Meet Our Team

Board of Directors

Tina Neuhausel (she/her), President & Co-Founder

Tina has spent the last sixteen years of her professional life helping to advance sustainable technologies and encouraging a more sustainable society. Tina founded and has run Sustainable Contra Costa since 2007. She has served as Outreach Director for Sustainable San Mateo County (2006-2010) and consulted with governments and businesses on renewable energy projects and policies, and sustainable building and business practices as Owner of Next Generation Energy Network (2004-2007). Tina served as Policy Aide to [then] Santa Clara County Supervisor Jim Beall focusing on energy, work-force development, transportation, and land-use issues, and created the Santa Clara County Fuel Cell Advancement Initiative. Tina has eight years executive management experience in the hotel industry. She received her Master of Public Administration degree from San Francisco State University.

Lisa Paine (she/her), Vice President

Lisa Paine is an activist, a mother of three and a management consultant. Lisa’s drive is fueled by a relentless and foundational conviction in social & environmental justice and diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI). Lisa is a Senior Consultant at Propeller, where she is also the Environmental, Social and Governance Lead. Lisa also helped in shaping the DEI strategy at the firm. Lisa has over 25 years of consulting experience with a proven track record of guiding sustainable, long-term business innovation by partnering cross-functionally. Lisa is a particularly creative problem solver, especially where structure and order are required in complex or ambiguous business situations.

Lisa is also is active with grassroots movements of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence. She loves to spend time with her family and is an avid skier, hiker, open water swimmer and cyclist.

Kimberly Lam (she/her), Director

Kimberly joined the SCOCO Board of Directors in 2013 and has been a volunteer since 2012. She is a Municipal Manager for Republic Services and previously was a Recycling Coordinator for Central Contra Costa. Before working at Republic Services, Kimberly worked in the Global Environmental Sustainability team at Levi Strauss & Co. and was a champion of sustainability and waste reduction at the University of California, Berkeley. Kimberly has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and a minor in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.

Charlie Chen, Treasurer

Charlie has been a resident of Danville and Contra Costa County for over 20 years. He has 25 years of finance experience, including leadership roles in treasury, financial planning and
analysis, investor relations and strategic planning. Charlie holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of California-Berkeley.

Carrie King (she/her), Director

Carrie King has been a resident of West Contra Costa since 2019. She holds a B.A. in International Studies from UC San Diego and an MPH from UC Davis. During her study of public health, she took a class that sparked her interest in the intersection of sustainability and health outcomes. Carrie began her career in nonprofits, managing farmers markets and promoting nutrition education programming. Later, she served as the Communications & Development Manager for the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program. She worked in staff & faculty wellbeing at UC Davis and UC Berkeley before transitioning to a career in health technology. She joined SCOCO in the summer of 2023 while seeking ways to engage with her community. Carrie lives with her husband and their two giant chocolate labs, Yoshi and Carl, and they are avid fans of exploring the East Bay Regional Parks.

Staff

Eliana Batrez (she/her), Language & Program Specialist

Eliana was born and raised in San Jose and moved to Contra Costa county after graduating from Saint Mary’s College of California. She holds a BA in Spanish Linguistics & Communication, with a minor in Ethnic Studies. Eliana is passionate about social justice, specifically community engagement and equitable access to community resources. She is excited to join the SCOCO community and admires the organization’s dedication to energizing individuals to create change within their own communities. Most of all, she is enjoying learning more about social justice through sustainability, especially with regards to energy efficiency and conservation. Outside of work, Eliana enjoys reading, puns, and riding her bike around her new neighborhood.

Doug Bleakly (he/him), Director of Operations

Doug Bleakly has more than four decades of U.S. and International Management and Technical experience in Water/Wastewater, Environmental Services, Energy Efficiency and Energy Resources. Since joining SCOCO in 2016 he has served as program manager for several community outreach and education projects, including East Bay Energy Watch, and SCOCO’s contract with Central Contra Costa Sanitary District to conduct the District’s education programs for elementary and high school students. In addition to overseeing budgets and schedules for the District’s education programs, Doug has served as instructor for more than 150 week-long lab-based wastewater classes at high schools throughout the District’s service area. Doug holds a BA in geology from the University of Colorado and is a registered Professional Geologist in the State of California. His geology training gave him an early awareness of the causes and impending impacts of Climate Change. He is now focused on building a sustainable future for coming generations.

Chelsea Hite, Education Coordinator

Originally hailing from the Central Coast, Chelsea has spent her career working with children from across the globe. She has her BA in Global Studies from Sonoma State University and MS in Instructional Design from the University of Alabama Birmingham. She has taught in Morocco, China and the USA, focusing on language, accessibility and teacher training. Joining SCOCO is a great opportunity to get back in the classroom and impact youth sustainability practices and mindset in Contra Costa county. She and her husband have recently moved to Oakland, where they are slowly working their way through every local restaurant, and make middling crochet.

Bob Miller, Instructor

Bob has always wanted to learn all he could about the world around him and share that learning with others. He majored in Biology and Geology in college, then spent over thirty years teaching math and science in Middle School and High School. He’s looking forward to spending time helping young people to appreciate their role in maintaining the health of our Earth home.

Tyler Snortum-Phelps (he/him), Program Administrator

Tyler joined Sustainable Contra Costa in July of 2014. After a career in radio and progressive politics, Tyler spent many years providing ecology and gardening education in a variety of settings, including Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Diablo Nature Adventures and the Oakland Museum Natural Sciences Gallery. He has taught home composting workshops for 20 years. He was a natural science teacher at The Gardens at Heather Farm and then became Operations Manager at The Gardens, a position he held for 9 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Broadcasting from San Francisco State University and is a Certfiied Master Composter. He and his wife are also co-directors of the music program at Unity of Walnut Creek, and he loves to cook, sing, and hike in the hills.

Laura Wehrley, Outreach Director

Laura moved to Contra Costa once her twins were 1 year old and she realized she couldn’t push their huge, double stroller up the hills of San Francisco anymore. She loves the nature, ample parking spaces, various parks and friendly neighbors of our beautiful county. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a dual degree in International Relations and Business Administration. She started work in Kansas City in the transportation industry where she was affectionately nicknamed, “the treehugger” for setting up a paper recycling system at her office. Her sales territory took her to San Francisco where she found a new job with a cultural exchange firm. During the 12 years at this company, she got the opportunity to travel to some amazing places, like Thailand and Brazil, and work with some amazing people. She was proud to digitize many of the companies’ documents and agreements to reduce paper waste. She started volunteering with SCOCO in early 2021 as she felt compelled to reduce waste and increase sustainability in her community. She lives with her family, including twin boys and a girl, in Lafayette.

Advisory Council

Lynette Busby
Michael Cass
Congressman Mark DeSaulnier
Cindy Gershen
Julie Haas-Wajdowicz
Trathen Heckman
Rita Holder
Jay Lifson
Kim MacKaye
Bob Simmons
Mark Westwind
Oren Wool
Laura Wright