Leadership

Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County

Division Director of Emergency Programs and Housing Services

Lindsey joined CADRE in 2017 while leading the recovery response efforts to the 2017 Coyote Creek flooding in San Jose, CA.  She serves as Division Director of Emergency Programs and Housing Services at Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.  She provides leadership and oversight of multiple programs that include: Disaster Relief and Recovery, COVID-19 Relief & Response, Individual Development Accounts, Emergency Rental Assistance, House Sharing, Food Delivery and Distribution Programs, Affordable Housing, Homelessness as well as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiative.

During Lindsey’s time with Catholic Charities, she has worked with executive leadership to create the Emergency Programs and Housing Services Division and has launched several programs, including a partnership with the county for an innovative affordable housing solution: House Sharing.  She was a pivotal leader and contributor to Catholic Charities’ 2018 Non-Profit of the Year Award by the Silicon Valley Organization-largely in part for the Agency’s Disaster Response and Recovery Efforts in 2017-2018.

Lindsey sits on the NVOAD Housing Committee representing the Catholic Charities USA Network and has led training for Catholic Charities USA Applied Institute of Disaster Excellence Conference. She is an active member on CADRE’s leadership team, is function team lead for disaster case management and community services, and former CADRE Board of Directors Co-Chair (2018-2020).

Lindsey brings extensive experience in the nonprofit industry previously overseeing a Refugee Resettlement and Central American Minor family reunification program in Dallas, Texas working with national affiliates- Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services.  Lindsey spent time working internationally, primarily in India on community development projects through teaching wilderness first aid courses as well as short term disaster relief in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.

Lindsey has an MBA with concentrations in strategy, consulting and entrepreneurship from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  She is fluent in Spanish.

Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County

Araceli joined the organization in 2018 to lead a team that could assist people who were impacted by the Coyote Creek Flood. She quickly built an efficient and effective multilingual, multicultural team that included Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking staff to serve those who lived in the most severely impacted neighborhoods.

As an active member of CADRE’s leadership team, she served as its liaison to the county Office of Emergency Services during the shooting incident at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in July 2019 and during the county’s pandemic state-of-emergency declaration in March 2020. She organized CCSCC’s expansion of food distribution at parishes across the Diocese of San Jose, in coordination with the Advocacy and Community Engagement team and CORAL after-school program staff.  She created a highly efficient drive-through food delivery system that was focused on the health and safety of volunteers, staff, and customers.

Trained in CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and LISTOS (Spanish-speaking disaster preparedness) processes, Araceli is now a CERT trainer who also leads neighborhood sessions in disaster preparedness. Araceli is a San Jose native and is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Silicon Valley Independent Living Center

Sheri is the Executive Director of SVILC and a founding CADRE team member dating back to the 1990s with the network. Being part of CADRE, she acts as the Coordinating Agency for the Access and Functional Needs team created in 2017 and promotes ongoing efforts to ensure that the needs of the disability community are addressed when planning for and responding to disasters. SVILC is a non-profit organization which serves people with disabilities in Santa Clara County. SVILC’s hopes to create fully inclusive communities that value the dignity, equality, freedom and worth of every human being.

Santa Clara County Veterans Commission and Team Rubicon

I am building a stronger and better connected community, as Chair of Cambrian Community Council, bringing safety and preparedness as a board member to Campbell CERT, an Instructor and member to the SCC CERT Council. I’ve made many trips to the Paradise area with support materials with partners like Seva, helped with other independent groups with large animal rescue. I am a Viet Era Army Veteran, 1^st Lt, and the new Chair of SCC Veterans Commission with a focus of reducing suicide and increasing benefits and am a member of Team Rubicon that like CERT, serves others before, during and after a disaster. I’ve been a member of CadreSv board for a year, bringing, doing what I can to make all our varied resources recognized and used more fully, as we in our varied non-profits have a lot to offer in care and support of others.

Bill Wilson Center

Since 1970, CADRE Founding Member, Janet Childs, M.A., A.A.E.T.S, has been actively providing crisis intervention counseling and education focusing on the dynamics of loss, illness, crisis and grief. As a founding member of the Centre for Living with Dying, Janet has participated in the growth of this organization, and has worked with thousands of individuals, groups and professionals on the front lines facing trauma and life altering change. Combining her love of music and the creative process with her personal and professional experience with loss, she creates a safe and healing environment to gently examine these difficult life issues.

Immigrantinfo.org

CADRE Founding Member, Franci Collins has been a Disaster Volunteer with the American Red Cross for over 30 years and was a founding member of CADRE after the Loma Prieta Earthquake As a Community Partner Services Liaison, she collaborates with service providers to identify vulnerable populations and address special needs. She is the creator and administrator of www.ImmigrantInfo.org, which provides information and inks to resources for immigrants. She is also a writer, professional Hypnotherapist, and consultant for non-profit organizations.

Disability Integration Regional Lead

Disaster Health Services Manager

ESGR – Area 2 Chairperson

Professor Emeritus – San Jose State University

American Red Cross

Liz Dietz, EdD, RN, CS-NP, CSN, was a founding member of CADRE during the Loma Prieta Earthquake in Oct 19, 1989.  Liz is a 40-year volunteer with Silicon Valley Red Cross serving on the Board of directors, Disaster Health Services Manager, Disability Integration Regional Lead, and Service to Armed Forces Regional Advisor.  Liz is a Professor Emeritus from San Jose State University in the School of Nursing having taught there for 29 years.  Liz and her husband Larry who is also a Public Affairs Red Cross Manager live in The Villages.

Goodwill Silicon Valley

Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Management

Kelle Kroll Group

Civil Air Patrol and Team Rubicon

Second Harvest Silicon Valley

Bruno Pillet joined Second Harvest of Silicon Valley as Vice President of Programs and Services in 2015 after a productive career in the high-tech industry. Bruno acts as the Coordinating Agency for the Food Sourcing and Distribution functional team created in 2017 and works tirelessly to connect the Food Bank and its partner agencies with those in need. He came to the Food Bank in 2014 through an Encore Fellowship, which places professionals from the for-profit sector into high-impact roles in the nonprofit sector. As an Encore Fellow, Bruno led a successful pilot project for Second Harvest, which tested new approaches to serving client families, and helped to implement key planning and process improvement tools to help Second Harvest achieve more efficient results.Bruno brings his many years of experience in customer service and business process improvement to his role at Second Harvest, where he oversees the programs and services that ensure everyone in our community has access to the nutritious food they need to thrive. He spent more than 25 years at Hewlett-Packard, where he led a number of key initiatives. In 2002, he became responsible for HP’s Customer Support Delivery Operations and managed the integration, globalization, and transformation of customer support delivery. Following HP’s acquisition of Compaq, he led the effort to seamlessly integrate HP’s processes.In 2007, Bruno took on the role of Vice President of Engineering for HP Services, Global Delivery, where he led the globalization and standardization of delivery processes and tools for HP’s customer support. Most recently, Bruno served as Vice President of Global Services for Grass Valley, which manufactures equipment for broadcast television.Bruno has an MBA in Finance from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

Japantown Prepared!

Rich Saito retired from the San Jose Police department in 2006. After the Fukushima earthquake/tsunami, he was asked to start a disaster preparedness program for Japantown in North San Jose. Along with other community volunteers, they formed a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) called Japantown Prepared. He is also a volunteer the San Jose Office of Emergency Management, San Jose Amateur Radio Civil Emergency Service (RACES) and the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.

San Andreas Regional Center

Saskia Vandekamp is the Associate Director of Community Services at the San Andreas Regional Center which supports individuals with developmental disabilities in Santa Clara, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito Counties.

Virginia “Ginny” Ortiz, MPH, is the Disaster Program Manager for the American Red Cross Silicon Valley Chapter in San Jose, CA. She came to the Bay Area from Washington, DC where she worked in federal government. Prior to her civil service, she served in the Peace Corps as a community health volunteer and volunteer leader. A brief volunteer experience with the Red Cross in 2017 inspired her to combine her passions for public health and community service with disaster preparedness and response.

Ginny has a Masters in Public Health and a certificate in Environmental & Occupational Health from the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Marsha Hovey, C.E.M. has over forty years of emergency management experience in Santa Clara County as a 9-1-1 dispatcher, Emergency Services Coordinator for Santa Clara County OES, City of Cupertino Emergency Manager and West Valley-Mission Community College District. She retired in 2010 so she could become more involved with other organizations, like CADRE, and continue to make a difference. She is the 2017 Santa Clara County Emergency Manager’s Association Emergency Manager of the Year.

Annamaria Swardenski is a consultant specializing in preparedness planning and CBO relationship building with local government. She has led planning projects focused on disaster shelter planning for access and functional needs populations, pandemic influenza preparedness for community-based organizations, spontaneous volunteer coordination for local government as well as donations management planning partnerships at the local operational area level. Holding a Bachelor of Science degree from Santa Clara University in Sociology, with an emphasis in Gerontology and a minor in Psychology, Anna’s volunteer work includes serving on the Board of Directors for Eden I&R, Inc, since 1999 and as a First Aid/CPR instructor for American Red Cross since 2001.

Dipankar is an Encore Fellow conducting many research project activities and will be working with us through December 2021.