Raquel Pinderhughes
Board President
Professor of Urban Studies, San Francisco State University
Raquel Pinderhughes is a nationally recognized expert on green collar jobs. Her research informs understanding of how to harness green business growth to fight pollution and poverty, and how to provide youth and adults who have barriers to employment with pathways out of poverty and into prosperity. The green collar job training program she developed provided critical guidance to the Oakland Green Jobs Corps and has been used to inform the development of green collar job training programs in many other cities, including Cleveland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Boston. She is the Director of the Environmental Literacy Curriculum Project which has developed an environmental literacy curriculum and teaching materials for green collar job training programs and high schools throughout the United States.
Her areas of expertise include: urban environmental planning & policy; sustainable urban development; developing and managing urban infrastructures; green collar jobs; environmental justice; urban agriculture; local food systems; appropriate technologies; and qualitative research methods. Recent publications include: Green Collar Jobs:An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Business to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment (2007) and Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World (2004).
She can be reached via email.
Farm Fresh Choice Co-Manager, The Ecology Center
Gerardo provides critical leadership in community health and empowerment work.He has developed key partnerships in addressing chronic disease disparities through cultural empowerment, youth training and mentorship, and increasing access to local healthful fresh foods in low income communities of color in south and west Berkeley.
He has recently embarked on a five-year community leadership and development Fellowship with the Koshland Program of the San Francisco Foundation with a focus on civic unity and engagement. He is honored to collaborate with others to create meaningful opportunities for our communities of color to empower the health and soul of our people and planet.
Manager of Distribution, Maintenance, & Construction, East Bay Municipal District (EBMUD)
Leann is a Construction & Maintenance Superintendent with the East Bay Municipal Utility District. She has worked with EBMUD for 11 years. As a specialist in water conservation she was instrumental in negotiating funding for the CYES program. She has extensive experience working with utilities, particularly in program administration and grant writing.
Legal Council
Stephanie joined Rising Sun Energy Center's Board in March 2008.
Stephanie works on consumer protection issues, focusing on bringing diversity, community investment, and more equitable treatment of low-income consumers to the energy and telecommunications industries. In this capacity she appears regularly before the California Public Utilities Commission, and engages with the rest of the Consumer Protection team in advocacy measures outside of formal proceedings. She is also involved in Greenlining's efforts to improve diversity in the legal profession.
Stephanie received a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Dartmouth College, where her studies focused on Political Theory and American Government. She received a Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where her focus was on constitutional law and civil rights. She also served as a Case Counsel and as Advocacy Director in the law school's student-run Moot Court Program.
Legal Fellow, Greenlining Institute
Elena joined Rising Sun Energy Center's Board in March 2008. She received her J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she obtained an International and Comparative Law Certificate with honors and received the Pro Bono Publico Award and CALI Award for Excellence in Environmental Law.
Currently, Elena is a Legal Fellow at the Greenlining Institute, a non-profit in Berkeley dedicated to advocating on behalf of low-income communities of California on issues ranging from green assets to economic justice and consumer protection.
Elena is also an avid human rights and environmental justice advocate. On behalf of Human Rights Advocates, she has lobbied for environmental justice at the international level at the 7th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Her efforts resulted in the successful expansion of the scope of the toxic wastes mandate at the 9th Session. She has served as a Haywood-Burns Environmental Justice Fellow at the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project and as a legal intern at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment in San Francisco.
Elena has also interned at the Instituto de Derechos Humanos of the Universidad Centroamericana in El Salvador and participated in two human rights delegations to the Dominican Republic assessing the status of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. She has traveled extensively and has also worked in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Hangzhou, China. Elena hopes to continue working for environmental, consumer, and worker justice and human rights in both domestic and international arenas.
Managing Partner, CSE Capital
Caleb Everett joined the Rising Sun Board in 2009. Caleb has invested $146 million in private companies over the last twelve years. Prior to founding CSE Capital, he was a Managing Director of Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, a San Francisco based middle-market private equity investment firm with over $1 billion under management. Caleb began his career in Morgan Stanley's Mergers and Acquisitions department in New York and was a member of The Blackstone Group's Corporate Principal Group before joining Friedman Fleischer & Lowe in 1999.
Caleb was formerly a director of Chief | Sanus Audio Visual, Inc. and Steelpoint Technologies and Volume Services America. He graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics.
See also: Our staff
See also: Interns and Volunteers, 2009