Staff & Board Archive - The California Wellness Foundation

Xóchitl Castañeda

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:53 +0000

In September 2015, Xóchitl Castañeda was elected to The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. As of January 2025, she is Cal Wellness' Board Secretary. She is the Founding Director of the Health Initiative of the Americas within University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health, a program she founded in 2001.

Her leadership to improve the health and the quality of life of underserved populations is widely recognized. In 2020 Castaneda received the Mexican National Award of Health in the category of “Sin Fronteras” (No Borders) for her lifetime of work to improve the health of Mexicans living abroad. In 2019, she received the Othli Award, one of the most prestigious distinction presented by the Mexican Government to a person who has positively affected the lives of immigrants in the United States. In 2010, the California Latino Legislative Caucus honored her with the National Spirit Award for her leadership to improve the health of Latinos in the U.S. In 1999, she received the National Mexican Award on Social Science and Medicine.

Castañeda has served on numerous boards and advisory committees. She is currently treasurer and development board chair for the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California; a member of the California Immigrant Policy Center; a Board Member of the National Council of Mexican Federations in North America (COFEM) and a member of the Médica Sur Hospital’s Board of Directors in Mexico.

Xochitl’s vision and commitment has led to the creation of nationally recognized health programs for underserved populations. Under her direction, Binational Health Week, one of the largest mobilization efforts in the Americas to improve the wellbeing of Latino immigrants, has been celebrated for 20 consecutive years. She created the Annual Binational Policy Forum on Migration and Global Health, a collaboration among 30 Universities and over 200 agencies. She is also the founder of the “Athenea Network” a world organization for Mental Health of Mobile Populations.

A medical anthropologist by training, Xóchitl was educated in Guatemala and Mexico and completed three post-doctoral fellowships: UC San Francisco, Harvard and Amsterdam University. Since 2008, she has served as a Professor of Migration and Health at UC Berkeley.

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Irma Cota

Stephanie Myers — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 22:20:40 +0000

In December 2020, Irma Cota was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Cota has dedicated her 42-year career to public health primarily in the community health center sector in San Diego County.

From 1997 to March of 2018, Cota was the CEO of North County Health Project, also known as North County Health Services (NCHS). Under her leadership, NCHS went from five clinics with a $12 million budget to a system of 10 comprehensive health centers with a $74 million budget serving more than 66,000 patients. She also helped build capacity by expanding its primary care services, dental services, behavioral health and specialty care.

Cota came full circle in her professional career when she was hired at NCHS as its CEO. She began her career at NCHS in 1977 by running a rural clinic and also spent five years from 1982-87 as Maternal and Child Health Director.

In addition, Cota served as Chief Administrative Officer at San Ysidro Health Center from 1987-91 and Chief Administrative Officer at Sharp Healthcare nonprofit The Birth Center and its Physician Affiliate Ob-Gyn Consultants from 1991-97.

She graduated from San Diego State University in 1976 with a bachelor’s of science in community health and received her master’s in public health from San Diego State University. She earned executive healthcare leadership certifications from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and UCSD Extension as well as an executive leadership in nonprofits certificate from Harvard University. Cota also currently serves on several Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards, including The Conrad Prebys Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation, and the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California. She also contributes her expertise to the Advisory Boards of San Diego State University's School of Public Health, Rady Children’s T. Denny Sanford Behavioral Health Center, the San Diego Foundation’s El Camino Fund Advisory Council, and the CEO Advisory Council for North County Lifeline Community Services. Her past board leadership includes roles as Board Chair and committee member for organizations such as the Alliance Healthcare Foundation, California Primary Care Association, National Cooperative Bank and its affiliate National Impact Bank, and Southern California Healthcare Partners. She has also served on the boards of The Elizabeth Hospice, City National Bank’s San Diego Advisory Board, and the California State University San Marcos University Council.

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Virginia Hedrick

Stephanie Myers — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 22:09:45 +0000

In December 2020, Virginia Hedrick was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Hedrick is currently the executive director for the Consortium for Urban Indian Health. She is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe of California and is also of Karuk descent.

She has more than 13 years of experience in public health which includes chronic disease prevention, implementation and policy impacts of the Affordable Care Act for California tribes, as well as health research. She holds bachelor of arts degrees in sociology and American Indian studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, a graduate certificate in Maternal Child Health Epidemiology from the University of Arizona, and a master’s of public health degree from Drexel University.

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Katherine Katcher

Stephanie Myers — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 22:17:43 +0000

In December 2020, Katherine Katcher was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. She is a social justice attorney working to create a more just and inclusive economy, focusing on growing the Ownership Economy. Katcher has 20 years of work experience in the policy and nonprofit sectors with a broad range of roles and experiences, addressing social, economic, and racial inequality.

Katcher is the Director of Partnerships & Capital Mobilization Initiatives at the Ownership Capital Lab, an organization that works to identify, pilot and support strategies to scale employee-ownership across the United States to to close the racial wealth gap, preserve small businesses, and maintain and grow quality jobs in local economies. Katcher is also a Fellow with the Just Economy Institute, a learning community for leaders and financial activists who are shifting the flow of capital and power to support the well-being of all people and the planet. Prior to her work with the Ownership Capital Lab, Katcher was the Justice Policy Lead for the Yurok Tribe, where she worked on strategies to end the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in California and nationally. Prior to her work for the Yurok Tribal Government, Katcher was the founding executive director of Root & Rebound, which works to restore power and resources to the families and communities most harmed by mass incarceration. Much of this work was focused on economic inclusion, working to reduce barriers to employment, housing, and economic opportunity.

Katcher's dedication to social and racial justice is rooted in her Jewish cultural upbringing and the moral teachings of her ancestors, understanding that when the Jewish community says, “Never Again,” it applies to all of the suffering in the world caused by state-based discrimination, racism, and oppression. She received her bachelor of arts degree in anthropology from Columbia University, where she focused her research and studies on communities living in asylum and exile. Katcher received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She is an attorney licensed to practice in the state of California.

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John Kim

Stephanie Myers — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:40:20 +0000

In fall 2024, John Kim was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Since joining Catalyst California (then called Advancement Project California) in 2002, Kim has been lifting up the voice and needs of low-income communities of color to transform systems and expand opportunities for all. Through the innovation of new tools and the building of multi-racial coalitions, he has overseen the development of critical movement infrastructure used across the state and directly engaged in campaigns to redirect billions in public and private dollars.

Kim was initially hired as the Founding Director of the Healthy City Project, which established the model of what online, GIS mapping technology could do to support grassroots advocacy, governmental and philanthropic strategic planning, and service referrals. The technology was leveraged by thousands of users to inform budgetary and programmatic decision-making in fields spanning community health to education while also transforming how California approached decennial processes like the Census and redistricting. The breadth of the technological innovations and advocacy-focused mission of Healthy City was featured in publications such as The Economist and Fast Company and inspired dozens of similar initiatives across the state.

He was then promoted to Managing Director of Advancement Project California where he anchored the strategic planning process to transform it into a statewide organization and partnered with leadership to nearly triple its budget and staffing. He also supported the Founding Co-Directors in launching a wide range of new initiatives from early care and education/K-12 financing, gang intervention/prevention, and police reform. He was eventually promoted by the Board of Directors to a full Co-Director of the Advancement Project alongside Molly Munger, Connie Rice, Penda Hair, Judith Browne Dianis and Steve English in 2008.

As the organization continued to grow, Kim was appointed the sole Executive Director of the California office in 2014 where he oversaw a second major strategic pivot for the organization from its positioning as an independent, “elite” policy shop to a much more interconnected, and accountable movement institution. And in 2022, he partnered with Executive Director of Advancement Project National, Judith Browne Dianis, to restructure the offices into two stand-alone organizations and rebranded the California office as Catalyst California.

Prior to his work at Advancement Project, Kim was both a youth organizer and cultural worker/performer in traditional Korean drumming in the East Bay, focusing mostly on building multi-racial alliances and visibility and power for underrepresented communities in the Bay Area. While serving as the Executive Director at the Korean Community Center of the East Bay, he was recognized by KQED Channel 9 as the 2001 Local Hero of the Year Award, and by then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown with the proclamation of a “John K. Kim Day.”

He began his organizing/movement work as an undergrad at UC Berkeley and was able to complete a BA degree in Interdisciplinary Studies Field (focused on Music Cognition and Aesthetics) and nearly completed a second bachelor’s degree in psychology.

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Joseph M. Lumarda

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:53 +0000

Joseph M. Lumarda has been a director on the Board of The California Wellness Foundation since September 2014. He served as vice chair in 2016-2017 and was elected chair in December 2018. Lumarda is senior vice president and investment counselor for Capital Group Private Client Services, which provides investment management and financial planning services for individuals, families, trusts, foundations and nonprofit institutions.

Prior to joining Capital, Lumarda spent 16 years at the California Community Foundation in the roles of program officer, vice president for development, executive vice president and chief operating officer. During that time, he also served as an independent director for Capital Research and Management Company’s Endowment funds, a series of investment portfolios designed exclusively for nonprofit organizations. Before that, he spent three years on active duty and five years in the reserves with the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and naval flight officer on the P3 Orion anti-submarine warfare aircraft.

Lumarda earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Saint John’s Seminary College and a master’s degree in business administration from Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. He is currently on the board of Southern California Grantmakers, the Los Angeles Natural History Museum and the Saint Joseph Community Partnership Fund.

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Terence Mulligan

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:38 +0000

In September 2017, Terence Mulligan was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. In January 2021, he was elected to serve as Cal Wellness' Board Treasurer and in fall 2024, he was elected as Board Chair. Mulligan is the chief executive officer of Napa Valley Community Foundation. In this capacity, he serves as the primary liaison with the board of directors and all committees, and directs all asset development, community leadership and donor engagement activities of NVCF.

Prior to joining NVCF in February 2004, Mulligan spent three years at the Peninsula Community Foundation in Silicon Valley, helping to raise more than $100 million from individuals, families and corporations. He has a mix of public and private sector experience, including working at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Institute for International Economics, and Accenture.

He is a native of the Sacramento Valley and holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.

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Debra Nakatomi

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:53 +0000

Debra Nakatomi has been a director on the Board of The California Wellness Foundation since September 2014 and served as chair in 2017 and 2018. Nakatomi is president of Nakatomi & Associates, a Santa Monica-based communications firm dedicated to advancing social change and promoting equity and awareness initiatives for nonprofit, public and private organizations committed to social good. As an advisor to CEOs and executive teams, the firm designs communications and culture change initiatives.

Nakatomi has more than 30 years of experience in community education, public affairs and communications serving organizations committed to building philanthropy for women and girls, promoting health equity and advancing wellness for underserved communities. Nakatomi is chair-elect of the Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corporation and former board secretary and international commissioner for Girl Scouts of the USA. She previously served as vice chair of Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum and chair of the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation.

Nakatomi is co-producer of “Stories From Tohoku,” a one-hour documentary that aired on PBS in 2014 chronicling survivors’ stories of courage and resilience after the 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. She is co-producer of a film profiling the life and career of Secretary Norman Mineta, who began his early years as an internee in a Japanese American Internment Camp and rose to serve in Congress as secretary of commerce and secretary of transportation under Presidents Clinton and Bush, respectively.

Nakatomi received her bachelor’s degree from California State University, Sacramento. She is a graduate of UCLA’s Management Development Program for Entrepreneurs, Gallup Leadership Institute, a fellow of the Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Institute and a member of the 2009 Japanese American Leadership Delegation. She is recipient of the Changing the Face of Philanthropy award from the Women’s Funding Network.

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Kaci Patterson

Stephanie Myers — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:20:26 +0000

In fall 2024, Kaci Patterson was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Patterson launched Social Good Solutions (SGS) in 2014 after nearly 18 years of working in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Always with an eye toward human and community development, she has designed SGS to work with philanthropic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and public entities to co-create, operationalize, and manage strategic initiatives from concept to implementation, using a racial justice and inclusive, democratic framework to guide the work.

Prior to consulting, Patterson held entry-to-executive-level roles within the nonprofit sector, leading capacity building, education advocacy, and social justice initiatives where she facilitated networks of organizations and served over 1,000 civil society leaders and public officials worldwide. In addition to managing multi-million-dollar grant-making portfolios in the United States and abroad, she has created programs recognized as breakthrough contributions in her field: the School Boards and Community Engagement Initiative (2011) and B.L.A.C.C. (Building Leaders and Cultivating Change), a grassroots social activism fund (2014). She was named a California Community Foundation Unsung Hero of Los Angeles for her work with the fund (2016); named to the first 40 under 40 class by the Empowerment Congress (2016); honored with the Wally Marks Change-Maker of the Year award by Liberty Hill Foundation (2017); chosen as a LA CAN Freedom Now award recipient (2019) and was selected into the 2019 inaugural class of The Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship.

She has served as the Chief Strategist of the Black Equity Initiative since its inception in 2017, a racial justice philanthropic initiative she designed, and now serves as the Chief Architect of the Black Equity Collective, which launched in 2021 under her leadership.

Patterson sits on the Board of Social Justice Partners—Los Angeles, Tides Advocacy, and was a State Commissioner in the Department of Consumer Affairs from 2014 to 2022. She is a certified mediator, a graduate of Pepperdine, and holds an MBA in Organizational Management & Leadership from the University of LaVerne.

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Arnold X.C. Perkins

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:53 +0000

In September 2015, Arnold X.C. Perkins was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Perkins was the director of the Alameda County Public Health Department from 1994 through 2006, where he led the department through an organizational shift to reflect a community development orientation. He is currently a consultant and speaker in a number of areas, including youth development, intergenerational work in African American communities, HIV and AIDS, organizational change and community engagement. He works with foundations, government agencies, community groups, law enforcement, hospitals, school districts and others.

Perkins has served in several diverse positions throughout his career, including as director of the Alameda County Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program; program officer at The San Francisco Foundation; coordinator of the Alameda County Homeless Program; coexecutive director of Youth Advocates; faculty member for California State University, Hayward, and for Antioch University West; and high school teacher and principal with Berkeley Unified School District.

As a respected and knowledgeable community leader, he is valued as a member of several boards, including Youth Radio and Triple Step Toward the Cure, and as board secretary for Urban Habitat. Perkins is also chair of the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Delinquency Commission, the University of California at San Francisco’s Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center advisory board and The Mentoring Center board.

Perkins has received numerous awards and recognitions from organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control, the United Way of the Bay Area and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2014, The California Endowment awarded Perkins with the Health Equity Founders Award and created the Arnold X. Perkins Award for Outstanding Health Equity Practices in his honor. In 2007, Perkins also received The San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award.

He received his bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University; completed master’s coursework at California State University, Hayward; and received his teaching credential from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds an honorary doctorate from The Professional School of Psychology in Sacramento.

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Angelica Salas

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:38 +0000

In September 2017, Angelica Salas was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. In January 2021, she was elected to serve as Cal Wellness' board secretary. Salas is the executive director of CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. In this role since 1999, she has spearheaded several ambitious campaigns locally, statewide and nationally. She helped win in-state tuition for undocumented immigrant students and helped establish day laborer job centers that have served as a model for the rest of the nation. She led efforts to allow all California drivers to obtain driver licenses and, as an active member of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement and Reform Immigration for America, she is a leading spokesperson on federal immigration policy.

Under her leadership, CHIRLA and its partners across the country have built the foundation for the recent upsurge in immigrant rights activism. As a member of a national coordinating committee, Salas helped convene a coalition of organizations in California that have successfully mobilized millions of immigrants to demand comprehensive immigration reform, including legalization with a path to citizenship, family reunification, and the protection of civil and labor rights.

One of Salas’ greatest accomplishments at CHIRLA has been the transformation of a coalition of social service providers into an organization that empowers immigrants to engage in advocacy on their own behalf. In this respect, she has blazed a pioneering trail among immigrant coalitions around the country and has propelled other immigrant rights groups to follow her lead.

She comes by her understanding of the immigrant experience firsthand. As a 5-year-old, Angelica came to the U.S. from Mexico to rejoin her parents who had come to the U.S. to find work and better provide for their family.

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Pamela J. Simms-Mackey, M.D., FAAP

Sanja alajbegovic — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:44:38 +0000

In September 2015, Pamela J. Simms-Mackey, M.D., FAAP, was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors, and in January 2019 she was named treasurer and in January 2021 she was elected Board Chair.

She is the Chair of Pediatrics and Chief of Graduate Medical Education at Alameda Health System. Prior to her role at AHS, Simms-Mackey was the director of Graduate Medical Education and Pediatric Residency Program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She also holds an appointment as a clinical professor of Pediatrics with University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine, educating medical students as well as pediatric residents.

Previously, Simms-Mackey was the director and a physician facilitator for the Multicultural Curriculum Program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She has also worked on research projects at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and Stanford Medical Center, and collaborated on a project with UCLA. She was a Commissioner for First 5 Alameda County from 2004-2018 and chair of that Commission from 2007-2017, which works with approximately 80 partners throughout the county to provide continuous prevention and early intervention to promote optimal health and development and narrow disparities for children from ages 0 to 5 and their families. She was also a columnist for Family Digest Baby from 1999 to 2000.

She was honored as one the recipients of the 2013 Women of the Year Award from Nancy Skinner’s Assembly district office. Since 2010, she has annually been voted as one of the Bay Area’s best doctors and was the featured physician for the 2011 edition of Oakland Magazine. Simms-Mackey is also the recipient of the Stanley M. Higashino, MD Award for Clinical Excellence from UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Pediatric Residency Program and the Charles R. Drew MD Award for Clinical Excellence from the UCLA Charles R. Drew Medical Education Program.

Simms-Mackey currently serves on the American Board of Pediatrics Board of Directors, after serving on the ABP's Maintenance of Certification Examination Committee and Future of Testing Committee. Serving in hospital leadership, she also currently chairs the Graduate Medical Education Committee and is a member of the Continuing Medical Education Committee and Medical Executive Committee.

Simms-Mackey received her bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University, her doctorate in medicine from the UCLA/Drew Medical Education Program and is an alumna of the California Health Care Foundation Health Care Executive Leadership Program.

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