare" research voyage to document anthropogenic contamination of Australia's east coast.
Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita and its Captain found their true calling after a 1997 yacht race to Hawaii. On his return voyage, Captain Moore veered from the usual sea route and saw an ocean he had never known, "there were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic." His 1999 study shocked the scientific world when it found 6 times more plastic fragments by weight in the surface waters of the central Pacific than the associated zooplankton. His second paper found that plastic outweighs zooplankton by a factor of 2.5 in the surface waters of Southern California. Ever since, Captain Moore has dedicated his time and resources to understanding and remediating the ocean's plastic load. He recently returned from 6 months at sea in the South Pacific surveying the extent of plastic contamination in the South Pacific Garbage Patch and along the coast of Chile.
His work has been featured on Good Morning America, Late Night with David Letterman, Nightline, the Colbert Report, Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons documentary "Trashed," and the National Geographic special "Strange Days on Planet Earth." In 2013 he received and honorary Doctorate from Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia and in 2014 he received the Peter Benchly "Hero of the Seas" award designed by Wyland at the California Academy of Sciences Museum of Natural History in San Francisco.
Captain Charles Moore's book, Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans, takes the reader through his initial voyage to the Gyre, his subsequent research expeditions prior to the 2014, fifteen year Great Pacific Garbage Patch expedition, which showed the radically upward trend in plastic contamination of the area, and his fierce game-changing work to engage the world in recognizing and taking action on the plastic invasiveness crisis in our oceans. This research prompted a massive global reassessment of plastic's pervasive presence in the Gyre, raising profound questions regarding the implications of this new remote"habitat'. His hard-won credibility and dogged, game- changing efforts to get the world to pay attention to a looming ocean crisis have earned him world-wide respect for igniting world participation in The Plastic Pollution Conversation.
Job Titles:
- Manager for Recology Sonoma Marin
Celia Furber is the waste zero manager for Recology Sonoma Marin. The waste zero department is the education and outreach arm of the company, and is responsible for meeting and exceeding waste diversion goals set by the state and each unique jurisdictional contract.
Celia has built her career around her ability to design, strategize, and implement large scale sustainability programs. She has worked for Recology since 2013, and loves that her role allows her to make a broad positive environmental impact every day. Prior to her time with Recology, she successfully implemented plastic bag and polystyrene ordinances for the City of San Jose as well as the City of Menlo Park.
Jared has spent the last two decades fighting to create tangible benefits for communities and ecosystems alike. He has been at the forefront of the global zero waste movement and believes recycling is one of the single most important actions we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jared trained as an international environmental lawyer at UC Berkeley. Working for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Jared started his career by tracking the promises made by leaders at the Rio Earth Summit (1992). Mr. Blumenfeld went on to lead a coalition of fishermen, Mexican grass roots organizations, and international NGOs in an epic five year battle to protect the gray whales' birthing grounds in
Mr. Blumenfeld is a trusted source for environmental stories and has appeared frequently in the New Times, BBC, Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, Los Angeles Times, NPR and other media outlets. Jared lives in San Francisco, CA with his wife the artist Alex Nichols and two children Markus and Anya. Jared loves the outdoors and recently returned from walking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Mr. Hejnowicz works in the Santa Rosa City Manager's Office as an Administrative Analyst. He has worked for the City of Santa Rosa for five years serving in various departments including Finance, Housing and Community Services and Police. Currently, Mr. Hejnowicz is the contract administrator and project manager for the city's Solid Waste Collection Services Agreement with the new solid waste hauler Recology Sonoma Marin. Mr. Hejnowicz will serve as the staff project manager for City of Santa Rosa's 2018-19 development of a unique Zero Waste Plan.
Job Titles:
- Community Outreach Manager for Sonoma County Resource Recovery
Justin Wilcock is the Community Outreach Manager for Sonoma County Resource Recovery (SCRR). He was been with SCRR since October of 2017 when they began collecting materials for the Town of Windsor. Justin has been in the waste and recycling industry for over 10 years getting his start at Waste Management of Alameda County where we worked primarily with construction waste recycling and implementing recycling programs for schools and businesses.
Justin has an MBA from UC Davis and a Degree in Horticulture from Brigham Young University. He was a member of the 2004 US Olympic Team in the sport of diving. Justin and his wife live in Novato and have four kids who keep them on their toes!
Job Titles:
- Director of Zero Waste at SCS Engineers
In June 2019, Leslie Lukacs was hired as Executive Director of Zero Waste Sonoma formally known of the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency. Leslie has worked over 20 years in solid waste and resource management industry and, prior to this appointment, was the Director of Zero Waste at SCS Engineers, a solid waste, recycling and organics management consulting firm, for 13 years. Leslie also had her own consulting company for 7 years. Leslie has spent her career designing and implementing comprehensive sustainability and zero waste programs for large institutions, public agencies, venues, and events throughout California and the nation.
Leslie serves on the board of directors of the National Recycling Coalition and the Zero Waste International Alliance and is an advisor to Zero Waste USA and the California Resource Recovery Association. She is also the founder of numerous stakeholder groups including the Green Initiatives for Venues and Events (GIVE) Council, Compost Coalition of Sonoma County, Sonoma County Zero Waste Task Force, and the Zero Waste North Bay Symposium.
Ms. Lukacs is the Director of Zero Waste at SCS Engineers. She has over 20 years of experience providing sound environmental consulting services for both the private and public sectors. She specializes in the design and implementation of comprehensive sustainability and zero waste programs for large institutions, public agencies, venues, and events throughout the nation. Leslie serves on the board of directors of the Zero Waste International Alliance and is an advisor to Zero Waste USA and the California Resource Recovery Association. Ms. Lukacs is founder of the Green Initiatives for Venues and Events (GIVE) Council, an organization dedicated to increasing the awareness of implementing green programs at venues and special events. Leslie is co-founder and Chair of the Compost Coalition of Sonoma County, which organizes a diverse coalition of citizens and organizations that champion efforts to keep and process organic materials in Sonoma County. Leslie serves on the board of the Sonoma County Local Task Force and the chairs the Sonoma County Zero Waste Task Force.
Martin Bennett is Instructor Emeritus of American History at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) where he has taught for twenty-five years.
He is Co-Chair of North Bay Jobs with Justice, a community-labor coalition of 20 unions and community-based organizations, affiliated with the national Jobs with Justice network. He is also a Research and Policy Analyst for UNITE HERE 2850, a union representing restaurant, hotel, gaming, and food service workers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He writes regularly about labor and civil rights issues for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sonoma Gazette, Beyond the Chron, California Progress Report and other print and online publications.
Marv has overall strategic and operational responsibility for ExtraFood's programs, staff, and execution of its mission. He works with ExtraFood's Board of Directors to establish the corporation's strategic direction; leads the organization's strategic and business planning; defines and leads the execution of the organization's fundraising plan; establishes and conducts strategic partnerships; manages ExtraFood's marketing program; and provides direction and support to ExtraFood's staff.
Marv is in his third career with ExtraFood. He first had a 20-year career in technology, initially in R&D, and then in Sales & Marketing, at such companies as Apple. He then became a licensed psychotherapist with a private practice in Marin and San Francisco, practicing for 14 years before devoting himself full-time to ExtraFood. Marv has a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from Dominican University, a Master's degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, a Bachelor's degree with High Honors in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Institute. He was one of five people in the SF Bay Area to receive the 2017 Silver Jefferson Award for Public Service, and also received the Pacific Sun's 2014-15 Hero of Marin award for Innovation for his work leading ExtraFood. Marv is a member of the Marin Food Policy Council and the Executive Committee of Drawdown:Marin, has testified to the U.S. Congress' National Commission on Hunger, was an invited attendee at Harvard University's inaugural 2016 Food Recovery Entrepreneurs Workshop and was on the Steering Committee for Harvard's Food Recovery Entrepreneurs Workshop and U.S. Food Waste Summit in 2018. He enjoys cycling, singing, and writing in his spare time.
Job Titles:
- President and Chief Executive Officer of Recology
Mike Sangiacomo is President and Chief Executive Officer of Recology. Mike is responsible for overall strategic planning, resource development and growth, and leading Recology in its support of San Francisco's recognition as the "greenest" major city in the nation.
In 1983, Mike was recruited to be the Chief Financial Officer of Sunset Scavenger's parent company. In 1987, the company merged with Recology, and in 1988 Mike was made the Chief Financial Officer of the merged companies. He was promoted to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer in 1991. Mike has served as a member of the Recology Board of Directors since 1990.
Mike served as a board member of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce from 1998 through 2004, and was Chair in 2002. He also has served as a member of the University of San Francisco School of Business and Management Advisory Council. In 2014, he joined the board of the California Historical Society, the official historical society of the State of California, and was elected its Vice President in 2015.
In 2008, Mike was honored as the city's "sustainability leader" in the San Francisco Business Times' annual celebration of San Francisco's most admired CEOs. Mike earned a B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis in accounting from the University of San Francisco. He is also a Certified Public Accountant in the state of California.
Mimi Enright was born & raised in the Bay Area and spent many happy days as a child exploring the Santa Cruz Mountains. She worked in the technology industry for 17 years before moving to Sonoma County in 2000 to pursue her passion as a landscape designer. She completed the training to become a UC Master Gardener in 2011 due to her interest in helping educate Sonoma County residents on the topic of sustainable landscaping. Mimi completed a Sustainable MBA with a concentration in Food Systems in 2014. She has been with the University of California Cooperative Extension, Sonoma County since 2013 in a dual role as the Master Gardener Program Coordinator and Program Manager focusing on community based food systems with a particular focus on food waste reduction and increased food recovery.
Job Titles:
- Program Director of Petaluma Bounty
Suzi Grady is the Program Director of Petaluma Bounty. Previously the Bounty Farm Manager, she has 13 years of experience in building community around food access, gardening and food system collaboration. She is fluent in Spanish, trained as a farmer at UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden Apprenticeship Program, a certified permaculturalist, graduate of the GCETP Program from the Garden for the Environment and taught organic gardening, household composting and nutrition at a school garden program in San Francisco for two years. Suzi graduated from University of Michigan with a dual degree in Political Science and Spanish Literature where she also studied in Santiago, Chile. She is a 2014 Fellow of the Leadership Institute of Ecology and Economy, a member of the CHIPA Wellness Committee, Sonoma County Food System Alliance Coordinating Committee and Policy Committee Co-Chair, a founding member of the Sonoma County Food Recovery Coalition and 2017 fellow of Coaction Institute. In 2016, Suzi was recognized by Assemblymember Marc Levine for her exemplary community work and in 2017 was awarded CAFF's Food Advocate of the Year. Suzi is originally from Michigan, loves living at the edge of soil, systems, community health, seeds and dogs, not necessarily in that order.
Will Bakx started composting in 1982 at Sonoma State University as student manager of the Ecological Food Production Garden. In 1985 he launched Bennett Valley Farm Compost, processing various agricultural and fish industry discards. In 1993 he started the Sonoma county-wide yard debris composting program as Sonoma Compost Company (SCC). He has diverted over 1,800,000 tons of organics from the landfill, creating high quality mulches and composts allowed for organic food production, including biodynamic® composts. Currently working as compost consultant and manages West Marin Compost.
He is the adjunct compost instructor at the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) and serves as chair of the SRJC Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Committee. He also serves on the US Compost Council Compost Training Committee and is a co-instructor for its Compost Operator's Training Course.
He is the co-founder and chair of the California Organics Recycling Council (CORC) and the executive board member of the California Compost Coalition (CCC).
Will earned a BA in Environmental Studies from Sonoma State University and an MS in Soil Science from U.C. Berkeley.