Carmel Valley Association Board of Directors
Priscilla
(Pris) Walton, President
Priscilla graduated from California State College Northridge and received her M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas and her Ph.D. from Northwestern. She was raised in Peru, and was a volunteer in the Peace Corps in 1962-1963 during its beginning stages.
She was a professor in the Department of Education at the University of California Santa Cruz from 1998 to 2005, and a Principal Investigator with the Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence (CREDE). Prior to that she was a consultant for 14 years with the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing and the consultant assigned to develop the Multiple Subjects Bilingual Cross-cultural Academic Development Emphasis Teacher Training Credential Program in 1994 at California State University, Monterey Bay. She also was Statewide Consultant and Coordinator of the Bilingual Teacher Training Programs and worked on Class Size Reduction under California Superintendent for Public Schools, Delaine Eastin. She was the editor of Multicultural Perspectives, The Magazine of the National Association for Multicultural Education and the founding editor of Multicultural Education Magazine.
Priscilla has lived in the Village since 1987, and has been president of the White Oaks Home Owner's Association since 2001. She was President, Democratic Women of Monterey County 2008-2012, and is a current member of the County Democratic Central Committee and the League of Women Voters. In Davis, her community activities included the Board of Directors of the Davis Rural Land Trust and a three year term as a Planning Commissioner for the City of Davis. She is married to John Walton a Sociologist retired from the University of California at Davis.
The Walton's have two grandchildren who live with their daughter Casey and her husband Eric in Sacramento. They have a fourteen year old golden retriever named Murphy who was born and raised in Carmel Valley. You can catch them walking through the village every morning.
Rick Manning, Vice President, Membership, Landuse
Rick Manning, from Albany, NY, graduated from Yale College in 1968, where he majored in history and enjoyed playing tennis as well as singing with the Yale Glee Club and the Whiffenpoofs. He then served three years in the US Army, which included an assignment at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey to study Korean. It was at that time that Rick discovered the extraordinary beauty of the Peninsula, so after his tour of duty in Inchon and Seoul, he returned to Carmel Valley.
A summer job in 1971 at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch stretched into a thirty-three year career at the resort. In addition to teaching and administrative responsibilities in Carmel Valley, Rick was the Tennis Director at The Tennis Ranch on Camelback, Scottsdale, Arizona, from 1979 - 1986. For several years he was secretary for John Gardiner's Tennis Clinics, a company which provided professionals for programs at resorts and clubs around the US. In 1995, Rick joined the Peter Burwash International tennis staff at Carmel Valley Ranch Resort. He retired from full-time teaching in 2014, but still plays on a regular basis.
Rick has lived with his wife, Ruth Carter, in mid valley since 1976. Now, without a full-time work schedule, he is able to get out into our wonderful parks for more hiking, to spend more time reading, and to take more advantage of the many cultural events available in the area. Rick looks forward to the opportunity to serve on the Carmel Valley Association board.
Sandy
Schachter, Secretary
Sandra Schachter first moved to Carmel Valley in 1970 after living in northern Ohio and New York City. She left to teach in Switzerland in 1983 and returned in 1999. She has a BA in English from Oberlin College (junior year at the University of Edinburgh in Scoland) and an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University with a specialization in History of the English Language. She did further graduate work in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Columbia Teachers College. She has taught English as a Second/Foreign Language, English composition, and language teaching methodology at Columbia, Harvard, the American College or Switzerland, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she helped to establish the American Language and MATESOL programs. She was also a Fulbright instructor in Constanta, Romania. She retired from part-time teaching at Monterey Peninsula College several years ago.
Sandy was a founding member of the Friends of the Carmel Valley Library and served on that board as secretary in the 1980's and as organizer of the First Saturday lecture series from 2000 to 2006. She has also served on the board of the Carmel Valley Angel Project since 2013, currently as secretary, and has been in charge of the Holiday Store. She is currently secretary of Carmel Valley Save Open Space. She has also volunteered at Tularcitos School and for Pacific Repertory Theatre. She has been secretary of the CVA Board since 2008, served on the Outreach Committee and the editorial committee for the Carmel Valley Voice, and coordinated the Carmel Valley Voices program.
She is married to David Burbidge, retired from CSUMB. Her son Jason attended Tularcitos and Carmel Middle School and is currently working for the United States Census Department. Her hobbies include walking and otherwise spoiling her dog, watercolor painting, reading, and hunting for misused apostrophes.
Mibs
McCarthy,
Treasurer, President Emerita
Mibs grew up in San Francisco and Oakland and attended the University of California,
Berkeley for two years. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology
from the University of Missouri. She also received a master’s degree in
Journalism from the University of Missouri specializing in science writing.
She has been an owner-manager of a tennis club, a pre-school director,
and a middle school science teacher.
Mibs
has been on the board of Carmel Valley Association since 2010 and serves
on the Land Use Committee. She has been the leader of Sustainable Carmel
Valley, and currently leads the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian
Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula, and is a board member of
the Monterey Peninsula Chapter of the ACLU.
A
“late bloomer” in following her own goals, around the year 2000, Mibs
realized the people she most admired were community activists for environmental,
social, and economic justice. She enjoys learning about issues and then
acting in accordance with her values.
She
also enjoys tennis, hiking with her dog, birding, fly fishing, and reading.
She lives in the Garzas Canyon area of Carmel Valley with her husband,
Joe.
Paola Berthoin, Natural Resources
Paola Berthoin is an artist with a deep commitment to living in the Carmel River Watershed over the
past fifty-two years. She was born in London, England and came to Carmel Valley in 1965 with her
mother and three sisters. Paola is a graduate of Carmel High School and California College of the Arts
where she specialized in printmaking, handmade paper and animal drawing. Additionally, Paola has
studied ecological design and permaculture at Schumacher College in England and at the Occidental
Arts and Ecology Center in Northern California.
Tending the land on which she has lived for forty-three years and joining in multiple efforts to preserve
wildlands has infused Paola’s visionary ways of interpreting the land through painting, writing, and
advocacy for all the watersheds of the Earth. Working as pastry chef, Paola owned and operated the Coco
La Fleur restaurant with her mother in Carmel Valley in the late 1980s. She served as Education Chair
for the Carmel River Watershed Council in the late 1990s. She co-established RisingLeaf Watershed Arts,
a non-profit organization, in 2001and taught her Watershed Arts curriculum in Monterey County schools.
Paola completed the award-winning book Passion for Place: Community Reflections on the Carmel River
Watershed in 2012. Through twenty years of co-organizing community arts events and projects focused
on the Carmel River Watershed, Paola has planted many seeds of local and global ecological awareness.
Additionally, Paola has been involved in traffic-related issues including the preservation of Hatton Canyon,
getting the first “Share the Road” bicycle sign installed on Carmel Valley Road, and being involved in the
early days of the Monterey County Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Advisory Committee. Paola also
served as secretary for the CVA in the 1990s.
Paola’s most recent project was to document the historic San Clemente Dam and Chinese Dam
Removal and Carmel River Reroute Project through plein air paintings, photography and video. She is
currently collaborating with blacksmith Richard Schrader to create a sculpture that will be made from
rebar from the San Clemente Dam. It will be installed at the new MPRPD offices at Palo Corona Ranch/Rancho Cañada in Fall of 2017.
Through all Paola’s endeavors, she strives to inspire, educate and protect what she can through active
caring for the land. Being on the CVA board is an opportunity to help fulfill the organization’s mission
to preserve the natural beauty, resources and rural quality of the Carmel River Watershed.
John Heyl was raised in southern New Hampshire; his father was the school doctor at Phillips Exeter Academy. After earning his BA at Hamilton College, John worked as a woodworker and building contractor in the Boston area through the 1980s.
He relocated to Tsaile, AZ, where he developed a JTPA-funded carpentry training program for the Navajo Nation at their Dine Community College. John moved to Flagstaff, AZ to attend Northern Arizona University, where he earned his Masters in Educational Leadership and did doctoral work in Curriculum and Instruction. John then began teaching, and settled into eighteen years of teaching high school AP English Language, mostly in Flagstaff, but most recently in Gilroy, CA. John retired from his teaching career in 2017.
John met his wife Kathy Greenwald in Flagstaff. They both taught in public schools there until Kathy, who grew up in Monterey, suggested moving from the Colorado Plateau back to the Central Coast. In 2010 they found their current home in Carmel Valley, and settled into their new communities quickly.
Kathy is active in the arts community and shows her work at the Carmel Art Association. John sings with several local choirs. Through his own church, Unity of Monterey Bay, John provides logistical support with COPA, a local IAF community organizing group promoting local issues effecting member institutions’ people. Currently the work focuses on Covid relief for farmworkers, police / citizen relations, and affordable housing and rent relief.
John enjoys the area’s outdoor joys: hiking with the Haasis Hikers, kayaking, and sailing, or working on the house and gardens. John and Kathy chose the Carmel Valley area for its rural nature: the quiet, the village ambience, the screech of the hawks, a small deer family sliding through the oaks, or the bobcat lounging in the sun. All these joys of living here are well worth preserving. So John finally arrives at the CVA Board, knowing that it takes vigilance and persistent effort to preserve a place and community like the Carmel Valley.
Karin
Strasser Kauffman, Events
Karin
Strasser Kauffman has been working for the last 34 years to improve the
quality of life for the people of Carmel Valley. She worked on Carmel
River restoration projects, established after school programs at Tularcitos,
served as president of the school site council and as a director of Carmel
Valley Property Owners Association.
While
teaching at Monterey Peninsula College, Karin Strasser Kauffman was recruited
for public office. Karin became our Monterey County Supervisor and served
from 1984-1993. She was first elected on a strong environmental platform
and reelected
without opposition. She twice served as Chair of the Board of Supervisors,
including during the closure of Fort Ord and the establishment of the
Monterey Bay Sanctuary.
She
oversaw the adoption of the Carmel Valley Master Plan and established
the permanent critical viewshed protection for the Big Sur coast. Upon
leaving office, Strasser Kauffman was appointed by the federal Department
of Commerce to sit on the newly created Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
Council, on which she served as founding chair, representing the public-at-large
for seven years. Since then she has also served on the board of directors
of the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and helped to establish
the Monterey Youth Museum (MY Museum).
Karin
and her late husband, radiologist Dr. Richard Kauffman have been long
time residents along the Carmel River, where they raised their two sons,
many dogs, several cats and great tomatoes.
Marlene Martin, Membership
Marlene has lived in Monterey County since 1969 and in Carmel Valley since 1980. During her forty-one years of teaching at MPC, she served as English Department Chair, Teachers' Association president, and Academic Senate president.
Her involvement with the marine science community began in 1969 when her late husband was a professor at Hopkins Marine Station. He was director at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories for eighteen years and served on the boards of the Aquarium and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras and had two Fulbrights and three National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. She wrote four college composition textbooks and many articles for newspapers and magazines.
Marlene is concerned about the traffic load on Carmel Valley Road and water availability and is grateful for those who have been vigilant in trying to protect the valley from exploitation. She hopes to help protect our very special part of the universe and promote its residential and environmental ambience.
C.S. Noel, Natural Resources
Growing up in the Midwest is something a lot of people manage to avoid by living in California. Noel was not one of those people. But she knew a good thing when she saw it on her first visit to the Monterey area in the late 1970s, and has now been a VHR (very happy resident) of Carmel Valley for the last seven years.
Forsaking the Chicago suburbs where she grew up, for a small college set in the cornfields of Indiana, Noel went on to earn her BA in English Composition at DePauw University. After working for a few years, she got an MBA in Marketing and International Management at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Shortly after that initial visit to the peninsula, Noel’s first job after graduating college was at an advertising agency in Monterey right around the corner from The Old Capital Club. The four guys who ran the agency were very tolerant of their inexperienced new assistant and even let her do some copywriting.
Later, Noel moved up to San Francisco and the East Bay area, spending most of her career at AT&T as a Senior Project and Program Manager running large international software development teams and designing corporate systems, until retiring a couple of years ago.
Nowadays, Noel enthusiastically employs her planning and organizational skills on behalf of our community’s precious natural resources as a CVA Board member, and contributes articles to the Carmel Valley Voice newsletter.
In her spare time, with much gratitude, Noel enjoys scenic rides with Dally and Bru (her two Mustangs horses who are “living natural resources” adopted wild from the Bureau of Land Management), hiking our gorgeous trails with her dogs, noodling around writing most anything, pursuing interests in Robinson Jeffers and Tor House, and savoring life in our incomparable Valley surroundings.
Edie McDonald
Edie has been a Monterey County resident, off and on, for most of her life. Her father, Frank Adams, was the executive director for the USO, so her life journey brought her to Monterey in 1948 as a grade schooler and culminated with her daughter Debbie being born at the old Monterey hospital, now Hartnell. Earlier, her dad had been assigned to Alaska and the Philippines, so Edie knows all extremes from ten foot snow banks to the rain forests.
She married Richard McDonald, a Naval aviator in Monterey, so she’s seen a lot of places, including Hawaii, Japan, Tennessee,Texas and and Southern California. Her cosmopolitan peregrinations required many years of persistent educational diligence graduating from Pacific Grove High School, attending Monterey Peninsula College, and obtaining her bachelor’s degree from San Jose State College, an accomplishment since she never set foot on the main campus. Her grandparents hail from upstate New York, and she’s familiar with our country as well, having visited every state of our nation before she left high school.
After her husband passed away, she met her husband Xavier Maruyama, who provides assistance and counsel in all her endeavors. Edie lives in the redwood post adobe home her parents built in 1957 across from Quail Lodge, she moved in 1999 to be with her parents, Frank and Fran, during their final years. She’s seen the changes around here from a rural nature to its present routes to congestion.
Her professional careers are as varied. She taught elementary school, especially overseas in military dependents schools; she has had careers in retailing, in procurement for the Navy Exchange System and as an accountant for the J.C. Penny store in downtown Monterey, and worked in banking as an operations manager for real estate lending through out the central coast and central valley. She and Xavier owned the Pacific Grove Hometown Bulletin for five years. Having been involved in so many aspects of so many different endeavors, her strengths include adaptability and the ability to recognize what probably need real attention.
Even though her deceased husband and her present husband were NAVY (“never again volunteer yourself”), that has not been Edie’s style. Edie followed her father’s passions and joined the Carmel River Steehead Association, even serving as an interim treasurer. She has been Vice President of the Pacific Grove High School Alumni Association for nearly three decades, involved with the organization of the annual reunion. Edie has served on the board of the Monterey History and Art Association; she has taken over the hostessing of tables which belonged to her mother and godmother, at La Merienda, Monterey’s birthday celebration; she has worked as docent and worked on restoring Casa Serrano, the 160 year old Mexican era adobe, which would have been turned into a parking lot except for MHAA stepping up to preserve our heritage; She is a member of Historic Garden League, Asian Art Society and Monterey Civic Club. She has served on the board of the Lyceum working on providing education beyond normal schooling.
Edie does not take the limelight, but works behind the scenes to insure things get done, and considers it an honor to be asked to serve on the board of the Carmel Valley Association.
Eric Sand, Landuse
Eric Sand’s family has lived on the Monterey Peninsula, Big Sur and the Carmel
Valley since the 1870s and members of his family have included Realtors,
Mayors, ranchers, painters, writers, publishers and authors here on the Monterey
Peninsula.
Eric spent his early years in Carmel, California. As Eric’s father was a career
diplomat, the family moved to Washington DC. but also spent many years
residing overseas. Eric lived in Taipei, Taiwan and later in Athens, Greece. He
and his brothers attended their High School years at the American Academy in
Athens.
Eric attended MPC in the mid 1960’s before attending UCLA majoring in
Computer Science and later worked as a software engineer for Hewlett-Packard
in Palo Alto before moving back to the Monterey Peninsula and taking a position
at the NPS. In 1985 he was appointed as the first Management Information
Systems Director at the Monterey County Office of Education.
Eric has always had a particular attraction to the Carmel Valley as both sets of
grandparents lived there and he has lived in Los Tulares for 12 years with his
wife Patricia. Eric is currently a Realtor in the Carmel Valley Village, working in
the building his grandfather Harold O. Sand built as his brokerage in 1946. Eric has also been active with the Monterey History and Art Association since 1985, having held the positions of President and Secretary on the Executive
Committee. Eric has been Chair and Co-Chair since 2003 of La Merienda, a MHAA event held the first Saturday every June celebrating Monterey’s birthday.
Eric has five sons, three grandsons and three granddaughters who live nearby.
Eric’s passion is keeping the Carmel Valley as close as possible to the magical
place he knew as a child roaming the hills and exploring the Carmel River behind
his grandfather Donald Hale’s ranch by the Farm Center and preserving the very
rich sense of community that people in the Carmel Valley share.
Bob Siegfried, Water, Natural Resources
Bob has a B.A. in history from Fresno State College and a Master of Science in soil science from UC-Davis.
From 1973 to 2001 he worked in vineyard management, viticultural research, and viticultural consulting. From 2001 to 2011 he was agricultural engineer (civil) at the Santa Clara Valley Water District with responsibilities in recycled water application, agricultural water use efficiency, and evapotranspiration estimation.
Bob is a past member of the California Department of Water Resources Agricultural Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the implementation of California Water Conservation Requirements (SBX7 7). He is presently a member of the Department’s California Water Plan Update Citizens' Advisory Committee and a board member of the Carmel Area Wastewater District.
Dick Stott, Webperson, Landuse
Dick
and his wife Teri have lived in the Carmel/Carmel Valley area since 1968,
and in the lower valley since 1987. He received his B.A. in Economics/Engineering
from Pomona College in 1962 and his Masters in Education from Chapman
University in 1992. After graduation, he spent 3 years in Army Intelligence
and 2 years studying flamenco guitar in Spain. Dick and Teri owned and
operated Fourtane's Jewelry in Carmel from 1970 to 1988. From 1988 until
he retired in 2005, he taught Mathematics and Computer Science at Monterey
High. While at Monterey High, he wrote classroom management software and
founded CalEd Software.
His
sons, Will and Alex, attended Carmel schools beginning as pre-schoolers
at Bay School and graduating from Carmel High. Dick was active in Carmel
school affairs, serving on the District Budget Advisory Committee and
as a board member and fund raising chair of the Friends of the Carmel
Schools (FOCUS). In the 1970's, he was treasurer of the Carmel Rotary
Club and more recently served for seven years on the board of directors
and as treasurer of Riverwood Community Association.
Dick
and Teri love to travel to Minnesota, where their son Will is an administrator
at the Mayo clinic, visiting him, his wife Lynnette, and their exceptionally
cute children, Abby and Daniel. As often as they can, they brave the I-5
and travel to Altadena to visit son Alex, who works with the handicapted, and
his beautiful red headed daughter Isobel. When he's not trying to keep
this web site up to date, Dick spends his afternoons practicing his guitar.
Andy Sudol, Communications, Events
Andy brings to CVA a rich history of relationship building and fundraising in the arts, having served as the development director for Stanford University’s performing arts program, Stanford Live (formerly Stanford Lively Arts). Previously he was the chief development officer at the iconic Monterey Jazz Festival. He has also been a leader in development at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, and the University of California, Los Angeles, his alma mater. Andy also worked for Warner Bros. in Burbank, California and Warsaw, Poland, the United Nations Secretariat in New York, and taught English at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
In addition to his professional experience, Andy enjoys singing, tennis, yoga and meditation. He serves on the board of Carmel High School Padre Parents and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, Carmel Bach Festival, Pt. Lobos Foundation, and the International Association for Human Values. He earned a BA degree at UCLA double majoring in Political Science and Russian Civilization. He resides in sunny Carmel Valley Village with his children and five rescued pets.
Bob Tasner
Bob was born in Newark, NJ in a neighborhood where you could walk a mile in any direction and never leave the scene of a crime and moved to Chicago, where he attended a private high school. He graduated from Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio with a B.A., majoring in English and participated in intercollegiate athletics.
Bob met his wife Susan at Miami, and they are celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary this year. Bob and Susan have 3 accomplished daughters and 6 grandchildren.
After college Bob joined his family contract packaging business, which was acquired in 1969 by a Fortune 100 company. He remained as President of the division on a 5 year contract. When the contract ended Bob and his family moved to Carmel Valley where they have lived since 1974.
From 1980 to 1989, Bob was employed as Plant Manager for Spreckels Sugar Company. In 1995 he started a promotional advertising business providing logo branded products for many major businesses on the Central Coast and is still involved in this business.
Bob has served on the board of the American Heart Association, the Private Industry Council of Monterey County, his Homeowners Association, and various non-profit committees. He enjoys tennis, walking his Golden Retriever, working out, and watching his grandchildren participate in their sports.
Jeff Wood, Membership, Landuse
Jeff, originally from New England, received a BA in History (US & European) from Lake Forest College (IL) and a Master’s degree in Organization and Management (nonprofit) from Antioch University New England (NH). He spent 40 years in higher educational admissions, career counseling and alumni work at Bennington, Williams & Occidental Colleges, UCLA, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS – formerly the Monterey Institute of International Studies) before retiring in July of 2015. Immediately after his BA, Jeff ran a drug abuse center in New Britain, CT and was on the first management team of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group in the 1970’s.
Jeff moved to Carmel Valley in 1985 and lived in Carmel Valley Village for nine years before moving to Mid-Valley 22 years ago. As a 2007 graduate of Leadership Monterey, Jeff is ready to serve the needs of CVA related to membership and outreach. He is the Past-President of the Los Cimientos Alliance, helping Kiche Maya in Guatemala (related to land, health, and employment issues), and the Ranch House Place Homeowners Association. He currently serves on the Board as Treasurer of Ranch House Place.
Jeff’s wife Kate retired in June 2015 from 25 years of teaching elementary grades in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District most recently in Marina. She has also taught at the All Saints Day School and volunteered at Tularcitos Elementary School in the Village.
The Woods have two children. Daughter Jory lives in New York City and works in the fashion industry while son Tyler works in the art world in New York with stints in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Woods just adopted a rescue puppy (Maltese Mix) from the SPCA as the newest family member.
Jeff recently joined Kate by singing Bass in the Monterey Peninsula Voices Fall 2015 Holiday show. He also enjoys politics, tennis, golf, woodworking and fixing anything that is broken. He looks forward to working with CVA to defend the Valley from over-development. He is very interested in issues related to the Camel River (lives 100 yards from it), traffic on Carmel Valley Road, and maintaining the rural nature of the Valley as so many of us moved here for a rural ambiance.
