ARPPS - Leadership

BOARD OF DIRECTORS: GOVERNING

President, Michael Rushford: Michael is a lifetime resident of Sacramento, married with two children, and President of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF) which he helped found in 1982. CJLF is a nonprofit, public interest law organization dedicated to improving the administration of criminal justice. Over the past fifteen years the Foundation has held the best win/loss record of any public interest law organization before the United States Supreme Court.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Michael served for five years as Director of the California Chamber of Commerce Anti-Crime Department, where he raised funds and produced two award-winning statewide public service media campaigns, authored and helped gain passage of a number of legislative proposals dealing with crime, and authored the Guide to Crime Reduction which has served as a model for anti-crime programs developed in more than 200 communities across the country.

Michael's earlier employment included paid consulting and coordinating work for statewide and Northern California political campaigns, production of Sacramento's 1975 Easter Seal Telethon, and consultant to California's Lieutenant Governor in 1972. He served six years in the United States Air Force Reserve while attending the University of California.

Articles on crime and criminal law, authored by Michael, have been published in virtually every major California newspaper and legal journal and several national publications including the Congressional Record.

Vice-President, Kristine Lea: Kris Lea brings to ARPPS an expertise in the crucial area of Organization Development (OD), the professional discipline that involves helping organizations become more effective.

OD is described by a leading text, as “The system-wide application and transfer of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development, improvement, and reinforcement of the strategies, structures, and processes that lead to organization effectiveness.”

Kris is a Training Manager for Intel Corporation, Sales and Marketing, and has a Bachelors of Science in Information Systems; a Certificate in Instructional Design; and, will graduate with a Masters of Science in Organizational Development in May ‘07. Her love of learning and collective life experience has developed her passion for training and positive organizational change.

Chief Financial Officer, David H. Lukenbill: David is a Sacramento native who grew up along the Parkway and still lives near it in the Sierra Oaks neighborhood. He has an Associate of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of San Francisco. He is the President of Lukenbill & Associates, providing capacity building consulting to community organizations, and has volunteered in several capacities connected to the Parkway including, President of the American River Natural History Association, Commissioner with the Sacramento History & Science Commission, and is on the Board of Directors and the Chair of the American River Parkway Task Force of the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce. He is the Founding President of ARPPS, and also serves as the Senior Policy Director.

Director, Rebecca Garrison: Rebecca is Executive Director of the 50 Corridor Transportation Management Association and the Point West Area Transportation Management Association. A native of Mississippi, she moved to Sacramento in 1991. She is a graduate of Mississippi University for Women with majors in journalism and political science. She was Executive Director of the Mississippi Press Association and was publisher of three suburban weekly newspapers prior to moving to Sacramento. A resident of Gold River, Rebecca is completing her second term on Sacramento County’s Cordova Planning Advisory Council (CorPAC). She serves on numerous committees and councils in the region which focus on improved mobility and air quality. She also manages the Folsom South Canal Partners, a group of public agencies and property owners advocating for an enhanced role of the canal in future land-use, transportation and economic development discussions.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS: EMERITUS

Chair, Wyatt Jones: Wyatt is a Sacramento native who grew up along the Parkway. His educational background is course work in Environmental Science at Sonoma State, and a BS in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco. He is the Vice President of Marketing at Airco Mechanical, a mechanical contracting company providing services throughout the Sacramento region since 1974. He has volunteered in many community and professional capacities in Sacramento and nationally. Wyatt was the Founding Vice President and Secretary of ARPPS, serving from 2003 to 2004.

ENDOWMENT ADVISORY GROUP

Chair, William Schopfer: Mr. Schopfer is President of Fund Development Associates. His extensive experience in fundraising began as a Capital campaign Director for the national financial consulting firm of Haney Associates specializing in healthcare. In his career he has raised millions for organizations nationally. He has a wide range of experience conducting major fundraising projects successfully for a highly diverse client base.

Mr. Schopfer later joined Mercy Foundation directing all fundraising activity for a multi-hospital system. He left Mercy after seven years and co-founded Fund Development Associates, Inc.

Mr. Schopfer brings experience fundraising management with a wide range of clients from healthcare and education, to the arts and children’s causes. He is a certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and was named outstanding Fund Raising Executive of the year by California’s Capital Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP).

He served on the AFP National Board of Directors, served two terms on its National Certification Board and is Past President of California’s Capital Chapter.
He is active in many civic and community organizations including a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Nonprofit Resource center and current member of its faculty, and Past President of the Heart Research Foundation Board. He is also active in the Arts and Business Council.

AMERICAN RIVER PARKWAY
SLOBE ADVOCATE AWARD RECIPIENTS

2004: Robert J. Slobe: Robert (Bob) J. Slobe is very active in the community, was instrumental in the founding of the Sacramento Valley Open Space Conservancy, serves on the board of the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, and has served on the board of the Crocker Art Museum and the California State Railroad Museum. Bob is president of the North Sacramento Land Company, a storied company founded by his family, and deeply rooted in the history of the Sacramento region, and the American River Parkway.

Bob’s family agreed to sell Sacramento County the first 400 acres that began the American River Parkway, with the understanding that the county would provide the kind of stewardship that marked his family’s ownership of the land.

Unfortunately, as time went on, it became apparent that responsible stewardship was not to be. The problems in the North Sacramento Parkway, as a result of illegal camping, has become a major public safety issue, a source of wide-spread pollution and habitat destruction, that has driven the public away from the legitimate usage which was its promised heritage. After realizing Sacramento County Parks was unable or unwilling to stop this wide-spread devastation in North Sacramento, instead choosing to focus its resources upriver, Bob has become a committed, determined, and extremely effective advocate for the North Sacramento Parkway. It was his passionate advocacy, often vocal and justifiably indignant, that finally embarrassed and ultimately forced Sacramento County Parks to begin enforcing the laws against illegal camping.

Bob is an advocate in the best sense of the word, and his family name will grace the award in future years. The American River Parkway Preservation Society’s Slobe Parkway Advocate Award will be given to individuals who bring the level of passion and commitment that Bob Slobe exemplifies to public parkway advocacy.

2005: Franklin Burris: Over the past few years, as the President of the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, Franklin has been a eloquent, committed, and leading community voice advocating for the Parkway.

Franklin Burris brings sixteen years of experience from both the private and public sector in the areas of public policy, community capacity building, real estate and economic development. He is also brings a commitment to community and non-profit volunteerism, often putting service above self.

Politically, Franklin has always been involved at the grass roots level starting with his election as student Mayor in High School. He has worked for the California State Student Association, (then) Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Jack O’Connell, and ran the office of former Sacramento City Councilmember Rob Kerth. With political training by Gail Kaufman and Assembly Majority Services, he has worked on numerous campaigns, most recently helping Roberta MacGlashan win her bid for Sacramento County Supervisor.

Many know of Franklin’s skills as a graphic designer, his undergraduate degree is in Art and Corporate Communications. He has done design work (much of it donated) for over 40 campaigns ranging from local School Board candidates to Kathleen Brown for Governor. His current design work can be seen in the North Sacramento Chamber’s materials and in his children’s birthday party invitations.

After spending 1990’s in politics and public policy arenas, Mr. Burris entered the private sector in late 2000 to work for Taylor Properties Development Co., a local family owned company that develops shopping centers and retail projects in the greater Sacramento Region. Franklin is responsible for project management, government relations, marketing aerials for projects, and industry and community relations.

His practical knowledge of process, community needs, and valuable policy experience has been a good fit for Taylor. Working on projects from Antioch to Rocklin and Galt to Lincoln, he has successfully expedited the completion of over $200 million in development projects in Northern California.

He is a Past President of the Point West Area Transportation Management Association, former founding member of the Robla Community Association, and former Chair of the Sacramento Area Council of the Building Industry Association of Superior California.
Currently serves as President of the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of the Yankee Hill Homeowners Association, Vice Chairman of the Stockton Boulevard Partnership, as well as a Boardmember of the Point West Transportation Management Association and the Uptown Community Development Corporation.

He is a member of the Building Industry Association of Superior California, the Placer County Board of Realtors, the Capitol Region Coalition of Chamber Leadership, the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the Urban Land Institute, and a business member of the Sacramento County Transportation and Air Quality Collaborative.
Mr. Burris received his Bachelor Degree in Corporate Design and a minor in Public Administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and a Masters of Public Administration and Certificate in Local Agency Finance from the University of Southern California (USC). He holds a certificate in Campaign Management from UC Davis Extension and is also licensed by the California Department of Real Estate. He is a native of Sacramento, and he and his wife Dena, and their sons Bradon and Landon, reside in Rocklin, CA.

2006: Mary E. Tappel: Over the past several years, in many capacities, most recently as the organizer of the lower American River Parkway* River Keepers, Mary has been a dedicated, deeply committed, and leading community voice advocating for the lower Parkway.

Mary is an environmentally-knowledgeable Parkway user and environmental activist who lives close to the lower Parkway. She has been very active in Sacramento’s Creek Week**, for nearly 20 years now, having led and organized creek, river, and neighborhood clean ups throughout North Sacramento for the past 15 years. For the past 5-7 years, she has led many of the most popular Creek Week field trips, the local evening beaver walks.

Mary works for the State Water Board as an Environmental Scientist, where she has worked with Adrian Perez, one of our State’s Environmental Justice leaders, for over 20 years. She also maintains some of the Water Board’s public outreach websites, which promote public engagement in watershed cleanup and restoration. She has completed some five years of contractual work for SAFCA, protecting the lower Parkway’s extensive native riparian restoration plantings from both excessive beaver pruning and destructive human vandalism, developing new low cost ecological methods along the way. She has always maintained a strong environmental and social justice perspective in all her work.

Mary continues her dedicated advocacy for the Parkway, often appearing in front of the Sacramento City Council and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to press for more effective and affordable public safety and maintenance to keep the Lower Reach area of the Parkway safe and clean.

Mary backs up her public requests by getting out on the Parkway regularly, focusing, with many others from all walks of life, on organizing volunteer efforts initially to keep one area near the Rusty Duck clean and safe, and then expanding outwards from this area as the success of the effort has allowed. Mary is doing the absolutely vital work of coordinating volunteers from all walks of life in now successfully protecting the public against Parkway crime in the area formerly having the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the Parkway.

Mary works continually to involve all of the stakeholders in the process of dealing compassionately with illegal campers and others who are responsible for causing and/or sustaining public safety and/or environmental problems in the Parkway, while insisting on the primacy of equal public safety for everyone, and environmental and social justice for everyone.

Mary is currently working with the largest local homeless support organization, Loaves and Fishes, other Parkway organizations, a wide range of area neighborhood and conservation groups, Sacramento County Park Rangers, the Sacramento City Police Department, Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies working in the Parkway, the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities Stormwater Management Program Community Action grants, and the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, where she is a member of the American River Parkway Task Force.

Mary is an excellent example of the type of committed advocacy the Slobe Parkway Advocate Award was created to recognize, and it is our honor and pleasure to be able to present it to her.

*Meaning the Lower American River Parkway from the CalExpo/Bushy Lake area and Paradise Beach/River Park neighborhood downstream to the confluence with the Sacramento River

**Sponsored and organized by the Sacramento Urban Creeks Council

2007: Dave Lydick: Dave—with a degree in Recreation Administration from CSU Chico and married for 26 years with a 22 year old son—has been working in the parks field since 1975 and for Sacramento County Parks since 1979. He began as a Park Ranger and was promoted to Chief Ranger in 2002, and in 2006 became the Deputy Director for the American River Parkway & Regional Parks Division.

Dave has always provided a supportive and honest voice to the many citizens and community organizations whose work involves looking out for the Parkway and has been a dedicated public servant advocating for the Parkway.

His integrity and concern for the Parkway have been evident in the lengths to which he consistently makes himself available to respond to community concerns, present a voice during community meetings, and deal with the complicated issues involving public safety on the Parkway.

The morass of interests and issues surrounding the illegal camping on the Lower Reach of the Parkway has been one area where his tact, diplomacy, kindness, and integrity have endeared him to all sides of the ongoing discussions.

His deep support for the recreational treasures of the Parkway and ensuring the safety of the community fortunate to enjoy them is well-known and deeply appreciated.

Public service, in its highest calling, is the clearest form of advocacy, and it is our pleasure to honor the public leadership and integrity of Dave Lydick by presenting him with the 2007 Slobe Parkway Advocate Award.