Because Keeping Oakland Beautiful is Everyone's Business
Keep Oakland Beautiful is run and managed by a board of volunteers who contribute their time and expertise to keeping Oakland beautiful. Keep Oakland Beautiful is also a Keep America Beautiful (KAB) affiliate and is part of the KAB President's Circle 2018 and 2019.
Meet our Board of Directors
Keep Oakland Beautiful is run and managed by a board of volunteers who contribute their time and expertise to keeping Oakland beautiful. Keep Oakland Beautiful is also a Keep America Beautiful (KAB) affiliate and is part of the KAB President's Circle 2018 and 2019.
Meet our Board of Directors
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Camyle Allen
Camyle serves as the 2021 Board Chair. Camyle is an environmental consultant who brings her passion and advocacy for environmental sustainability to the KOB board. She has a Masters degree in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School and a Bachelors degree in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan. Camyle has volunteered throughout Oakland with various organizations that focus on applying the core concepts of environmental sustainability to community revitalization projects, community development, education, public health etc. She hails from Michigan and moved to California in 2017; currently, she lives in Oakland where she can be found enjoying the many bars and restaurants the area has to offer or hiking with her Shiloh Shepherd. |
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Grant Chen
Grant serves as the 2021 Board Vice Chair. Grant was born and raised in San Francisco and has been living in Oakland since 2017. He currently works in health insurance as an actuarial analyst and previously was a high school math teacher in New York City. He has also helped develop waste reduction curriculum for Alameda County. He currently lives in the Hoover Foster neighborhood of West Oakland and serves as the secretary for the Hoover Foster Resident Action Council. He lives with his husband Benedict and tiny, senior chihuahua Mambo. He enjoys cooking, gardening, woodworking, and running. |
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Margo Brooks
Margo has served as Board Treasurer since 2019 Margo was born and raised in Berkeley and has a passion for the environment, and has studied green design, energy efficiency and permaculture design. She has over 15 years experience as a production manager working in television in Los Angeles, as well as organizing and teaching workshops, owning her own business and working in finance. Margo lives in the Oakland hills and works for a non-profit in East Oakland. She is dedicated to enhancing her community, believing that change starts at home in the community and ripples out to create more beauty in the world. |
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Adriana Lewis
Adriana serves as the 2021 Board Secretary Adriana is a Bay Area property manager who initiated her career in real estate in 2016. Before joining the industry, she took advantage of developing her skills and professional experience by accumulating over 8 years of work in customer service and volunteerism while also being a full-time student. Adriana has earned a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California – Berkeley, a California Real Estate Broker License, and a California Certified Residential Manager (CCRM) certification from CAA University. Throughout her career, Adriana has made community safety, environmental awareness, and curb appeal a top priority. She has lived in Oakland with her husband for 5 years and hopes her contribution to the Keep Oakland Beautiful mission will assist in her efforts of helping the community feel a strong sense of comfort, safety and security. |
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Aby Castro
Aby grew up in San Francisco and remembers running all over the Bay Area for cross country meets. After high school she moved east for college, then law school and eventually ended up living on the East Coast for a total of 12 years. Aby decided to return to the Bay Area for good and settled in Oakland in 2015. She enjoys early morning runs around Lake Merritt, hikes in Redwood Regional and strolling Oakland’s various farmers markets. Aby has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from Columbia Law School. |
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Christina Porter
Christina is an Oakland native and a super proud product of our public schools. Her passion for keeping Oakland beautiful frequently translates into working hard to maintain her yard and garden as well as the Adopt-A-Spot median she manages in Oakland's first historic district on 10th Avenue. A Silicon Valley engineer turned Customer Success leader, she's worked in the high tech industry since before the internet. You may see Christina and her husband walking the city in preparation for their 500-mile trek across Europe. |
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Debbie Lei
Debbie is a health insurance analyst with a passion for sustainability. Debbie strives to make health insurance more transparent and equitable and carries those values to the KOB board – an Oakland community that is safe, equitable, and beautiful for all. She has contributed to cleanup efforts around her block but is excited to further her impact and reach with the KOB organization. Debbie went to UC Berkeley and has a Masters in Health Informatics and Analytics from George Washington University. She has been living in Oakland since 2018 and spends many weekends around Lake Merritt. Prior to moving back to the Bay, she spent five years in Washington D.C. working in healthcare policy. She enjoys biking, baking, hiking, nurturing her house plants, and spending time with her Vive Church community. |
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Erin Pressman
Erin originally hails from Southern California, but after living in the Bay Area since 2008, she calls NorCal home. Erin is excited to combine her experience fundraising, grant writing, and marketing with her passion for a cleaner, more beautiful Oakland. A lawyer by training, Erin works for the University of California, Office of the President. In her free time, Erin enjoys exploring the East Bay Regional Park system and Oakland’s dog-friendly beer gardens with her fiancé and two rescue dogs, Valentine and Stella. |
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FranCine Gadsden
A native of Brooklyn, NY, FranCine relocated to Northern California to work for the San Francisco based fashion designer Jessica McClintock/Gunne Sax before starting her own children’s line FranCine’s Fashions 4 Children, which was a way for children to take pride in their heritage while making a fashion statement. She designed the collection by using Asian, African, Latino and American Indian inspired prints. The collection was featured and sold in Northern Californian Nordstrom and Macy’s stores during Black History Month and nationwide in several children specialty stores year round. FranCine is now focused on a new business, Sticks and Stones, a collection of wearable words and thought provoking images printed on tees and sweatshirts allowing both the wearer and the viewer to be empowered. Over the last few years Sticks and Stones Tees & More has grown its collection of wearable art expanding to light housewares, party accessories, tote bags, and stationary, her collection is gaining traction on the “socio-fashion” scene day by day. |
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Katie Boyer
Katie is an East Bay native who has lived near Lake Merritt in Oakland since 2011. She studied journalism and Spanish in college and has volunteered for a wide variety of organizations like the Red Cross and Big Brothers Big Sisters. Her favorite volunteer experience was with Mundo Ceiba in Oaxaca, Mexico where she helped with environmental education, planting trees, and community bike rides. Now Katie works in marketing and hopes to use her communication and project management skills to support the mission of KOB and give back to the community. In her spare time she can be found reading, baking, or enjoying the outdoors and hiking with her boyfriend and two dogs. |
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Maya Walker
Maya has been a resident of Oakland for 40 years and still remembers the glory days of Festival at the Lake, the Oakland Black Cowboys Parade, and the Battle of the Bay. Over the years, Maya has done volunteer work for the Oakland Zoo, Oakland Chabot Space Center, the Oakland & Emeryville Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Club, and other non-profits in the bay area. Maya is a graduate of the California College of the Arts (formerly called California College of Arts & Crafts on the corner of Broadway and College Avenue). Maya is a tech recruiter and has worked in many sectors including biopharma, medical device, electric vehicles, and other tech companies. She is an avid gardener, a book collector, a mom to two rescued cats, a slobbery Newfoundland, and an over-friendly pit mix. Oakland is home. |
Nick Sheehan
A native of New Jersey, Nick moved from the East Coast to Oakland in 2015 after his wife Rhiannon – who was born and raised in the Bay – convinced him there was no better place on earth to live. She was right, of course. Nick and Rhiannon now live in North Oakland with their two boys, Breandán and Wesley. Nick received his B.A. in Political Science from Trinity College, Hartford, CT, and his J.D. from Georgetown Law. For the past five years, he has worked at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC), where he represents death row inmates in their capital habeas and executive clemency proceedings. Prior to joining the HCRC, Nick was a Skadden Fellow at Advocates for Children of New York, where his work focused on ending New York City’s School-to-Prison pipeline. In his free time, Nick loves wandering around his neighborhood and exploring Oakland’s many beautiful parks.
A native of New Jersey, Nick moved from the East Coast to Oakland in 2015 after his wife Rhiannon – who was born and raised in the Bay – convinced him there was no better place on earth to live. She was right, of course. Nick and Rhiannon now live in North Oakland with their two boys, Breandán and Wesley. Nick received his B.A. in Political Science from Trinity College, Hartford, CT, and his J.D. from Georgetown Law. For the past five years, he has worked at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC), where he represents death row inmates in their capital habeas and executive clemency proceedings. Prior to joining the HCRC, Nick was a Skadden Fellow at Advocates for Children of New York, where his work focused on ending New York City’s School-to-Prison pipeline. In his free time, Nick loves wandering around his neighborhood and exploring Oakland’s many beautiful parks.
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Nisha Chauhan
Nisha is a senior land planner and has accumulated a wide range of environmental and land planning experience during the past twenty years. She studied Environmental Studies at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Land Planning at U.C. Davis Extension. She has lived in Oakland for ten years and hopes to share her experience to help her community. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking at Redwood Regional Park, weaving, and attending the Farmers Market. |
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Ricquel Lewis Jackson
Ricquel is an Oakland native who moved out of state for school, graduated, got married, had a baby and returned to her Oakland roots. She has spent most of her career working in health communications, using storytelling to educate others on healthy behaviors that increase longevity. She has great childhood memories of hiking the many trails and creeks in Oakland and spending her summers at Dimond Park. She currently resides in East Oakland with her husband and daughter. In her spare time, she enjoys fellowshipping with friends and family, reading, traveling and visiting Oakland parks with her mini-me. |
Sarah LaRock
With a long-standing passion for resource recovery, Sarah joins KOB offering her expertise in fundraising, outreach and education, program development, and civic engagement. Sarah is driven to fight pollution by making waste diversion practices such as recycling and composting accessible to everyone and by leading a team of educators who work to inspire participation in these closed loop circular economies. While she appreciates all aspects of her work, Ms. LaRock most values building relationships with individuals and communities to make a positive impact on our shared environment.
With a long-standing passion for resource recovery, Sarah joins KOB offering her expertise in fundraising, outreach and education, program development, and civic engagement. Sarah is driven to fight pollution by making waste diversion practices such as recycling and composting accessible to everyone and by leading a team of educators who work to inspire participation in these closed loop circular economies. While she appreciates all aspects of her work, Ms. LaRock most values building relationships with individuals and communities to make a positive impact on our shared environment.
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Shannon Fiala
Shannon has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 17 years, working on habitat restoration planning for the Marin Municipal Water District and the Napa County Resource Conservation District; as an environmental consultant; on the Ocean Beach Master Plan at SPUR, a non-profit think tank; and on innovative coastal land use planning efforts for the California Coastal Commission and San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Shannon received a Bachelor of Science in Resource Ecology and Management at the University of Michigan and two Masters degrees in City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. |
Keep Oakland Beautiful 2020–2021 Interns
Cali Carson
Cali is honored to serve as a founding teen member of the Keep Oakland Beautiful Youth Coalition. She is a junior in the Oakland Unified School District and has raised over $2000 for teacher supplies to date. In addition to being on the honor roll, she has ten years of volunteer experience in the community, ranging from collecting clothing for homeless babies to cleaning up our beaches. Her hobbies include mountain biking, hiking and designing clothing. She is proud to make her hometown of Oakland a better place for all of us to enjoy.
Cali is honored to serve as a founding teen member of the Keep Oakland Beautiful Youth Coalition. She is a junior in the Oakland Unified School District and has raised over $2000 for teacher supplies to date. In addition to being on the honor roll, she has ten years of volunteer experience in the community, ranging from collecting clothing for homeless babies to cleaning up our beaches. Her hobbies include mountain biking, hiking and designing clothing. She is proud to make her hometown of Oakland a better place for all of us to enjoy.
Tiara Wilkerson
Tiara Wilkerson is currently a 17-year-old junior in high school. She attends East Bay Innovation Academy. Tiara was raised and lives in Oakland. She is very passionate about the environment. She has demonstrated this passion by organizing her school's environmental club. Her club partakes in many activities such as educating students about eco-friendly habits and major global environmental issues, planting trees to promote local biodiversity, and funding to have trees planted in areas of need, most recently being Australia. Tiara is a new member of Keep Oakland Beautiful and is excited to devote her time to beautifying the city.
Tiara Wilkerson is currently a 17-year-old junior in high school. She attends East Bay Innovation Academy. Tiara was raised and lives in Oakland. She is very passionate about the environment. She has demonstrated this passion by organizing her school's environmental club. Her club partakes in many activities such as educating students about eco-friendly habits and major global environmental issues, planting trees to promote local biodiversity, and funding to have trees planted in areas of need, most recently being Australia. Tiara is a new member of Keep Oakland Beautiful and is excited to devote her time to beautifying the city.
Header Photo credit: Leonard Van Boven
