Board

We are a non-hierarchical organization. Our board shares power and responsibility with our members. We govern with systems that empower each individual with equal decision-making authority. Click here for meeting agendas & minutes. 

Mele Benz - Chair

Mele's ancestors are from Tonga and Europe. She was born in Honolulu, HI, and was raised on a farm that's been in her family for four generations in Hilmar, CA. She is mom to two children in the local school system. Mele has worked in TK-12 education for over 20 years as a coach, teacher, and administrator. Her work currently focuses on transformational implementation of the California community schools framework. Additionally, Mele has served as a leadership coach and researcher with the NorCal Educational Leadership Consortium. 

Mele lives on a five acre mini-farm on unceded Mechoopda lands where native plants and animals have been welcomed back. In addition to chickens and goats, Mele's family shares their land with foxes, skunks, snakes, and a wide variety of birds. During the Spring, an owl box produces new fledglings that bring joy and wonder with their nightly calls. When she's not at home with her family, you can find her  cheering on her kids in basketball and soccer.

Open - Secretary 

Brendan Clarke - Treasurer

Brendan (he/him) is a hapa father, husband, writer, rites of passage guide, and ecological educator with fifteen years of experience working with youth and adults in a variety of contexts. In addition to receiving his M.A. in Teaching in 2011, he holds two California CLEAR teaching credentials, and a Bilingual Spanish certificate from Illinois, where he began his career as an educator with Teach For America, teaching fifth grade in southwest Chicago.  For Brendan, social justice, equity and education have been inextricably linked from the beginning.

Born in Washington D.C., and raised in the traditional territory of the Piscataway or what is also known as Maryland, Brendan’s passion for the natural world and awareness of the urgent issues related to climate change ultimately led him to California to explore alternative, nature-based education. He spent three years in an adult nature-immersion program with the Regenerative Design Institute and Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, where he subsequently became the program coordinator for the youth and teen programs.

During this time and over the past decade he has worked with numerous individuals, groups, and organizations, including: The Pt. Reyes Summer Camp, Pt. Reyes National Seashore Association, San Geronimo Waldorf School, Credo Public Waldorf High School, The Synapse School, Riekes Center for Human Development, 1Revolution, West Marin School of Trackers, The Art of Mentoring, The Buckeye Gathering, and private homeschool students. He has worked with youth and adults in the field and also trained other educators, including when he received the tremendous honor to support the rematriation of nature-based education practices to members of the Hupa and Yurok tribes and local teachers and principals.

Brendan’s work with nature-based education brought him into the field of rites of passage and he eventually came to guide this work as well. He has, in various iterations, designed and guided rites of passage with Credo High School, Marin Academy, Archie Williams High School, The FIRE Fellowship, and numerous other community-supported ceremonies. He has also assisted with the School of Lost Borders.

Most recently, Brendan served as co-director for The Ojai Foundation, a 40-plus-year-old, land-based educational non-profit in Southern California. His work included bottom-line responsibility for the 36-acre campus and wildlife sanctuary, designing and building natural buildings, leading council trainings, launching The Foundations in Resilience Education (FIRE) Fellowship, and consulting with local schools about rites of passage curriculum for their students, alongside myriad other duties.

He holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder, Iyengar Yoga teacher, Permaculture Designer, North America Wildlife Tracker (Level III), Council Trainer, and Type II Wildland Firefighter through his engagement with cultural and prescribed burns.

His passions include: cooking, bird language, tracking and trailing, crafting, archery, writing, mythology, gardening, natural building, woodworking, watercolor painting, and ancestry. His favorite bird is (probably) the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, but please don’t mention anything about it to the other birds.

He lives with his wife, Shay, and son, Kian, in ancestral Mechoopda homelands in Chico, California.