Officers

Bill Whitmer, Chair
A retired Manufacturing VP at Komag, Inc., Bill began volunteering at Hidden Villa in 1998 and currently serves as Chair of the Hidden Villa Board. Other volunteer activities include Treasurer of the Committee for Green Foothills Board, Local Coordinator of the TaxAide program in Los Altos and computer teacher at Avenidas, the Palo Alto Senior Center. He believes that our mission, with its explicit dual focus on sustainability and social justice, will inspire us in our service to the well-being of our community adding our own contributions to the legacy begun by the Duveneck family.

Sally Falkenhagen, Secretary
Sally Falkenhagen, retired from investment sales overseas, has served on Hidden Villa's Board of Trustees since 2005 and is currently the Secretary of the Board.  She also chairs the Endowment Fund Board for the Junior League of Palo Alto•Mid Peninsula (a volunteer training organization) and the Advisory Board of the Rosalie Rendu Center in East Palo Alto (adult ESL program).  Hidden Villa's commitment to inspiring a just and sustainable future inspire Sally's volunteer work in general and the generosity of the Duveneck family inspire her philanthropy.

Bob Sator, Treasurer
Bob is a long time Finance Executive who has held senior leadership positions in technology companies as well as in Finance and Corporate Governance consulting. He has been a member of the Board at Hidden Villa since 2008 and also serves as Treasurer. Bob believes that everyone, especially children, greatly benefits from experiencing nature and all it has to offer. Hidden Villa's unique ability to provide both access to and education about our environment is a wonderful asset to our community.

Eric Chang, Vice Chair - Mission Fufillment
Eric Chang started volunteering at Hidden Villa in the blacksmith shop in 2007 after discovering during an evening hike that it was unoccupied.  He joined the Board in 2008.  Eric is a R&D engineer working at Synopsys, an electronic design automation tools company.  His field is in modeling, simulating and optimizing physical processes using scientific computing.  At Hidden Villa, there are many opportunities for him to help spread the important values of education, sustainability and social justice via his commitment to empowerment through learning.

Richard Peers , Vice Chair - Board Governance
Rich Peers is counsel in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in their Silicon Valley office.  Before joining McDermott, Rich practiced corporate law at an international law firm for almost 30 years.  Rich was introduced to Hidden Villa when he began hiking its beautiful trails while growing up in Los Altos Hills.  He became a Board member at Hidden Villa in 2009, and currently he is chair of the Board's Governance Committee. Rich is inspired by Hidden Villa's mission of sustainability and social justice because of the growing importance that sustainable living and full civic participation by all citizens has on our communities today and in the future.

Justin Sears, Vice Chair - Development
Justin Sears is a Senior Manager of Online Programs at Symantec. Justin fell in love with Hidden Villa when he taught environmental education there the year after graduating college. Justin joined the Board in 2007 and he currently serves as Vice Chair for Development. Justin grew up exploring the outdoors in Northern California, practicing sustainable agriculture, and volunteering as a health promoter in Latin America. Today, Justin enjoys drawing on those past experiences to promote Hidden Villa's goals of protecting the natural environment and promoting friendships that cross cultures. He takes any chance he can find to visit the ranch with his wife and two young children.

Edgar Chavez
Edgar Chavez joined Hidden Villa’s Board of Directors in 2011 and currently serves at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University as the Director of Stanford College Prep (formerly Stanford Upward Bound), a college access program with a 30-year history at Stanford. Edgar is deeply committed to education access and equity and is honored to serve an organization that works to improve the lives of our young people.

Mary Colvig
Mary Colvig is director of Contributor Engagement at Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web browser.  She has been involved with Mozilla since 2005 and has a background in PR and community marketing.  Her passion for Mozilla's public benefit mission to foster and care for the web helped lead her to Hidden Villa as part of a technology service week. Mary then joined Hidden Villa's Board of trustees in spring of 2010, having been drawn to its mission to inspire a just and sustainable future.  As a proponent of Slow Food, clean eating and the outdoors, Mary is inspired by Hidden Villa's land, food education and Community Supported Agriculture programs. Mary has also been an active volunteer with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team-in-Training program since 2002 where she also gets a chance to indulge her love for running and triathlons.

Mai Dam
Mai joined the Board of Hidden Villa in 2009. Social justice and sustainability have been her compass and mission in life. She is passionate about serving the community, advocating for battered women and youth at risk, conserving and preserving the environment for present and future generations and she believes that Hidden Villa's mission embraces those causes and more. Mai is a Program Coordinator at De Anza College, working with underserved, special needs populations, offering  life skills coaching, career guidance, development of programs with emphasis on internships and employment opportunities.

David Duveneck
David Duveneck has a very long history with the organization, as his grandparents, Josephine and Frank Duveneck, founded Hidden Villa. David joined the Board of Directors in 2005 and enjoys his role in representing the Duveneck family. He deeply believes in the mission of Hidden Villa and is proud to carry on the legacy of the Duveneck family of promoting social justice and environmental education. David is a Landscape Contractor and former certified Nurseryman and has been in this field for the past 35 years.

Joe Eandi
Joe currently is the CEO of Vorstack Corporation, an early stage start-up.  Prior to that he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Foundation Capital and a senior executive at LiveOps during its high growth phase.  Joe joined the Board of Hidden Villa in 2008 where he is very involved with bringing technology to the farm.  Joe's passion is for building well-rounded children through outdoor access and activities.  Joe also coaches softball, soccer and baseball.

Jerry Elkind
Jerry first experienced Hidden Villa in 1971, shortly after his family arrived in Palo Alto from the East Coast, when a friend took him to meet Josephine and Frank and to hike their trails.  He believes Hidden Villa was and is, an amazing example of California landscape, and was also deeply moved by the contributions the Duveneck's had made to their surrounding communities.  He and his wife Linda, and their kids have had a continued affection for Hidden Villa ever since.  Linda has served on the Board, starting shortly after the Hidden Villa Trust was founded and their children attended summer camp and participated in environmental education programs while in school.  Jerry has been on the Board for the last 3 years.

Michael Hamilton
Michael Hamilton, member of the Hidden Villa Board of Trustee, is/was a retired educator with the Las Lomitias Elementary School District, Menlo Park, CA (1966 - 1999). Michael was an early camper at Hidden Villa in 1949 and 1950, and was a counselor in the summers of 1958, 1959 and 1966. He often visited the Duvenecks and Hidden Villa Ranch in the years between 1950 and 1985. After being asked by David Duveneck, grandson of Frank and Josephine Duveneck, he joined the Board of Trustees in 2007. His passion for this place is the preservation of the land and especially the legacy of this valuable place, not only the physical place but also the idea and ideals. There are few other places such as this. His other passion is classical music, for which he has sung in school and church choirs and played in various orchestras and bands most of his life. If it were not for the Duvenecks, he would not be the same person he is.

Shehzad Merchant
Shehzad Merchant is the Vice President of Technology and Strategy at Extreme Networks. Outside of his high technology pursuits, Shehzad has been a frequent visitor to Hidden Villa over the past 10 years, enjoying all that it has to offer from nature trails to organic farming. He passionately shares the mission of Hidden Villa to support sustainability, environmental education and multiculturalism. Shehzad is an avid nature lover and can be frequently spotted walking the trails of Hidden Villa. He joined the Board of Hidden Villa in 2010 and keenly looks forward to furthering it mission.

Martin Neiman
Martin Neiman has been on the Board at Hidden Villa since 2008 currently serving on the finance committee. He also serves on the Board of the Foothill-DeAnza Foundation which supports the local community colleges. Professionally, Martin is a retired high tech executive who spent much of his career developing computer systems that do things we all appreciate, like bringing electricity to our homes and managing data on the Internet. Martin is drawn to Hidden Villa by the dual missions of promoting social justice and building a sustainable future. He also appreciates having such a beautiful piece of land being maintained and dedicated to public uses and enjoyment for the community.

Stew Plock
A retired Senior Market Development Manager at Sun Microsystems.  Stew has been a farm tour guide at Hidden Villa since 1999, joined the Hidden Villa Board in 2009, and currently serves on its Mission Fulfillment and Information Technology committees.  Stew also serves on the Board of ABREN, a nonprofit focused on education in Central America and previously, he was on the Boards of the Peninsula Women’s Chorus (including serving as Board president), the Ecumenical Hunger Program, and Palo Alto’s Family Resources organization.   Hidden Villa’s Environmental Education and Youth Development programs are Stew’s special interests, and his experience as a volunteer maps well with the organization’s direction in these key areas.

Nobuko Saito Cleary
Nobuko is President of Cross Cultural Communications, an international business consulting firm that specializing in US-Japan business relationships. Nobuko became Board member at Hidden Villa in 2010. Her community work includes being a member of the Board of Directors for the Japan Society of Northern California, and Community School of Music and Arts. She is a Trustee for the Northeastern University in Boston and founder of NU’s Asian American Center. She is heavily involved in helping Glaucoma Research Foundation in SF. Nobuko’s passion is to help cultural exchange programs between Japan and America. She has received numerous awards for her community work including: Santa Clara County’s Asian American Hero Award, John Gardner Community Building Award, Mayor’s Award from the Nagoya City Government, Nagoya Japan and the Outstanding Volunteer award from Los Altos-Los Altos Hills.

Leah Sutton
(on leave)

Beth Steinberg
(on leave)
Beth Steinberg has over 18 years of human resource experience in both emerging and Fortune 500 companies. Beth is currently the Vice President of Human Resources at SunRun, a residential solar company based in San Francisco.   Beth’s focus has been on helping leaders and companies with complex organizational and growth issues. Beth was an HR Executive at Nike, focusing on driving employee engagement, leadership coaching, talent management and organizational development. Her previous work also includes consulting for Maveron Venture Capital, Mozilla, SeaChange Capital, The Motley Fool, The New Teacher Center, Lynda.com, and other emerging non profits and technology companies. Beth has held numerous Human Resource Executive positions including the VP of HR at Facebook and Vice President of HR at Electronic Arts. Beth has also held HR positions at Hewlett Packard and Nordstrom. Beth has her BA in Psychology from San Jose State University and attended the Executive Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Beth is very involved with the non-profit community, focusing on venture philanthropy, environmental and education issues. In addition to being on the Board of Trustees at Hidden Villa, Beth also sits on the board of Social Venture Partners. Beth also sits on the Advisory Board of Rypple and of Puppet Labs. In her spare time, Beth is an avid runner and triathlete. She has completed 15 marathons and the Ironman Triathlon.

Richard Thornton
Dick works full time as VP of Fab Operations for one of the few companies still producing silicon chips in Silicon Valley, T.H.A.T Corporation.  Before starting his own family, Dick volunteered as a tutor for children at “Concern for the Poor” shelter in San Jose.  More recently he was expedition leader with his two daughters at the “YMCA Adventure Guides”.  Dick believes that the root cause of many of today’s social and environmental problems stem from a lack of understanding and hopes to help Hidden Villa with their mission “to inspire a just and sustainable future.”

Peter Thurston
A retired Marketing Programs Director at IBM Storage Systems, Peter joined the  Hidden Villa Board in 2009 and currently serves on the Governance and Mission Fulfillment Committees. Other volunteer activities include Hidden Villa Farm and Wilderness Exploration (HVEEP) Guide and Filoli Nature Education Docent. He is a long time Los Altos Hills resident whose children all attended Hidden Villa Summer Camp. He has seen how Hidden Villa’s experienced-based Summer Camp and Environmental Education touches the lives of so many children from diverse cultural backgrounds and is helping build future leaders who are committed to creating a more just and sustainable future.

David D. Ulate, Ph.D
A recent graduate of UC Davis’s School of Education, David has been working in education all his professional life.  A former high school math teacher, he now looks to working in California’s community college system to help improve the postsecondary experience of all students.  As a new Board member, David looks forward to using his experience in research and program evaluation to help Hidden Villa improve the effectiveness of all its wonderful programs and to build on its legacy as a teacher of environmental education and social justice.

Rita Whitney
Rita joined the Board in June 2010 and serves on the Mission Fulfillment Committee. She is CEO of Ravivant LLC, a Board member of United States Fencing Association (Central California Division) and Executive Director of the Stanford Fencing Association.  Having grown up in New York City, Rita observed many situations where people did not have a voice, and she often tried to help be that voice.  As an advocate who is concerned about cultural and economic limitations of people and groups, she is happy to be associated with Hidden Villa, a place that is sensitive to others and the environment. Rita loves the outdoors and how the Duveneck family has shared Hidden Villa with the community; she is proud to be part of a Board that works together to keep the vision of the Duvenecks alive.