Meet Our Passionate Team
Discover the dedicated people behind Rose, working together to help communities and the environment flourish.
![rose-foudation-team rose-foudation-team](/wp-content/uploads/bb-plugin/cache/rose-foudation-team-landscape.jpg)
Our Team
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Pamela Arauz (she/her)
Director of Finance
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.
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Timothy Bell (he/him)
Pacific Northwest Program Officer
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.
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Jenny Cabrera (she/her)
Administrative Assistant
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.
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Aurora Heying (she/her)
Grassroots Program Officer
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.
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Amy Holland
Senior Manager Institutional Giving
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.
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Jodene Isaacs (she/her)
Director of Grantmaking
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.
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Tim Little (he/him)
Director of Special Projects & Co-Founder
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.
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Aiko Pandorf (she/her)
Interim Executive Director
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.
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Mykela Patton (she/her)
New Voices Are Rising Associate Program Director
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.
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Andrea Pineda (she/her)
New Voices Are Rising Youth Coordinator
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!
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Sarah Quan (she/her)
Director of Operations
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.
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Gabriel Rosenstein (he/him)
Grants Administration and Contract Lead
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.
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Susan Stock (she/her)
Senior Accountant
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.
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Pearl Wang (she/her)
Database and Operations Lead
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.
Our Board
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Willard Brown
President; Volunteer, Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association
After retiring from Seattle Housing Authority, where he worked for over 34 years, Willard served on the board and as Director of Housing and Environmental Programs at Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association. He has served on the Advisory Council for African American Elders and currently serves as Board Chair of the Equitable Development Initiative, representing the Delridge community. Willard is a Emeritus member of the Board of Directors of the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition, and has advocated for keeping public lands in public hands. Willard currently works on behalf of the community at two Rose funded projects in Seattle, the Delridge Wetland Park and the Roxbury Bog Re-hydration and Restoration projects.
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Cindy Tsai Schultz
Vice-President; Program Development Consultant
Ms. Tsai is a program development consultant. She was active in public health and social justice for 20 years, including working as the Project Coordinator at Organic Exchange where she implemented strategies to expand rural economic opportunities, develop sustainable agricultural practices, reduce rural poverty, and protect the environment in India. She was also the Associate Director of Community Health Works where she developed curriculums on health disparities, used film to examine inequalities in health, and helped develop a pediatric asthma program. She was Co-Founder of the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project in the early 1990’s.
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Veronica Eady
Secretary; Vice President for Equity & Justice at Resources Legacy Fund
Veronica Eady is Vice President for Equity & Justice at the Resources Legacy Fund, a nonprofit environmental grantmaking organization. Prior to joining RLF, Veronica held senior leadership positions at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board. She led the development of the environmental justice policy and other innovative programs for Massachusetts’ statewide environmental agencies. Veronica is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Hastings Law School (now UC Law San Francisco). She’s served on several faculties, including Stanford Law School, UC Davis Law School, and is currently an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley Law where she teaches a course on environmental justice.
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Amy Lyons
Treasurer; Executive Director, John & Marcia Goldman Foundation
Ms. Lyons is the Executive Director of the John & Marcia Goldman Foundation. She was previously the Executive Director of the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund and the Goldman Environmental Foundation, which administers the Goldman Environmental Prize. Through her past 25 years service in the field of philanthropy, she has developed a broad understanding of numerous not-for-profit sectors including the environment, reproductive rights, civil society and Jewish affairs. She chairs the Foundation’s Finance Committee, and is a member of the Governance Committee.
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Laura Fernandez
Program Manager, Goldman Environmental Prize
Laura is an East Bay resident with roots in the Andes mountains of Colombia. She began her career in climate advocacy as a youth delegate at UN climate negotiations. Laura has since focused her work on supporting grassroots communities and the environment. She served for 5+ years as Program Officer for the Rose Foundation, helping invest millions in watershed protections across the west coast. Now she is a Program Manager at the Goldman Environmental Prize, and practices participatory grantmaking as a Giving Circle Network member at the Latino Community Foundation.
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Pam Fujita-Yuhas
Program Officer, Andy Hill Cancer Research Endowment Fund
Pam Fujita-Yuhas is a Program Officer for the Andy Hill Cancer Research Endowment (CARE) Fund, a public/private partnership that supports research in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Prior to joining the CARE Fund, Pam served as Foundation Director for the NW Fund for the Environment where she co-managed the foundations’ operations and grantmaking programs for over two decades. She has served on advisory committees for Philanthropy NW, the Social Justice Fund and the Seattle Foundation. She holds a BA from Pomona College and a MPA from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.
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Ellen Hauskens
Partner, Iarussi, Gelhaus & Hauskens, CPAMs.
Ms. Hauskens is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. She has acted as a Special Master to help run a variety of family businesses during dissolution proceedings, and is recognized as an expert witness in her field by the Superior Courts of both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Along with the Treasurer, she helps lead the Foundation’s Finance Committee.
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Kevin Hendrick
Consultant
Mr. Hendrick is an expert in municipal waste management and recycling, and served as the Director of the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority for 20 years until his retirement in 2013. During this period Mr. Hendrick also represented Del Norte County on the Board of Directors of the Rural Counties’ Environmental Service JPA and on the Board of Directors of the California Product Stewardship Council. Prior to working in Del Norte County, Mr. Hendrick worked as the Environmental Program Manager for the City of West Hollywood, and was the Los Angeles Director for Citizens for a Better Environment.
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Elliott Jones
Program Manager, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO)
Elliott Jones, is an Oakland native and the Program Manager of the Oakland Fire Department’s (OFD), Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) program. Jones join the OFD in November 2021 and the MACRO program launched in April 2022. MACRO teams perform basic first responder aid; liaise between health/social services and the community; respond to low-level emergency and non-emergency calls for individuals who may be experiencing mental health incidents; and advocate for the community. -
Jim Kolinos, AIF
Founder Emeritus, NWK Group, Inc.
Jim is one of the founders of NWK Group, Inc and led the development and delivery of NWK Group services to institutional clients. Prior to co-founding NWK Group in 2002, he worked for boutique firm in San Francisco advising institutional retirement plans.
After 25+ years of serving retirement plan sponsors and participants, he has retired and shifted his focus to philanthropic endeavors. Jim remains a part of NWK Group as a strategic advisor and is available to discuss historical client related matters.
Jim has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. In 2009 Jim earned the Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®) designation.
In addition to serving on the Rose Foundation Board, Jim volunteers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and is a coach for its Team in Training program. He has competed in two Ironman distance triathlons and uses his experience to help other athletes train for Ironman distance triathlons and raising money for cancer research.
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David Michelfelder
Retired
Mr. Michelfelder’s career spanned over 20 years of service as a labor representative for unions representing California’s health care, service workers, and public sector employees, as well as more than a decade with community-based environmental nonprofits in California and Wisconsin. He chairs the Foundation’s Personnel Committee.
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Marybelle Nzegwu Tobias
Founder and Principal, Environmental Justice Solutions
After graduating from U.C. Hastings, Marybelle began her legal career at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, co-leading the organization’s civil rights work. She went on to join the faculty of the International University College of Torino in Italy where she taught environmental justice. Marybelle became a staff attorney at Public Advocates in 2013. There, she co-led the Bay Area 6 Wins Coalition and served on the Steering Committee of the California Climate Equity Coalition. After teaching an environmental justice course at U.C. Berkeley Law in 2017, Marybelle founded a consulting firm, Environmental Justice Solutions, where she serves as Principal.
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Jill Ratner
Immediate Past President; Co-Founder
Driven by a commitment to community power, and trained as a litigator, Jill co-founded the Rose Foundation in 1992. Jill was Rose’s Program Director from 1993 to 2019, and then Senior Program Advisor. Her work included founding Rose’s environmental justice youth leadership program, New Voices Are Rising, and leading Rose’s successful work to protect the threatened old-growth redwoods of Headwaters Forest. Previously, Jill organized a multi-cultural recycling advocacy coalition in Los Angeles County, worked as an associate at the law firm Irell & Manella, and spent her own high-school years knocking on doors to increase voter participation in critical elections.
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Carlos Zambrano
Program Coordinator, Consor PMCM, Inc.
Carlos Zambrano was the New Voices Are Rising Coordinator and Co-Director for four years. Born and raised in Santa Cruz, California, he moved to the Bay Area for school and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Geography and a minor in Ethnic Studies. He began working on environmental justice issues in Oakland, and through that experience, he found his voice. He is excited to continue to shape the New Voices program as a member of the Advisory Board, because he wants to spark creativity and confidence in youth and help foster a new generation of environmental justice leaders.
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