Blue Sky Center Santa Barbara Blue Sky Center
Team
Em Johnson
EXECUtive director
Building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual. - Grace Lee Boggs
Through measured and deliberate work, Em has been leading rural innovation through social enterprises and systems thinking with Blue Sky Center since 2016. She is motivated by holistic community investment that uses celebratory tools of art and creative community engagement, often bringing people together over food. In the Cuyama Valley, Em connects people to resources, developing a self-sufficient model by blending entrepreneurial initiatives to reclaim the power of rural resiliency.
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Jack Forinash
executive director
Data is sovereignty. - Lori Pourier
Jack's role at Blue Sky Center - and in the Cuyama Valley as a community member - has focused on seeking a definition of Cuyama that is quantified, verified, and self-determined. With an attention to detail and a love of spreadsheets, Jack focuses rural development discussions on the importance of data in communicating the human experience of a place. For the past sixteen years, Jack has preferred to make his home in towns of 1,000 or less, believing that by having the opportunity to know everyone by face and name we have the best chance to exhibit a civil society.
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Alicia Muniz
COMMUNITY COORDINATOR
Alicia is a long-time resident of New Cuyama. She brings to the team knowledge of the Valley, experience from her past work at Cuyama Elementary helping others, and is dedicated to helping create more opportunities for the youth in and around New Cuyama. She works one-on-one with existing and new small businesses through the "Made in Cuyama" Initiative.
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Sandra Uribe
Land Steward
With an eye for detail and profound knowledge of the inner lives of both people and plants, Sandra diligently attends to the flourishing and development of our land, while establishing programming reflecting her expansive community involvement. Sandra is dedicated to cultivating connections between Cuyama residents and the ecology of the place they call home, believing that a little dirt under your fingernails is all it takes to stir the beginnings of lifelong commitment to caring for the land.
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Corbin LaMont
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Corbin LaMont is a participatory designer, educator, and creative director whose work fosters deep social connections, employs rigorous research, and cultivates beauty. She is the principal of Office of Virtue, where she has worked with clients including Adidas, Blue Sky Center, and The City of San Francisco, and where she publishes The Changing Times, a newspaper rooted in social inquiry. Dispatched from a different location each issue, The Changing Times creates opportunities to see what others see and to connect people more deeply to their places.
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Mayela Rodriguez
ARTS PROGRAM MANAGER
Mayela Rodriguez is a social practice artist born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. As Blue Sky Center's Arts Program Manager, Mayela helps facilitate opportunities for creative expression throughout the Cuyama Valley. She does this through nurturing direct engagements between community members, local partners, and visiting artists. Mayela first fell in love with the Cuyama Valley when she was a Blue Sky Desert Fellow in 2019. During her fellowship, Mayela held cartonera-making workshops for the residents of the Cuyama Valley. Additionally, Mayela worked with the community to convert the display case behind New Cuyama's C&H Market into a community art gallery.
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Asia Van Aken
Ventures Manager
Asia joins the team in summer of 2022! She'll be leading the sales of the Cuyama Beverage Company and welcoming campers and retreats for our Explore Cuyama initiative. More to come.
Jensen Lorenzen
BLUE SKY VENTURES CONSULTANT
With over 20 years of professional experience in the start-up foodservice industry, Jensen joined the Blue Sky Team in March 2018 because he believes in the power of food-based entrepreneurialism to create and support rural community building. Jensen is a founding partner of Larder Meat Co., an online CSA-style pasture-raised meat delivery company and is leveraging this unique experience to help launch new ventures on behalf of Blue Sky.
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Board of Directors
Learn more about how our board operates and inquire to join here .
Kelly Schmandt Ferguson
Member
Kelly draws upon 15+ years of experience in public/private partnerships focused on solving environmental challenges through community engagement and emerging technologies. With a diverse career spanning work with startups, establishing private sector companies, tribal, and city governments, as well as non-profits, Kelly has honed the ability to work with and across stakeholder groups to implement transformative environmental programs and clean mobility pilots. By day she works to make dense urban cities safer, healthier, and less congested as Chief of Staff of the curb management startup Automotus and previously spearheaded the launch of the nation's first Zero Emissions Delivery Zone in Santa Monica as the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator's (LACI) Director of Pilots. When not focused on curbs and delivery trucks, Kelly spends her time enjoying California native plants and habitat, beekeeping, learning the ancient art of mead making, and spending time with her son and husband in Santa Barbara.
Coty Hastie
Member
Having spent the past decade in the real estate industry focused on hospitality and tourism, Coty values responsible tourism's impact on communities. He believes in striving to protect and enhance the natural environment and host communities, while achieving economic and social goals by providing exceptional experiences to visitors. Coty is actively growing the AutoCamp brand in strategic outdoor markets across the U.S., managing aspects of the acquisition and development process. Prior, Coty was with NewcrestImage Hotels, driving the firm's West Coast expansion and in various roles with CBRE Hotels, conducting feasibility studies, asset management assignments, hotel dispositions, and ad hoc analyses for a range of lodging types throughout the U.S.
Bill Kelley, Jr.
Member
Bill Kelley, Jr. is an educator, curator, and writer based in Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and a Masters in Art History from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (UNM). His current research focuses on collaborative and collective art practices in the Americas. Bill has written for such journals as Afterall, P.E.A.R., and Log Journal. He served as co-curator of the 2011 Encuentro Internacional de Medellín (MDE11) and was the former Director and Co-Editor of the online bilingual journal LatinArt.com. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Art History at California State University Bakersfield (CSUB). Bill has co-edited an anthology with Grant Kester of collaborative art practices in the Americas entitled: "Collective Situations: Readings in Contemporary Latin American Art 1995-2010" (Duke University Press, 2017). He is currently Curator and Lead Researcher of Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy and Activism in the Americas, a research, exhibition, and publication platform, currently on tour, examining community-based art practices as part of The Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative. Bill recently edited the bilingual volume "Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy and Activism in the Americas," published by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and distributed by the University of Chicago Press (2017).
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Jesse Sugarmann
Member
Jesse Sugarmann is an artist and educator based in Bakersfield, California, where he serves as Professor of New Media and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at California State University, Bakersfield. Beyond his teaching practice, Sugarmann participates in the development and management of non-traditional art venues, having been the founding director (2008 – 2011) of Oregon's Ditch Projects Artspace and the director of Oregon's "Coast Time" residency (2011 – 2017). He is currently developing "New Country," a new exhibition and performance space in Bakersfield that will open its doors in 2022. Sugarmann's artwork uses video, photography, and performance to engage the automotive industry as a manufacturer of human identity, accessing automotive history as an index of both cultural progress and social development. Sugarmann has exhibited work both nationally and internationally in venues such as the Getty Institute, Los Angeles; el Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon; Human Resources, Los Angeles; Michael Strogoff, Marfa; el Museo de Arte Moderno de Santander; High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; and both the Paris and Berlin exhibitions of Les Recontres Internationales. Sugarmann's work has been written about in publications including ArtForum, Art Papers, the Atlantic, Hyperallergic, Art Fag City, Frieze Magazine, the Huffington Post, and The New York Times.
Ambassadors
Our team is always on the lookout for new advocates and allies! A great ambassador uses their strengths and connections to help advance our mission. It's a flexible professional volunteering opportunity. To learn more click here.
Current Blue Sky Ambassadors:
Chris Cohen
Chris is passionate about helping forward-thinking leaders and activists use business, cooperation, and creative projects to drive positive social and environmental change. As a founding board member of Blue Sky Center and practicing lawyer, Chris uses his Blue Sky Ambassador role to provide context and training on innovative corporate models that support rural resilience.
F. Paul Chounet
A former Cuyama school superintendent and alumni member of Blue Sky's Top Circle (board of directors), Paul is passionate about the opportunities in the Cuyama Valley for all-ages education and rural entrepreneurship. Paul's role as an ambassador is that of a connector — on community priorities surrounding rural broadband access, school system support, and water — along with contributing regularly as an all around handyman with facility maintenance.
Eric Junker
A creator of art and design inspired by the colliding energies of his life in urban Los Angeles and his passion for nature and outdoor adventure, Eric — a former Blue Sky Center board member — continues to support Blue Sky as a connector and promoter for the Cuyama Beverage Company and as an advocate for the power of the arts in transformative community development.
David Kietzman
(David served a term as a board member and President through 2021.) David is an expert in solving problems through communications. In the last two decades, he led four organizations and launched multiple social impact enterprises often drawing local and national recognition for his work. He taught art abroad in Central America and locally in Los Angeles before entering the social impact sector. David has launched various nonprofit and business ventures, his latest venture with Momentum Solutions allows him to mix creativity, a social impact leadership background and a professional coaching certification when working with their clients. David has an authentic dedication to the values of inclusion, creative leadership and innovation. He serves clients, donors, civic leaders and community residents that share his values. Past clients range from family foundations, Fortune 1000 businesses, nonprofits to coaching individual leaders. He continues to teach in the areas of nonprofit and marketing strategy as a guest lecturer and trainer at CSULA, USC, UCLA, CSUN, Executive Service Corps, Annenberg Foundation, New Leaders Council and other institutions. Recently, he became a founding member of the Make Change Awards and L.A. Latino Giving Circle. When he isn't working, David enjoys exploring the many communities that make up the City of Angels with his family.
Cecilia Lopez
(Cecilia served a term as a board member and Treasurer through 2021.) Having grown up in the Central Valley, Cecilia is sensitive to the fact that the national narrative often excludes rural communities. Few urbanites venture out of the cities to experience the cultural and natural beauty present in rural towns. As a result, politicians and businesses ignore these small towns, leaving them to fend for themselves. Cecilia joined the Blue Sky Center board to draw attention to and address the needs of rural areas by focusing her efforts in the Cuyama Valley. Cecilia envisions Blue Sky Center as a space where locals and visitors can come together, get to know each other and contribute to each other's well-being. The facilities can provide spaces for locals to practice their crafts, earn revenue, and create employment opportunities.
Steve Sappington
A pilot, PCT section hiker, and traveler with experience in engineering as well as manufacturing, quality, and operations management in small and medium size companies, Steve offers Blue Sky Center his passions to help keep open and sustain L88 — Cuyama Valley's only open airstrip — as a local and regional asset. Steve lends his time and energy to raising funds, recruiting fellow pilots to be volunteers, and coordinating with aviation agencies to meet the critical needs of the community and develop opportunities within the region.
Partners
Sponsors
Private Donors
American Riviera Bank
AmeriCorps VISTA
California Arts Council
California Department of Community Services and Development
Duncan Family Farms
Eastwood Print & Copy
Enterprise Community Partners
Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco
The Fund for Santa Barbara
Hutton Parker Foundation
Mechanics Bank
McCune Foundation
Minneapolis Foundation
MUFG Union Bank
Pacific Western Bank
Rabobank
San Simeon Fund
Santa Barbara County Food Action Network
Santa Barbara Foundation
Santa Barbara Pistachio Company
USDA Rural Development
US Department of Health and Human Services/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
US Department of Housing and Urban Development
US Small Business Administration
Margaret & William R. Hearst III Foundation
Zannon Family Foundation
Source: https://www.blueskycenter.org/team
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