Current Board Members

Board Photo 2011

 
Sherry Richardson, President
Sherry joined our board in 2007. Her board service includes chairing our Board Development Committee and serving on the Fundraising Committee. In addition to her board service at Groundwire, Sherry has been very active as a community volunteer, having served as a Site Council Member for the Issaquah School District Alternative School Executive Committee; a PTA Legislative Representative on school levy campaigns; a Community Advisory Board member for Friends of Youth; and as a member of the Education, Development and Capital Campaign committees of the Open Window School. In her professional life, Sherry has worked at Intel and Microsoft where she evangelized products, systems and strategies to third party companies and clients. She has a BS in computer science from Florida Central University and is currently steering two teenagers toward young adulthood.

Steve Muran, Vice President, Treasurer
Steve is originally from the greater Chicago area and spent ten years on the East Coast before making his home in Seattle in 1998. After working overseas with the MBA Enterprise Corps as a business consultant in Poland, he returned to the U.S. and spent the next eight years providing strategic planning, process excellence, technology, and organization transformation solutions to Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries. Steve is currently the Director of Demand Generation and CRM for Cardiac Science, a medical device company. Previously, Steve was First Vice President at JP Morgan Chase where he built a CRM strategy and managed a nationally recognized cross-enterprise Direct Marketing/CRM program. Steve graduated with an MBA in finance from the University of North Carolina, and also holds a BA in history and a MA in international relations from the University of Chicago. Steve has been an active member of Social Venture Partners where he has served on various grant committees.

Anne Green, Secretary
Anne is a partner of the Giving Practice, a consulting service of Philanthropy Northwest. Philanthropy Northwest is a thirty-year-old nonprofit membership organization of almost two hundred corporations, foundations and other organizations that make grants to nonprofits in the five Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington. She has been consulting for more than seven years and has worked with corporate and private foundations to design national programs that meet their organizational goals and create positive results in their target communities. Anne has extensive experience developing communications strategies that help to influence national policy. Some of her clients have included the AOL Time Warner Foundation, Grantmakers in the Arts, the Packard Foundation, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and Safeco Insurance. Most recently she has been serving as Acting Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, managing its support of the charitable sector.

Farayi Chiro
Farayi has over 12 years of experience as a technology and management consultant, working within government, nonprofit and commercial sectors. He is a senior business and project leader with broad expertise in enterprise resource planning, engineering management, budgeting, implementation, enhancements, best practices and efficiency improvement. Farayi worked as a management consultant at Accenture, CGI and MasikaTech, LLC. He also worked as a project engineer at Alstom (Energy Automation & Information) and Getty Images. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Washington. Farayi is currently the president of Small Business Partners for Prosperity and he sits on several regional economic development boards such as enterpriseSeattle, Puget Sound Regional Council and Urban Enterprise Center. He was accepted into the 2010-2011 Leadership Tomorrow Program.

Wendy Cho Ripp
Wendy Cho Ripp was born an army brat in Ft. Lewis, grew up in Seattle, and then promptly left the country to get her degree in Chinese and Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. After returning home, she worked at the Washington Bus to engage young people in politics, leadership and public service. She currently works as a legislative assistant for State Representative Zack Hudgins, and prior worked for a Seattle Council-member. She characterizes working for an elected official as a job that requires the skills of an organized social butterfly, a case worker, a nanny, a fashion adviser, and a brilliant political strategist. In 2010 Wendy received the Doug Mason Young Leader Award from the Municipal League of King County, and is currently participating in the Leadership Tomorrow program.

John Croswell
John Croswell joined Andersen Consulting in South Africa after graduating from Rhodes University. He led projects for international businesses worldwide before settling in Seattle as manager of an enterprise-systems project for large faith-based charities. After Hitachi Consulting acquired Andersen’s Seattle operations, John remained to lead projects for Cell Therapeutics, Microsoft, and Dendreon. In 2004, he joined Gene Security Network, which has developed technology for assessing the genetic health of embryos prior to implantation. John assisted in early stage setup and work that won National Institutes of Health grants and VC funding totaling $26 million. John is presently Director of Consulting Services with Revel Consulting leading a large team and a founding director of Roses & Rosemary, a charity that provide medical services to HIV orphans in Africa.

Cameron Curtis
Cameron is originally from Southern Oregon and has lived in Seattle since 1996, when he and his future spouse returned to the U.S. from a stint in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.  Cameron is a Services Solutions Executive at IBM and is responsible for providing IBM's corporate clients with the same kinds of IT and business transformation services that Groundwire provides to the environmental movement.  A certified Senior Project Manager, Cameron has a degree in international relations and business from the University of Redlands in Southern California.

Joneil Custodio
Joneil has been an active community volunteer in Seattle since 1996, volunteering his talents with SeattleWorks, Habitat for Humanity, Gonzaga Alumni Mentorship Program, National Association of Asian American Professionals, and Goodwill of Seattle. He’s currently a partner with Social Venture Partners and a Account Director with the San Francisco Taproot Foundation. Professionally, he has over 15 years of experience as a strategic management and technology consultant, specializing in customer relationship management (CRM). He has served as strategist, project leader and IT Director in various industries including manufacturing, utilities, healthcare, financial services, and nonprofit. Most recently, Joneil served as a regional diversity executive with Prudential. He established strategic relationships with corporate regional leaders and 42 nonprofit organizations that empowered underserved communities within the western US. Recently relocating to the Bay Area, Joneil continues exploring innovations within social CRM, philanthropy, gamification and social entrepreneurship.

Katy Klinkenberg
Katy is a management and marketing consultant working with Seattle-area nonprofits and start-up clients since 2001. She has brought her entrepreneurial, strategic approach to such organizations as Committee for Children and Children’s Home Society of Washington. Previously she was Senior Director of Database Marketing at GreaterGood.com, a cause-related internet shopping portal supporting charities such as The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund; Director of Database Marketing & Sales at PhotoDisc/Getty Images; and a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. Katy is raising two young children on her native Bainbridge Island. She is an active volunteer in the Bainbridge public schools and former board president and director of St. Barnabas Day School. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in geography and a certificate in environmental studies.
 
Matthew Tamayo-Rios
Matthew has been an active volunteer in Seattle since his arrival here in 2007, volunteering with Seattle Works, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Habitat for Humanity.  He is currently a member of Project LEAD, the United Way of King County leadership program which aims to increase the representation of people of color on nonprofit boards.  Matthew graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007 with degrees in mathematics and computer science.  He is a Program Manager in the Security & Identity division of the Core Operating Systems group at Microsoft.  He was born in Springfield, Missouri and spent much of his childhood in Vallenar, Chile. As a member of a younger generation with a diverse background, Matthew offers Groundwire a unique perspective on civic engagement through social networks and online media.

Jodie Tonita
Jodie has a diverse background in the business and nonprofit sectors. Her career spans the fields of network development, organizational effectiveness, information technology, systems development and operations management. She began her career consulting to large corporations on their information technology change management processes. Her practice then shifted to supporting mid-sized organizations from conception to start-up overseeing the development of the necessary organizational systems and staffing. She went on to work for Groundwire where she served environmental organizations providing expertise on the strategic use of technology to amplify citizen engagement. Since 2004 she has co-produced the highly regarded Web of Change, a leading conference of North American social change leaders working at the intersection of technology, innovation, collaboration and transformation. In 2007 she participated in the Art of Change a year-long training with Robert Gass designed for facilitators, organizational development practitioners and change agents. In her current work as a management consultant, she helps clients who are focused on growing the field of Transformative Social Change through the design and growth of networks of leaders and practitioners.

Emily Warn
Emily is a social media and online consultant, and a writer, teacher and editor. In 2009, she founded SocialQuarry, a social media planning and consulting firm focused on helping foundations and nonprofits accelerate social change. From 2005-2009, she served as director of the Poetry Foundation Foundation’s online initiative and was founding editor-in-chief of poetryfoundation.org, winner of Webby and Parent’s Choice awards. Warn worked at the Microsoft Corporation from 1995-2002 where she served as Editor-in-Chief of Microsoft.com and as group programming manager of Windows and Internet Explorer websites. In February 2011, she co-founded Two Pens, a creative services company that offers social media and business writing courses. She was an associate professor at Lynchburg College and has been writer-in-residence for many arts centers, state arts commissions, and universities. Warn is the author of five collections of poetry. Her poems, essays and reviews have appeared in The Seattle Times, Poetry, BookForum, Critical Mass, KUOW, The Writer’s Almanac, Parabola, The Seattle Weekly, and Poetry Daily, among many other publications.

Past Board Members

Groundwire would also like to express its gratitude to past members of its board of directors:

Jeff Allen

Kathy Becker

Paul Brainerd

Jeremy Carl

Steve Clagett

Joan Crooks

Dan Crouse

Tim Greyhavens

Andrew Himes

Tony Jewett

Lars Johansson

Rick Johnson

David Jones

Jonathan King

Eli Lamb

Valerie Logan

Catherine Ludgate

Matt Price

Mike Sato

Sylvia Ward Schultz

Kate Smallwood

Marc Smiley

Steve Sundquist

Aron Thompson

Anne Tillery

Sam Tucker

Todd Vogel

Lindy Walsh

Tim Wood