Meet the Board: Community Members
Trey Dunbar
Executive Director of Santa Cruz County Employees Credit Union
Trey Dunbar was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. He earned a B.A. degree from the University of Redlands in southern California in 1977. He has been a resident of Santa Cruz County for 28 years.
Trey has been the President/CEO of the Santa Cruz County Employees Credit Union for the past 8½ years. Prior to his present position, he was the Chief Financial Officer of the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union for 5 years. His work background also includes small business ownership and management.
Trey previously served for 5 years on the Board of Directors of the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union including three terms on the Executive Committee and one term as Chair of the Board. He is currently serving on the Audit Committee of Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz. Trey has extensive experience with “participatory” and “consensus” decision-making processes on both governance and management levels of organizations.
Peter Gaarn
Peter is an organizational and management consultant with over 30 years of industry experience. Peter was raised in the Bronx, New York and came to Santa Cruz in 1975 to attend UCSC. He received his BA in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz in 1977 and Masters in SOcial Welfare from UC Berkeley in 1981. Peter has been a resident of Santa Cruz County for 33 years and lives in Soquel with his wife, four children and 90+ year old parents.
Peter started his career at Youth Services before entering graduate school and then went on to spend 10 years at Lockheed-Martin and 15 years at Hewlett Packard in a variety of consulting, management and executive positions. Before leaving HP, Peter was the Director of Culture and Community Building for the company. In October of 2005, Peter started his own Management Consulting Business that serves both profit and not-for-profit businesses. Peter joined the SCCCC Board of Trustees in 1998 and is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Steve Vencill
Community Recovery Services Representative
Steve Vencill has been a resident of Santa Cruz County for about 35 years. He currently lives in Ben Lomond with his wife and 3 children. Steve has a son attending Azuza-Pacific University. A graduate of Sunflower House, Steve has been in recovery for over 22 years. He has been a successful entrepreneur and businessman since the beginning of his recovery time. He is President and Founder of Refrigerated Facility Design Build, Inc. located in Felton with an office in Los Angeles. Prior to that, Steve was employed with the start-up of Indian Motorcycle.
Steve is very involved in the community. Steve is very active working with people in recovery and has been a licensed pastor for many years. He is a member of the New Hope Church in Scotts Valley. Steve has been married to his wife, Carla, for 15 years.
Phyllis Wasserstrom
Community Support Services Representative
Phyllis is the mother of four adult children and grandmother of 4 teenagers. She has lived in Santa Cruz for almost 30 years. Shortly after she arrived here, she began working at Youth Services occupying a variety of positions over a 15 year period, first as a counselor, then as program manager, and finally, as Component Director.
She has been involved in a variety of community volunteer activities including memberships on the Human Services Commission and the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, facilitating support groups at WomenCare, and doing bereavement counseling at Hospice Caring Project.
Says Phyllis, “I am truly pleased and honored to be on the SCCCC Board. I look forward to participating in the agency for a long time to come."
Carmen Arriaga-Kamasuka
Bio Coming Soon!
Roberto Hernandez
Bio Coming Soon!
Cindy Mekis
Cindy is a native of Santa Cruz. She earned a Bachelor of Science in nursing from San Jose State, attended graduate school at the University of California, San Francisco where she received a Master's of Science degree in nursing and a minor in education. She is the Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) for Regional Medical Center of San Jose where she has worked for over 17 years, first as a labor and delivery nurse then as CNS. She lives in Santa Cruz and has two children.
Cindy has been actively involved in national patient safety related to perinatal medicine, has worked with several national corporate committee/advisory groups on developing programs for improving heathcare processes, safety and care, and promoting best practices. She taught nursing school and traveled aroudn the country teaching classes.
"I am awed by the number of clients served and the programs and services provided, the diversity of both the staff and the clients, and the vast benefit the public realizes from SCCCC. More people should get involved in such a wonderful program and help others. I am honored to serve on the board of a non-profit that does so much for so many."
Heather Morse
Bio Coming Soon!
Juan Jose Negrete
Bio Coming Soon!
Bruce Neustadter
Bio Coming Soon!
Michelle Chao
Bio Coming Soon!
Staff Advisors
Connie Munoz-Chappell
Administrative Services
Connie moved to Santa Cruz in 1990 from Germany and began working at SCCCC in 1991 as a PA III, providing clerical support to the Executive Director. Connie is now the agency-wide Manager of Information Technology (IT), working out of the Administrative Services offices. She and her staff are responsible for providing HelpDesk support to approximately 320 staff members. Connie, with the assistance of the IT Committee, drafted the agency’s first IT Strategic Plan from which she and her staff work to achieve its outcomes.
This is Connie’s fourth time serving as Staff Advisor for Admin Services.
Connie is a proud mother to college student Samantha. Connie enjoys bowling, traveling, and playing with her sweet Rat Terrier doglets, ‘Kota and Roxy.
“When I left Germany and the military life in 1990, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived in Santa Cruz. I had worked as the Director of the Consumer Affairs and Financial Assistance Program in Mannheim, Germany for 7 years and wanted to stay in the field of helping people. It was very discouraging when I started searching employment opportunities. I remember sending in my application to SCCCC and not hearing for months. Then about 3 months later, I received a phone call asking me to come in for an interview and as the saying goes—the rest is history. Although I am no longer involved in helping individuals directly, just being part of this agency makes me feel very good inside. I love working at SCCCC and can say with out a doubt it's the best place I have ever worked.”
Crystal Nicholls
Community Support Services
I was born in Australia and raised in Aptos, and for the past 20 years I have mainly lived in Santa Cruz County. During this time, I have traveled to many parts of the world and have been submerged in many different cultures, including celebrating my 15th birthday with a traditional celebration called a Quincieñera in a small town in Colima, Mexico.
After attending Aptos High, I graduated four years later from St. Mary’s College with a BA in Sociology/Anthropology and a minor in Psychology. During my junior year of college, I studied abroad by spending the first 6 months living with a family in Sevilla, Spain, where I spent my afternoons flamenco dancing and learning the Sevilliana lifestyle. The last 6 months was spent teaching health education to women in a South African township. While attending the University of Capetown, I researched the beliefs and attitudes towards pregnancies among township teenage youth.
Currently, I work as a Money Management Counselor for CSS and spend my free time doing yoga, playing volleyball, running, cooking, sewing, and taking photos.
Jan Carey
Community Recovery Services
Jan Carey, a 1978 Sunflower House graduate, has lived in Santa Cruz since 1976. She has been in the recovery business for 26 years and has worked for SCCCC off and on for 17 years. She lost her daughter to a drug overdose in 2000 and is thankful that the recovery community and her family who helped her through that most difficult time.
Jan, a grandmother and a great-grandmother, raised her oldest grandchild from age 9—she is now 22 with a 2 1/2 year old of her own.
Jan worked on the “front lines” at ALTO for a long time and only moved to a management position after her grandchild was raised.
The high points of her 21 years of sobriety (yes, says, Jan, she drank the first few years after working in this business—everyone did), have been buying her own home, raising her granddaughter, reuniting with her family, making amends to her mother before she died, becoming a certified addiction specialist, enjoying the quality people who participate in her life, and of course being able to aid others in their paths to recovery.
Lynn Lauridsen
Child and Family Development Programs
Lynn Lauridsen is the Health Manager for Head Start/Early Head Start and a nine-year resident of Santa Cruz. As a community health educator, Lynn has worked in a variety of settings including urban Boston and rural, western Maryland. Lynn has a BA from Bates College in Maine and a Masters of Public Health from the University of Connecticut - but her real education is provided by her two daughters.
Michael Bogren
Youth Services
