Board of Directors
Aaron Heinrich is the board president. Mr. Heinrich is a marketing communications professional with an extensive background in helping organizations achieve brand awareness and leadership by integrating traditional and social media. He has worked with such well-known companies as T-Mobile, Microsoft, FedEx, Amazon and Kodak, as well as small-to-medium sized organizations and start-ups. He holds a masters of fine arts in screenwriting from the University of Southern California, a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from Arizona State University, and an executive certificate in global brand strategy from Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Wendy Muse Sinek is the board vice president. Ms. Sinek is a consultant specializing in business process management and strategic planning. She enjoys the challenge of helping organizations find solutions to their most pressing problems in a way that capitalizes on their existing strengths and resources. Her particular skills include designing and running focus groups, meeting facilitation, survey development, and qualitative interviewing.
Recently, she has applied her experience working with large organizations--including SBC Communications (now AT&T), Kaiser Permanente and UC Berkeley--to offer planning and evaluation services to small community-based groups within the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The challenges these community groups face are, in some ways, no different from those faced by organizations anywhere. They struggle to do more with less, they want to understand what works and what doesn't, and they want to use their resources most effectively. However, strategic planning guidance is often beyond their financial reach. For this reason, Ms. Sinek is committed to helping grassroots community organizations access strategic planning and evaluation tools in order to achieve long-lasting social change.
Ms. Sinek is currently a Visiting Professor in the National Security Affairs department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, as well as an Instructor at UC-Berkeley Extension. She holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from Mercer University in Macon, GA, a master's degree in international public policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA, and is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at UC Berkeley. In addition to English, she is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.
Sarah Fey Kruttschnitt is the board treasurer. Ms. Kruttschnitt graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York with a dual degree in math and management and received her master of business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Kruttschnitt has worked in finance at Niman Ranch and Deutsche Bank, and is currently a financial consultant with Webster Pacific LLC.
Brian Heit is the board secretary. Mr. Heit is a mental health specialist and currently works with Edgewood Center for Children and Families providing therapeutic behavioral services to San Mateo County youth with mental health diagnoses. He also administers inpatient hospitalization assessments for San Francisco County youth through Comprehensive Child Crisis Services. Mr. Heit is a consultant with The ACE Group working to strengthen residential facilitates ability to offer the highest quality services to its youth. He has a background in case management and residential treatment for youth with mental health issues. Mr. Heit graduated Cum Laude from San Francisco State University with degrees in criminal justice and communication studies. Mr. Heit coordinated Youth Justice Institute’s Inside Mentoring Program and has provided mentorship to incarcerated youth as well as helping train other mentors through the program. His future interests include the areas of policy and implementation of strategies to improve the overall climate and conditions of at-risk youth.
Philip Atkinson is a board member. Mr. Atkinson a San Francisco native and was selected to be a board member through his long standing work and association with Youth Justice Institute and San Francisco Juvenile Hall. He has been a dedicated volunteer with YJI since 2005 and has mentored numerous young men who have taken part in the program. Mr. Atkinson supplements his work at YJI with his annual participation in the summer camp program of Project AVARY (Alternative Ventures for At-Risk Youth), an organization which seeks to empower Bay Area children of incarcerated parents ages 8 to 18 to make smart life choices and stay out of trouble. He holds a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University in child and adolescent development. Mr. Atkinson has been able to build strong relationships with many of his clients due to his first-hand experience within the juvenile justice system and the credibility which that imparts.
Elizabeth Brown, Ph.D. is a board member. Dr. Brown is an assistant professor at San Francisco State University in the department of criminal justice studies and co-editor of Justice Policy Journal, published by the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice. She holds a Ph.D. in geography with a certificate in law, societies, and justice from the University of Washington, a master’s degree in cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University, and a bachelor of art’s degree in women’s studies from the University of California, Davis. Her research interests examine the cultural and geographical representations of juvenile delinquency and criminality in urban areas and the transition towards mass incarceration.
Roger Chan is a board member. Mr. Chan is the co-founder and Executive Director of East Bay Children's Law Offices, which is the primary provider of legal representation to youth in the Alameda County Juvenile Dependency Court. Mr. Chan is an experienced trial attorney and advocate for youth in juvenile court as a former public defender in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. He has helped to implement practices that improve the delivery of services to youth in the juvenile court system through collaboration with other government and community agencies, including the San Francisco Task Force on Residential Treatment for Youth in Foster Care and the Interagency Children's Policy Council of Alameda County. Mr. Chan is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Hastings College of the Law. He is an Advisory Board Member of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center and a member of the National Association for the Counsel of Children and the California Public Defender's Association.
Kim Cox is a board member. Ms. Cox has worked in the field of public health since 1981 in both the nonprofit and government sectors. She worked for almost ten years as an adolescent
reproductive health educator in San Francisco -- first at Planned Parenthood, then for the county's Department of Public Health at the first school-based
clinic in California -- where she co-founded the Wedge Program. Wedge, the first program of its kind in San Francisco and a model nationwide, engaged
HIV-positive individuals as AIDS-prevention educators in schools. Ms. Cox also has extensive experience working on family planning and AIDS education and
training programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Following that, she worked for the state health department in the Division of Environmental and
Occupational Disease Control.
Since 1997, Ms. Cox has worked for Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS). Her first role was directing a breast cancer education, outreach, screening, diagnosis,
and treatment program for uninsured low-income women. Between 2002 and 2005, she managed a project based in West Contra Costa County that engaged community
residents in advocating for environmental policy change to address the disproportionate burden of asthma in those communities. Kim is now the Emergency
Services Manager and collaborates with partners and stake holders to develop and exercise health emergency response plans for Contra Costa County.
Nayantara Mehta is a board member. Ms. Mehta is currently Senior Counsel with Alliance for Justice in Oakland, CA. She works through Alliance for Justice's Nonprofit Advocacy Project and Foundation Advocacy Initiative to help strengthen the capacity of the public interest community to influence public policy. She has conducted trainings throughout the country on the rules governing advocacy and lobbying by public charities and private foundations. She is also on the board of the American Constitution Society Bay Area lawyer chapter. Ms. Mehta holds a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
Gabriela Perez is a board member. Ms. Perez has worked in the nonprofit sector with at-risk youth since 2001 and currently works at Larkin Street Youth Services as a residential counselor for homeless youth. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in criminal justice from San Francisco State University.
Amy Smith, J.D., Ph.D. is a board member. Dr. Smith is an assistant professor at San Francisco State University in the psychology department. She holds a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a bachelor’s degree in classics and psychology from Grinnell College. Her research explores issues relating to capital punishment, the impacts of incarceration, legal decision-making, and the intersections of psychology and law generally.
Mary G. Visher, Ph.D. is a board member. Ms. Visher is a Senior Research Associate with MDRC, a nonprofit public policy research organization based in New York City with offices in Oakland. She specializes in evaluation research and has particular expertise in blending quantitative and qualitative methods. She has nearly 30 years of experience conducting pubic policy research, specializing in program evaluation.
In addition to conducting evaluation research, Ms. Visher has worked on capacity building projects for a range of organizations. She currently is the lead consultant on a major initiative co-sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor, called Strategic Partnerships for a Competitive Workforce. This initiative seeks to build partnerships in local communities to further their workforce and economic development goals.