Our Board

  • Chair of the California Energy Commission

    David Hochschild was appointed chair of the California Energy Commission by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2019. He fills the environmental position on the five-member Commission where four of the five members are required by law to have professional training in specific areas - engineering or physical science, environmental protection, economics, and law. Chair Hochschild's career has spanned public service, environmental advocacy, and the private sector. He first got involved in the solar energy field in 2001 in San Francisco as a special assistant to Mayor Willie Brown where Chair Hochschild launched a citywide $100 million initiative to put solar panels on public buildings. He also cofounded the Vote Solar Initiative, a 60,000-member advocacy organization promoting solar policies at the local, state, and federal levels. He was executive director of a national consortium of leading solar manufacturers and worked for five years at Solaria, a solar company in Silicon Valley. From 2007 to 2008, he served as a commissioner at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. For his work to advance clean energy, Chair Hochschild was awarded the Sierra Club's Trailblazer Award, the American Lung Association's Clean Air Hero Award, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Million Solar Roof True Champion Award. Chair Hochschild holds a bachelor of arts from Swarthmore College and a master of public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs.

  • Restaurateur & Activist 

    Alice Louise Waters  is an American chef, restaurateur and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, known for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine. Waters has authored the books Chez Panisse Cooking (with Paul Bertolli), The Art of Simple Food I and II, and 40 Years of Chez Panisse. Her memoir, Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook, was published in September 2017.  Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996 and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley.[She is a national public policy advocate for universal access to healthy, organic foods. Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition inspired Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden program.

  • Author, Co-Founder of Niman/Schell Ranch & Climate activist

    Orville Schell co-founded the Niman/Schell Ranch with Bill Niman in 1978 with the objective of raising cattle in a humane and environmentally sound manner. In 1984 he published the book Modern Meat: Antibiotics, Hormones, and the Pharmaceutical Farm, criticizing meat production in the United States. He is also a climate activist, author and journalist. He is known for his works on China and currently also serves as the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. He previously served as dean of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

  • Restoration Ecologist

    Audrey Fusco is the Restoration Ecologist and Native Plant Nursery Manager for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (Marin County). She focuses on restoring habitat for all of the wildlife that use riparian corridors, including pollinators such as the endangered Western monarch butterfly. In addition to working with riparian restoration, Audrey grows plants with local partner schools and helps schools in Marin County create habitat gardens on their school grounds.

  • Lawyer & Entrepreneur

    Carl Diehl is a lawyer and entrepreneur. He holds a PhD from Yale in European History and a JD from University of California at Berkeley. He is the Co-Founder & CEO The Bar Method, ballet inspired exercise clubs. He sits on the boards of several non-profits in the West Marin area.

  • Documentary Photographer

    Elizabeth Weber is an independent documentary photographer who focuses on ecological issues. Elizabeth is passionate about integrating her work into the solutions of the topics she covers. She has collaborated with poets, conservationists and non-profits and is dedicated to working with people who are creating positive change in their communities and the environment. Her current photography projects focus on the population decline of the western monarch butterfly and on the crisis of plastic marine debris in the Hawaiian Islands. www.elizabethweber.com

  • Founder of the West Marin Monarch Sanctuary & Filmmaker

    Award-winning filmmaker and farmer, Ole Schell (Orville H. Schell IV) grew up in Bolinas on his father’s Niman/Schell Ranch, where the annual arrival of thousands of Western Monarch butterflies was a dependable autumn phenomenon. The alarming decline in this butterfly population has moved Schell to establish a Western Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary on his family land in Bolinas. With extensive research, partnership with specialists, and a creative vision, Schell has planted hundreds of native plants and developed a program to support the butterflies and inform and inspire the public. He is an NYU film school graduate who began his career at the Saturday Night Live film unit and has since directed widely released documentaries in the United States, Europe and China. In the commercial world he focuses on technology, fashion, sustainability and electric vehicles.

  • Retired Park Ranger & Advisor to the West Marin Monarch Sanctuary

    Mia Monroe is a Xerces Society volunteer, co-founder of the Western Monarch Count and continues to monitor Marin sites and participate in the varied conservation activities of the Marin Monarch Working Group. She recently retired from a 45 year career as a National Park Service ranger.