E. Christopher Wilder

Chairman of the Board
Executive Director, The VMC Foundation

Chris Wilder is the Executive Director of the Valley Medical Center (VMC) Foundation.  To support the growing needs of patients served by the Santa Clara Valley Health & Hospital System, The VMC Foundation seeks donations from individuals, corporations and foundations.  Since coming on board in December 2003, Chris has led the VMC Foundation in raising more money in five years than in the previous sixteen combined.  He was most recently named “Outstanding Professional Fund Raiser for 2008" by the Association of Fund Raising Professionals.
 
Also in 2008, Chris led the effort to pass “Measure A”, a county-wide ballot initiative which raised $840,000,000 to rebuild Valley Medical Center’s seismically outdated hospital buildings.  Measure A was approved by over 78% of Santa Clara County voters—the largest vote getter of any issue or candidate on the ballot.
 
Chris’s 20-year career in the Public Benefit Sector began as a consumer activist (Fund for Public Interest Research, 1990-1996), to running the Vanished Children’s Alliance (1996-1999), a national missing children’s agency, to leading City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley – the nation’s premiere AmeriCorps program (1999-2003).

Chris has performed music of many genres in over two dozen nations and plays bass in www.alteredrootsquartet.com
 
He serves on the board of the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation, the Leadership Council of the American Diabetes Association, has hosted and produced two award-winning cable TV talk shows, and spent 9 years on Santa Clara County’s Child Abuse Council.  Chris lives in Los Gatos with his wife Kate and many, many animals.
 
Chris’s recent writings and thoughts can be found at
www.wildersideofhealth.blogspot.com 

Arturo Riera

Vice-Chairman of the Board
Director of Sales Development, CBS TV Station Group- San Francisco

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Arturo Riera has worked in Bay Area broadcasting since 1981 and in 2008 was named Director of Sales Development for the CBS Television Station Group in San Francisco which operates KPIX-TV, KBCW-TV, cbs5.com and cwbayarea.com after serving as Digital Sales Manager for CBS.

In 2010 Riera joined the Board of Directors of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. Riera is a member of the Board of Directors of San Jose Jazz since 2005 and he served two years as Chairman. In April 2007 Arturo was elected Chairman of the Board of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

In 2007 he received the Latino Business Leadership award from the San Francisco Latino Chamber of Commerce, the first award ever given for Arts and Culture. In 2008 he was nominated for a Silicon Valley Arts and Business Leadership Award awarded by Arts Council Silicon Valley.  In 2007 he received commendations from the United States House of Representatives, California State Legislature, California State Senate and the City and County of San Francisco recognizing his contributions to Bay Area arts and culture.

A co-founder of The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco, Arturo serves as the group's Managing Director. He produced The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble CD's , LJYE Live at Yoshi's, released in January 2006 and Generaciones released in January of 2010. He is a prolific writer and photographer of the Bay Area Latin Jazz scene. His articles, artist profiles, photographs and videos can be found on his website, MisterLatinJazz.com.
 

 Mary P. Curtis, Board Member

President and CEO 
Pacifico Inc.

Mary Pacifico Curtis, president and CEO, directs the strategic and public relations activities that the company provides to its clients. Central to the strategies developed for Pacifico clients is the notion that branding builds differentiation and value for products competing in crowded markets.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Mary currently serves on the board of thChildren’s Musical Theater, as an Arts Commissioner for the Town of Los Gatos and on the founding advisory committee for San Jose Rocks. In the recent past, she chaired Ad Club Silicon Valley, served on the board of directors of the San Jose Jazz Society, and was a director and board chair of the San Jose Symphony Orchestra. She also has served as a member of the Mayor's New Realities Task Force, an executive trustee for the Silicon Valley Arts Fund, and a director of the Children’s Discovery Museum and the Metro YMCA. 

Ms. Curtis has also served on the advisory boards of private startups, including FemRay(sold to Disney), Adjectivity, Heritage Bank, MyDriver, Red Herring, Upside, CycleByNet, EcoWorld, Talktiva and Terra Card Services.

A recipient of the American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award recognizing both excellence in the industry as well as social responsibility, Mary is a frequent speaker on topics pertaining to branding and marketing. Pacifico participates actively in a number of professional organizations and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, and the Business Marketing Association.

Jan De Carli, Board Member

Broker, Coldwell Banker

Jan De Carli Graduated from St Marys grade school , Campell high school and San jose State University.She is a Broker with Coldwell Banker with 35 years of experience. She was a founder and Director of Cupertino national Bank for 20 years. She founded and was a director of Innovest mortgage company. She serves on the Board of Fellow of Santa Clara Univerity for 20 years.

On the Board of San Jose jazz for 6 years…Jan loves the organization and Jan is dedicated to the music, the musicians and the students. San Jose Jazz brings a great many world class jazz musicans for Santa Clara Valley citizens to enjoy and we have a lot of fun doing it.

 Kathryn Diamond, Board Member

Vice President
Wells Fargo Private Bank

Kathryn Diamond is VP, Sr. Private Banker with Wells Fargo Private Bank in
Downtown San Jose. She works with individuals in managing their personal and
financial  wealth. Her background includes credit and portfolio risk management
and CCO for a financial services start up company.
 
She was a Broadcast Journalism major at  Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a founding member  of KCBX, a not for profit jazz radio station.  Prior to joining the Board of  San Jose Jazz, she served on the Mission Hospice Board in San Mateo, CA for 5 years.

She is a resident of the dynamic city of San Jose and appreciates the growing cultural
climate. Kathryn has a life long “passion” for jazz, its history/influence/education and is interested in contributing to the promotion and enjoyment of this living art form.

 Dr. Robert E. Griffin, Board Member

VP, Student Services and Institutional Research, De Anza College

Dr. Griffin has 35 years of experience in higher education. He has worked at San Jose State University, Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California and currently serves as the Vice President of Student Services and Institutional Research at De Anza College in Cupertino, California.
He has served on a number of statewide community college boards and commissions including serving as past President of the Association of California Community College Administrators. His professional experience includes presentations at a number of conferences on the regional, state and national level.

Dr. Griffin has served on a number of community non-profit boards, which include serving as the chairperson of the Planning Commission for the City of Seaside, California and as the President of United Way of the Monterey Peninsula. Dr. Griffin's public service also includes holding a publicly elected office for eleven years, as a member of the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District (a tax funded environmental protection and land acquisition board) in Monterey, California.

Currently, Dr. Griffin serves as a retreat facilitator, related to strategic planning for several local nonprofit boards. Dr. Griffin also teaches graduate courses at Santa Clara University in the School of Education.

 David Kennedy, Secretary of the Board and Legal Counsel

Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

David Kennedy is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, an international law firm based in Los Angeles with which Mr. Kennedy has been affiliated since 1982. Mr. Kennedy specializes in technology transactions, including license, acquisition, development and other transactions involving semiconductor chips, software, video games, biomedical and other types of technologies. His practice also includes transactions involving music and other entertainment-related rights and transactions involving Internet-based businesses. He heads the Technology Transactions Group within the Firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Mr. Kennedy received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1975, earned an M.B.A. degree, with a major in finance, from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School of Business in 1981 and graduated in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Mr. Kennedy was a member of the Order of the Coif and was a Note and Comment Editor for the Wisconsin Law Review.

 Michael Lark, Board Member

Development Manager, TKG International

Michael Lark, Development Manager of TKG International, is responsible for oversight of TKG's new projects in the United States. To the task he brings more than 15 years of professional and academic experience in real estate design, development, and construction.

Lark began his professional career in Berlin, Germany as an architect. There he worked for several firms, eventually helping found one.  He was responsible for both design and construction of renovations and new projects. The scope of work ranged from the management of tenant improvements in retail space through the realization of luxury lofts in new and existing buildings. While a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lark served as a Teaching Assistant both at MIT's School of Architecture and Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. His research investigated collaborative design in the building industry in Japan and Denmark. At Cornell University, he served as Executive Editor of an academic journal focused on contemporary issues in real estate.

Lark completed both a BA and a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Southern California, a Master of Science in Architectural Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Masters in Real Estate at Cornell University. He is a licensed architect in the European Union and a member of the Urban Land Institute.  In his free time, he is an avid sailor, skier, and cook.

Cheri LeRoy, Board Member

Principal, LeRoy Partners

 Bob O'Hara, Board Member

Three years after Cisco acquired Airespace, Inc.; Bob retired from Cisco Systems as a technology leader.  Airespace was a company Bob co-founded with three colleagues in late 2001.  At the time it was acquired by Cisco in March 2005, Airespace employed nearly 200 people and had sales of approximately $25M per quarter.  Currently, Bob is advising a number of venture funded startup companies.

Prior to founding Airespace, Bob ran his own independent consulting business, aiding client companies to define and implement strategies to standardize local area networking technologies.  He contributed significantly to both the Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) and power line networking standards during this period.  He also served on the executive committee of the IEEE 802 Standards Committee.  

Bob's introduction to Wi-Fi technology occurred while he was employed by AMD, where he contributed to the development of the first commercial chipset for Wi-Fi.  Also while at AMD, he was a field application engineer, working each day with AMD's customers, often in their development labs, helping them to apply AMD's chips in their products and solve the problems they encountered during those product developments.  Also at AMD, Bob advanced to become a strategic technical manager, a manager of product planning and a senior member of the technical staff.

Bob's passion for jazz began during the five years he was a member of the Bowie (Maryland) High School Starliners Jazz Band.  The Starliners was a 25-piece jazz band, run as an extracurricular activity by volunteer director Col. Joseph Carley (USAF, Ret.).  The band played dance gigs 4-6 times a month, to provide the income for uniforms, music, and transportation to jazz competitions.  Bob was a reed man (alto sax, clarinet, and flute).  He started playing in the Starliners when he was only 13, a few years before even getting into the high school.  Only when he finally realized how difficult it would be to earn a living as a musician did he finally select electrical engineering as his major in college and for his career.  But, it was in the Starliners that he learned teamwork, dedication to hard work, the value of volunteerism, and leadership.

Tony Pollace, Board Member

Financial Consultant
Corporate Equity Investments

Tony has over thirty years experience in finance and general management assisting emerging and fortune 100 companies in positions as CEO, CFO and COO.

As a seed money investor Tony advises numerous high technology Silicon Valley companies and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of four emerging ventures.

Tony helped lead the formation of the ManyOne Foundation and the Digital Universe Foundation. During the past 24 months, under the tax exempt status of a 501c3, Tony assisted in the successful finding of over $18 Million from angel investors and philanthropic organizations including the Humane Society of the United States, the Hemmingway Foundation and the National Community for Science and the Environment in Washington DC.

As CFO, at Computer Motion Tony helped structure a $30 Million IPO, working with a National Investment Banking Firm. Through venture capital and private placements he helped position LinuxCare for a $35 Million funding and IPO.

Through investment bankers, venture capitalists and private investors Tony generated in excess of $50 million through private placements and bridge loans domestically and in Taiwan, Singapore and Tokyo for companies in the Semi Conductor, Medical, Software and eCommerce industries.

During eight-year tenure with Heraeus Surgical as CFO/Treasurer, Tony assisted in a $28 million secondary public offering to finance a corporate acquisition and establish worldwide foreign exchange banking to hedge over $10 million annually.

As CFO/Treasurer at Litton Industries, he directed all finance and administration for six operating divisions in the U.S. and the Pacific Rim with revenues in excess of $150 million.

As a specialist in business combinations, Tony implemented countless strategic alliances, channel distribution agreements and mergers and acquisitions domestically and in Canada, Italy and Australia representing high technology Silicon Valley companies.
He has extensive experience with SEC reporting and compliance issues, reorganizations and workouts, and human resource and investor relations’ management. He has an extensive patent and copy write background and has worked closely with the USPTO and has provided management support in work with the FDA.

Tony served as the Treasurer and Chairman of the Finance Committee and is currently Member of the Board of Trustees at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He has a B.S. in Finance and Accounting, with a minor in Law and Economics from Golden Gate University and completed graduate studies toward an MBA, Santa Clara University.

John Radewagen, Board Member

VP Corporate Communications
The Hoffman Agency

John Radewagen has been vice presidenrt of Corporate Communications for The Hoffman Agency since 1998. He leads a team that focuses on creative messaging, strategic positioning and top-tier media relations. Radewagen specializes in creating and securing high-level print, broadcast, radio and Internet media opportunities designed to give clients a competitive and strategic advantage in their markets. He interacts directly with C-level executives to find their passions from which interesting speaking platforms are created. With a unique storytelling style, he packages and presents these platforms to the media to increase awareness and position executives as experts in their industries. Radewagen also does media training and creative messaging sessions designed to teach executives how to effectively communicate and deliver messages to their various stakeholders.

Originally from Chicago, Radewagen’s Silicon Valley experience dates back to the late 1970s when he helped create and run the Entrepreneurs’ Alliance, an non-profit association that helped aspiring entrepreneurs get their businesses started. John has been promotional director for a variety of professional sports teams and leagues and has been a volunteer for numerous youth sports and education groups. He has served on the San Jose Jazz board since 2003 and has served as Secretary. He currently sits on the Society's Development Committee and provides senior public relations counsel to the organization. He has a degree in radio and television communications from the University of Illinois.

Henry Wang, Treasurer of the Board

Managing Partner, CFO Today (www.cfoinc.us)

Henry C. Wang, Managing Partner of CFO Inc., brings many years of entrepreneurial experience into the consultation services he provides. A long time residence of Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay area (Since 1963), he is familiar with the dynamics of a growth culture.Henry started his own Certified Public Accounting (CPA) firm with two other college friends. Through two separate mergers, in four years, the practice has grown to five offices (San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C.) with six partners and eighty professional staff. As director of governmental contracts nationwide, he is responsible for procuring over $6 million of fees annually. The practice was later sold to Delloitte Touche and Henry stayed as partner-in-charge of government contract operations-western region for two years. Henry later joined Euro-America Financial, a merchant banking operation in Beverly Hills. One of the acquisitions is a regional business publisher: “The California Executive”. Henry returned to the San Francisco Bay area in 1988 and began his investment advisory and pension administration practice, Integrated Financial Services, Ltd. (IFS). IFS joint CFOToday in 2002, a national accounting franchise with 160 local offices in the U. S.

Henry is the Treasurer and the most senior board member of the San Jose Jazz (since 1992). During his tenure, the SJJ ’s annual budget has grown from $160,000 to currently $2 million through corporate and private donations and serving over 100,000 students.

Mike Warner, Board Member

Civic Volunteer

Mike is a retired Engineering Executive who has had a life long love of Jazz. He was born in Spokane Washington, grew up in Astoria Oregon and has lived in San Jose since graduating from San Jose State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Mike and his wife, Laurie, married for 47 years, have three married daughters all who also love music.

After a 19 year technical and management career at IBM, Mike became engineering Vice President, in succession, at Micropolis, Maxtor, Toshiba America and Tessera Technologies Inc. During his career he obtained 20 patents in hard disk drives and semiconductor packaging.

In addition to his role at San Jose Jazz, Mike is a volunteer at the Computer History Museum, a supporter of Opera San Jose, the Institute for Contemporary Art, the San Jose Art Museum and the San Jose Repertory Theatre. Mike is also an avid sailor, car buff, world traveler and handy man.

 Maria West, Board Member

Maria was a student at San Jose State where she earned a BA in Theatre Arts, and an MBA.

Maria is a dedicated mother of two children Her 13 year old son is a saxophone player in the Symphonic Band and Jazz Band at Fisher Middle School. Her 19 year old daughter was in the Los Gatos High School Wildcat Marching Band (which Maria was the treasurer fo for 2 years) for 4 years and played the clarinet and saxophone, and is now a college student at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Besides San Jose Jazz's board, Maria is currently a member of the Women of Silicon Valley Donor Circle under the Women's Foundation of California. She is on the School Advisory Council for Fisher Middle School and is also a member of the Arts Task Force for the Los Gatos Union School District. Maria was also treasurer of the Los Gatos Education Foundation, the fundraising arm for the Los Gatos Union School District during 2 campaigns that each raised $1,000,000 each, and was previously on the board of Los Lupeños de San Jose, serving as Treasurer and Chairperson.

Steve Runnion

Corporate Finance

Steve has spent his career in corporate finance and operations with a successful career in Silicon Valley companies. He has an extensive business background in international, multi-cultural environments. Steve led Alps North America as President and Chief Financial Officer. At Fujitsu America, he was involved in Finance, Manufacturing, and Audit.

Steve brings his experience in public accounting firms to help insure the proper financial oversight of San Jose Jazz finances. He has an MBA from Oregon State University and an BS from the University of Oregon. He and his wife Vicki reside in Los Gatos.