Meet Our Passionate Team

Pamela is an experienced financial and administrative professional who is applying her skills and passion to the environmental health and justice movement. She has volunteered for various groups, including during college to raise scholarships funds for low-income Latino students, during presidential campaigns registering new voters, and most recently as a founding member of the Bay Area Refinery Corridor Coalition to fight environmental injustices committed against disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a Bachelor of Science in International Business with a minor in Latin American studies, and a Masters in Business Administration.

Timothy joins Rose from the land of the Duwamish and Coast Salish people where he worked to promote community voice and equity in policy-making, before moving from direct advocacy to full-scale systems change work through philanthropy. He graduated from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance with degrees in nonprofit management and ethics. Timothy is passionate about philosophy, tea, and, most importantly, engaging with communities to solve their most pressing issues. He looks forward to partnering with Rose grantees as they seek to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing our lands and waters.

Jenny was born in LA and raised in the San Jose Bay Area. Working as an office administrator for Cisco Catering, Jenny developed strong attention to detail and human resource skills. While working full time, Jenny pursued her goal of helping others and completed her Medical Assistant Certification. After three years of assisting doctors, nurses, and patients at Sutter Health Hospital, Jenny joined Rose. She is excited to utilize her administrative, organizational, and people skills to support the team and greater community.

Aurora is honored to support the work of grantees as Rose’s Grassroots Program Officer. Originally from Napa, Aurora joined Rose as the Administrative Assistant, where she gained experience with nonprofit administration, finance, and human resources. She is excited to bring her experience to bear, building community solutions to protect the environment and helping grassroots groups build capacity and navigate the grant-seeking process. She holds a degree in cultural anthropology from Mount Holyoke College. Outside of the office, Aurora can be found dancing Cuban salsa by Lake Merritt, doting on her succulent garden, or catching up with her reading.

Amy has been working for over 20 years around the world on social/political development issues with frontline communities developing and implementing environmental justice, sustainable development, and long-term funding strategies with a number of organizations including TreePeople, EastWest Institute, Millennium Promise, World Federation of United Nations Associations, NRDC, Habitat for Humanity, and Peace Corps. She has a MSc in International Development Studies: Political Economy of Violence, Conflict and Development from the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS): University of London and BA in Cultural Anthropology from Hamilton College.

Jodene is a public interest attorney who has exclusively represented environmental plaintiffs in federal enforcement cases related to water and toxic waste pollution. As a trained mediator, she helped unrepresented litigants settle their claims in Superior Court. Jodene also has served on her county’s civil grand jury focusing on the adoption of building electrification and EV infrastructure regulations. After many years of practicing litigation, she pivoted to philanthropy as a more direct means to advance social progress, promote change, and improve people’s lives.

Tim served as Rose’s Executive Director for over 30 years, where he built a family of environmental and consumer protection grantmaking funds that collectively award $3 – $7 million annually. He is an evangelist about the power of grassroots community activism and resourcing the grassroots base of the environmental movement. He is a nationally recognized voice in sustainable investing and co-authored The Environmental Fiduciary series of publications. He has held leadership positions with the Coalition for Clean Air, Heal the Bay, and Communities for a Better Environment, and served on the boards of the Sierra Nevada Alliance and Confluence Philanthropy.

Aiko brings deep nonprofit leadership experience across a wide array of social justice and movement building organizations to Rose as Interim Executive Director. Focused on helping nonprofit organizations and their people succeed, Aiko’s areas of specialty include Organizational Transitions and Succession Planning, Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and Strategic Fund Development. Her experiences in California’s nonprofit arena and providing technical assistance in Southern Africa reinforce her strong belief in the incredible resilience and power of women and their families to heal, build community, and transform civil society.

Mykela first joined Rose in 2016 as a New Voices Are Rising Summer Academy student and over the years has taken on ever-increasing leadership roles in the program. Now as the associate director of the program, Mykela plays an integral part in defining and building New Voices’ youth leadership pipeline including designing youth leadership positions and mentoring many students to help them develop their skills and gain experience in environmental justice work. Before returning to Rose, Mykela received her environmental policy degree with a justice concentration at Colby College.

Andrea first joined Rose in 2017 as a New Voices Are Rising Summer Academy student. Born and raised in Oakland, Andrea is now the program’s Youth Coordinator. She supports the planning and running of the New Voices Summer Climate Justice Leadership Academy. She is passionate about making learning fun and accessible for everyone, especially when it is about environmental justice. Andrea loves using her creative ideas to make work feel less like work, and more like fun!

Sarah has spent over a decade working to strengthen and resource organizations building more healthy, sustainable, and equitable communities. She is proud to be a part of values-driven organizations advancing racial, economic, and social justice, including seven years at LeaderSpring, a Fellowship for social sector leaders in the Bay Area, and operationalizing the launch of She the People, a national effort to elevate the political voice of women of color. As Rose’s Director of Operations, Sarah is excited to meld her love of shaping organizational systems with her commitment to environmental health and justice.

Gabriel supports the Rose Foundation’s mitigation fund grant making. Before this role, his career in the environmental sector included leading trail work with crews of disadvantaged high school students, managing fundraising operations at Rainforest Action Network and Earthjustice, assisting Indigenous environmental sovereignty projects in Ecuador and New York, and performing geospatial research with NASA. Although originally from Los Angeles, he regularly visited the Shasta-Trinity National Forest’s jagged mountains and gentle rivers while growing up, which remains a favorite natural space to this day.

Susan is a Floridian with 30 years of accounting and operations experience with a myriad of employers including nonprofits, a trade association, an executive recruiting firm, and custom marine fabricators. Most recently she was the accounting manager for Florida Rising, a people-powered alliance advancing social justice across Florida. She is very excited to apply her love of optimizing workflows at another organization focused on community empowerment. When not working she enjoys exploring the bay area, meditation, music, and spending time with her family.

Pearl can’t help but choose workplaces that inspire their surrounding communities to improve the world. She grew up in Maryland, graduated from the University of Virginia, and then followed her sister to Oakland, California. Pearl previously worked as a trainer at an Apple Store, an artist at Whole Foods, and an operations manager at Bay Area education nonprofit Children Rising. She loves running reports, improving operational systems, and is very happy to be with the Rose Foundation in providing grassroots groups with the means to protect our community and environment.