Tamra Peters
Founder, Program Director, Board of Directors |
Since shortly after the first Earth Day in 1970, Tamra Peters has been working to protect the Earth. She was on the staff of The Nature Conservancy as it grew from 17 employees to an international organization; the Natural Resources Defense Council as it began its campaign to stop global warming in the 1980’s; Rainforest Action Network when it launched its campaign against Mitsubishi’s rainforest destruction; and San Francisco Friends of the Urban Forest, where as Executive Director she learned about the power of people coming together to improve their neighborhoods.
Tamra has served on the boards of both national Earth Share and Earth Share California. She’s served as president and was a trustee for 18 years of the Strong Foundation for Environmental Values that has supported hundreds of grassroots environmental organizations. Most recently, she served for seven years on Sustainable Marin’s board. Tamra considers climate change to be the most important issue of our time. So after her retirement, she started looking for what she could do. With the help of several others, she created Resilient Neighborhoods and launched the successful pilot in the fall of 2011. Since then she has worked full time as a volunteer, running the organization and motivating hundreds of Marin families to reduce their carbon footprints and build more resilient communities. Tamra holds an undergraduate degree from Antioch University in Business Management and Psychology and has an MA in Organizational Development from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has been a resident of Marin for 34 years. Tamra has received numerous awards. In 2017, she received the Co-Citizen of the Year Award from the City of San Rafael and the Green Award for Environmental Leadership from the Marin Conservation League. KPIX TV selected Tamra as a 2019 winner of the Jefferson Award for Doing Good. Tamra was inducted into the Marin Women's Hall of Fame March 24, 2022. |
Kathren Murrell Stevenson
Executive Director, Board of Directors |
Kathren Murrell Stevenson began her career working as a field ecologist focused on environmental conservation and restoration. She conducted vegetation monitoring of global climate change plots in Rocky Mountain National Park and worked with volunteers to set up global climate monitoring plots in the Sierra Nevada as part of the GLORIA mountaintop monitoring project. In addition, she spent several years serving as the Restoration Program Director for the Friends of Sausal Creek, an East Bay nonprofit whose mission is watershed protection, restoration, and education.
Seeing the need to educate others and share her passion about nature and the environment, Kathren taught college-level courses in general biology, ecological restoration, and the environmental humanities for Mills College, Santa Rosa Junior College, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. In 2020, Kathren joined Uptima Entrepreneur Cooperative, where she parlayed her passion for education in support of teaching adults how to launch their own business as freelancers. As businesses were disrupted by COVID-19, she advised business owners about how to pivot and adapt to changing conditions. In tandem, Kathren applied her management skills guiding education-based nonprofits through periods of transition in her roles of Operations Director, Co-Director, and Executive Director. Kathren holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in Biogeography and a Ph.D. in Plant Ecology from the University of California, Davis. In her free time, she enjoys hiking in the hills of the North and East Bay and working on creative writing projects. |
Jennifer Hammond
Program Associate |
Jen joined our team after serving as the Executive Director for Sustainable Fairfax where she focused on bringing community together to reduce waste, conserve water, compost food waste, and learn about a variety of sustainability topics. She was a lead organizer for large community events including Fairfax Streets for People and the Fairfax Craft Faire. Sustainable Fairfax was recognized for its contributions to the Fairfax community and won the Bank of Marin's Spirit of Marin business award in 2015. Jen enjoys building strong partnerships to support a resilient community and a healthy environment. She received her MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School. She enjoys the strong sense of community in Fairfax where she lives with her partner, Brian.
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Amena Hajjar
Community Engagement Director |
Amena has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector, specializing in volunteer management, event planning, communications, and development. She previously served as the Director of Communications and Development at West Marin Senior Services, where she focused on community engagement and fundraising to support essential services for older adults.
Amena has been an active volunteer in her community, contributing her gifts to the Environmental Action Committee in Point Reyes, the San Geronimo Valley Emergency Response Group, numerous West Marin initiatives, Marin Waldorf and Heartwood schools, and serving on the board of directors for Gaia Passages. Amena lives in Lagunitas, CA with her husband and daughter. She graduated as an Eco-Star from our Carbon Crunchers team in Fall 2024. Amena is naturally collaborative and embodies Resilient Neighborhoods' commitment to caring for ourselves, each other, and the planet. |
Board of Directors
Cory Bytof
Board Chair |
Cory is the Sustainability Program Manager for the City of San Rafael. He co-authored and is responsible for implementing the City’s Climate Change Action Plan 2030, which is being used as a model by the other cities in Marin. Cory also helped form the anti-litter coalition San Rafael Clean, and as a member of the City’s Emergency Operations Center, developed and manages the City’s Emergency Volunteer Center. In addition, Cory is past-chair of the Marin Climate Energy Partnership, a consortium of local governments and public utilities working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Marin County. Cory has a degree in Interdisciplinary Social Science from San Francisco State University. He lives in San Rafael with his wife and has one adult daughter. In his free time he writes musicals and enjoys traveling, cultural exchange, and adventures in nature.
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Robert Brown
Board Co-Chair |
Bob Brown has been a planning manager and director for 33 years in some of the most progressive cities in the Bay Area, including Palo Alto, Berkeley and San Mateo. He has specialized in reinvigorating downtowns into pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use/mixed-income community centers, promoting environmental protection and facilitating public involvement. He was the Community Development Director for the City of San Rafael for 13 years and acted as the City’s Sustainability Coordinator. He authored San Rafael’s Climate Change Action Plan and the BERST model green building ordinance, one of the most stringent in the nation, which has been adopted by several Marin jurisdictions and won a Leadership in Sustainability Award from the Marin Builders Association. Bob is also an adjunct faculty member at Dominican University, teaching in the Sustainable Practices Certificate Program.
Bob believes that government must be a catalyst in moving residents and businesses toward more sustainable lifestyles and business practices. He is a strong advocate for coordinated local action to fill the void of national leadership. He is a regular speaker at the League of California Cities, the Local Government Commission and the American Planning Association. Bob holds an undergraduate degree in environmental biology from the University of Santa Clara and a Masters in Urban Planning from San Jose State University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. |
Grace Carter
Secretary |
Grace holds a J.D. degree from UC Berkeley School of Law and practiced law for 39 years at Paul Hastings LLP. She has extensive experience in complex litigation and arbitration in both federal and state courts across a variety of areas, including insurance coverage for policyholders, securities, energy, and healthcare. After retiring from Paul Hastings in 2021, Grace worked part-time for a year as a litigation consultant, providing legal advice and consultation for low-income clients in the Bay Area.
In addition to her legal work, Grace has engaged in fundraising for various organizations where she has served on the board, including the Western Center on Law & Poverty and Raising A Reader (now known as Tandem). In addition, she served for two years on the Foundation Board for Drake High School (now Archie Williams High School) and the Ross Valley Schools Foundation. Grace graduated from our program with the "We Mean Green" team in 2021 and soon after began volunteering for Resilient Neighborhoods, eventually serving as an Ambassador in 2023 and 2024 and joining the Board of Directors in 2025. She enjoys hiking, gardening, practicing yoga, and sharing RN’s climate action message with fellow residents of Marin County. Grace and her husband recently moved to Novato from San Anselmo and are looking forward to exploring the hiking trails nearby. |
Richard Jensen
Treasurer |
Richard Jensen retired after working in the financial services industry for over 40 years in several prominent financial institutions. He is now a Business Management Consultant to nonprofits in Marin County, providing strategic and marketing planning advice with a focus on goal formation, fundraising, board governance and financial control. In addition to his consulting work, Richard serves as Treasurer on the Boards of Marin Link and the Marin Conservation League. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Central Marin, past president of the Marin County Library Foundation Board, and past commissioner of the Marin County Free Library.
Richard received his BA in Economics and MBA in General Management from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He is on one of the Resilient Neighborhoods’ Winter 2025 Climate Action Teams and looks forward to graduating from the program in March. |
Leslie Stone
Board Member, Chair of Resilient Neighborhoods Ambassadors |
With a BA in Design from UCLA, Leslie has been in the field of environmental education for most of her career. As the principal of Leslie Stone Associates (LSA) for the past 40 years, she believes passionately in the power of education to enlighten and provide a vehicle for people to make informed choices about how we live our lives, and how we treat each other and our precious planet earth. As an activist and designer of educational exhibits in some of the most well-traveled parks and trails in California, she has had to opportunity to influence millions of visitors from around the world to learn about, enjoy, and preserve wild places.
Leslie has been a national spokesperson for women’s economic development and environmental education. As a founding board president of LA Harvest, she generated economic support for community gardens. As the founding board president of the National Association of Women’s Yellow Pages, and the publisher of the LA Women’s Yellow Pages, she fostered the growth of women’s businesses. As the designer and distributor of the LA Green Pages, she enabled thousands of people find green products and organizations to support. She also served on the board of the Women’s Building and the Women’s Foundation. |
Ambassadors
Alison Pence
Alison has eliminated dairy and beef from her diet and makes smoothies with pea protein. She planted a vegetable garden, a pollinator garden, and got Cash for her Grass!
She loves educating others about native plants.
She loves educating others about native plants.
Amy Sinclair
A graduate of the 2020 team "Carbon Neutral Zoomers," Amy takes great pleasure in hosting RN's Annual Clothing Swap and continues to take actions to improve her home.
Anne-Christine Strugnell
Anne-Christine Strugnell took an RN workshop in 2016 and it inspired a big change in her life. She transitioned away from her day job and took up volunteer roles in environmental nonprofits. An RN ambassador and speaker, she enjoys presenting at RN events and coaching people one on one about ways to live more lightly on the planet.
Deirdre Fennessey
Deirdre graduated from the Resilient Neighborhoods workshop with the Carbon Cap Crusaders team in 2018. Since then she has continued to find ways to live more lightly on this Earth. She is an Ambassador for RN and a new recruit to the Local Task Force for Zero Waste Marin.
Julie Carlson
Julie Carlson attended a RN workshop in 2018 where she learned how much our individual choices really do matter. RN ignited a passion to share sustainable lifestyle choices with her social and religious organizations. Julie believes combating climate change is a collective responsibility and enjoys being part of the RN graduate community who continue to take personal actions, share our achievements and advocate for local and national transformation. We are all in this together.