Youth Community Service Board of Directors 
The 2007-2008 year represents a new step for YCS. This is our first year as an independent 501(c)(3) organization, and thus we have our first Board of Directors. The Board is a cross section of community leaders who bring a broad history of working with youth and reflecting the diversity of the communities in which we work. We are excited to be working together and feel it is a privilege to help the staff move the work of YCS forward.
Bob Barrett
Bob is a mediator, facilitator, and consultant with more than twenty-four years of experience in the alternative dispute resolution and consensus-building fields. His work focuses primarily on multi-party projects, often involving environmental concerns. He is an environmental lawyer by training, with degrees from Stanford University and the law school of the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall). Before beginning his practice, he was the program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation responsible for its grants in the environmental and conflict resolution areas.
He has served on a number of boards and public service positions, including: two terms on governing board of the Las Lomitas Elementary School District; treasurer of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution; founding president of the California Dispute Resolution Council; two terms on a church governing board; and board member and president (2005-06) of the Palo Alto/University Rotary Club.
Bob lives in Portola Valley with his wife. They have two grown children.
David Blitz
David holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Public Administration from the University of San Francisco. He has worked for 27 years in real estate development, finance, brokerage and corporate facility management. He worked for eight years in senior health care facility ownership and administration. Currently, he is a Senior Project Manager for the Staubach Company, a corporate real estate and service provider.
He has served the community through membership on the YCS Steering Committee, member and former Board member of the Palo Alto Rotary, former member and president of the Palo Alto/Stanford Chapter of the American Heart Association, is a Graduate, Leadership Palo Alto, and as a former Chairman of the Check Point Software Donations Committee.
David has lived in Palo Alto for the last 14 years, after growing up in Rock Island, IL. He has also lived in Kansas City and St. Louis. He is married with two daughters, both of whom live on the East Coast.
Melissa Baten Caswell
Melissa has a BA from Dartmouth, with a major in psychology and a minor in economics, and an MBA from Dartmouth with a focus on Organizational Behavior and Marketing. Melissa is currently a member of the Palo Alto Unified School District Governing Board.
She has worked for three years in banking on Wall Street, and for 14 years in High-tech marketing, business development, corporate development and strategy in both large and small companies. In three of these companies her focus was on education. Melissa has been active in PTA leadership and management at Duveneck School, where she was also a room parent. She has been a Junior Great Books leader, Biz World instructor,and a Meet the Master's Instructor. She has served on the Palo Alto PTA Council as EVP, PTA Council President, and is the incoming VP of Communications. She also is on the Cabinet for the 2007 capital campaign of the Palo Alto Art Foundation.
Melissa Baten Caswell lives in Palo Alto with her family.
Leif Erikson
Leif Erickson has served as executive director for YCS since April 2004. He previously worked for almost 25 years in corporate marketing in Silicon Valley in the high tech and biotech industries. Leif began volunteering with YCS in 1995 as a parent supporter of youth programs. He enjoys building partnerships for YCS with such groups as the Palo Alto University Rotary Club, PTA Council, Palo Alto First Presbyterian Church, EPA Fellowship of Faith, EPA Youth and Young Adult Consortium, Built to Last Collaborative and Stanford student service organizations.
Leif and his wife Sharon have two adult sons and one granddaughter.
Julio Garcia
Julio has over 20 years experience in community grassroots organizing, and is thus well tuned to the needs of the community, particularly regarding immigrant issues and community education. For three years he worked with the International Institute of San Francisco's San Mateo County Citizenship and Community Education Program. Currently, he is a Community Organizer for One East Palo Alto, an initiative that emphasizes the involvement of parents in their children's education. Out of this effort, the nonprofit Nuestra Casa was created to help youth succeed by developing their families' language, communication and leadership skills.
In this community, nonprofits work in close relationship and roles are intertwined. Julio serves on the Board of Nuestra Casa and the Board of CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse) as well as One East Palo Alto, combining his advocacy for health care with the education and social service needs of families in our diverse community.
Rita Lancefield
Rita has a BA in psychology from Pomona College. She worked for several years at a psychiatric hospital for teenage girls. Since moving to Palo Alto 40+ years ago, she has volunteered in many organizations working with youth-local PTA boards, founding parent and volunteer with team teaching/alternative schools at the junior high and high school level, room mother, facilitator of groups focused on parenting skills, values in the family, and environmental issues.
She has served on the boards of two for-profit businesses and several non-profits, including Challenge Learning Center, Pacific Islander Outreach (board chair), ACS advisory board, etc. For twenty years she has been a director of Charter Oak Foundation, funding groups working with youth. For Charter Oak, she has served as secretary, grant administrator, and board chair. She also worked extensively with Beyond War and Foundation for Global Community.
Rita lives in Palo Alto with Rob, her husband of 48 years. They have two grown children.
Marina Latu
Marina's skills include strategic planning, community organizing and fostering community relation, and communication. She has been co-host for the radio program "Education is Powerful", and has both produced and written. Her community interests and experience have involved organizing the "Live in Peace" march and rally, and building coalition groups. She is interested in building a healthy and positive environment for young people through community service.
This is Marina's first experience with non-profit boards.
Marina lives in East Palo Alto.
Joe Martin
Joe Martin is a Partner/Director with Golub Group, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor
in San Mateo with over $500 million in assets under management. His professional skills include money management, business and strategic planning, and client relation management.
He is a member of the board of directors at Streetside Stories, a non-profit organization in San Francisco whose mission is to cultivate young people's voices through the power of storytelling, fostering educational equity and building community, literacy and arts skills. Joe joined the board of Streetside in January 2007 and also serves on the Program Committee. His time at Streetside includes attendance at a two-day seminar on mission-based fundraising offered by Benevon (formerly Raising More Money Model). Joe has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, at the Raphael House (a homeless shelter for families in San Francisco), as a tutor at Luther Burbank Middle School, City of Dreams and Spark (an apprentice based mentoring program).
Susan Phinney Silver
Susan has spent the past twenty years creating innovative community financing programs to mobilize new capital from banks, insurance companies, city governments, and private foundations. While at The Development Fund, she spearheaded five bank-funded affordable housing loan consortia (CRCs) around the country, a statewide small business and community economic development loan fund in California (CEDLI), and the first privately-funded statewide (and now national) environmental restoration (clean-up) fund (CERF). As an independent consultant, Susan has provided strategic planning and new program development for a variety of nonprofit and public-purpose corporations over the years. She has served on the Boards of CEDLI and CERF, and on PTA and alumni Boards. Susan's previous experience was as a Program Auditor for Catholic Relief Services in Africa and internationally, and as a business consultant for McKinsey in New York.
Susan lives in Palo Alto, where she is raising two children, ages 6 and 10.
Barbara Spreng
Barbara has served on many boards, including, Palo Altans for Government Effectiveness (PAGE), Adolescent Counseling Services Board of Advisors, Facing History and Ourselves (regional board), and the Palo Alto Family Resources Foundation. Barbara has worked extensively with PTA, at both the local and state levels. She is Sixth District PTA President 2007-2009, California State PTA Board of Directors and Chair of District Presidents 2007-2008, and was PTA Council President from 1987-91 and 2004-2005.
Barbara lives in Palo Alto, where her interests include education, issues concerning youth and families, and politics. Her professional skills include nonprofit boardsmanship and organizational development, graphic design and layout, writing/messaging, some Excel expertise, fundraising, and event planning.
Elaine Berlin White
Elaine is a former School Board member in the Las Lomitas School District, but is not currently serving on any boards. Elaine is a realtor and an attorney, living in Menlo Park. While in law school, she worked on the Tinsley school desegregation case, for which her father was one of the attorneys. She has been a Rotarian for many years, and was a Soroptimist before that.
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