Board of Directors
Graham Chisholm Chair, Executive Director of Audubon California
Kathy Perkinson Treasurer, Senior Vice President of the Natural Resources and Stewardship division, Tejon Ranch Company
Soapy Mulholland Secretary Sequoia Riverlands Trust
Jim Dodson, Sierra Club
Gary Hunt, California Strategies
Randall Lewis, Executive Vice President, Lewis Operating Corporation
Roberta Marshall, General Manager and Vice President, Tejon Mountain Village
Frank Davis, Donald Bren School at UCSB
Joel Reynolds, Natural Resources Defense Council
Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League
Al Wright, Former Director of the Wildlife Conservation Board
Emmy Cattani, Cattani Farming
Tom Soto, Senior Advisor to the Board of Trustees, Former Tejon Conservancy Board Member, Craton Equity Partners
Graham Chisholm, Executive Director of Audubon California
Graham Chisholm is the Executive Director of Audubon California and oversees all planning and implementation of an ambitious statewide conservation organization aimed at conserving birds, other wildlife, and their habitats.
He came to Audubon California in March 2005 to serve as its Deputy State Director and Director of Conservation. Previously, he was the Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy’s California Program from 2001 to 2004, and worked extensively with TNC in Nevada prior to that.
Kathy Perkinson, Senior Vice President of the Natural Resources and Stewardship division, Tejon Ranch Company
Kathleen J. Perkinson is Senior Vice President of the Natural Resources and Stewardship division for Tejon Ranch Company, serving as the primary representative for the recent Conservation and Land Use Agreement, as well as the Company’s interests in the Centennial and Tejon Mountain Village communities. She joined Tejon Ranch in July 2007 with over 20 years experience in the planning and development of master planned communities in California and Texas. Prior to joining Tejon Ranch, Perkinson served as Managing Director of the Miller Family Companies, the master developer of Dos Vientos Ranch in Thousand Oaks, California, and prior to that as Vice President-Finance of Richland Interests, a Hines affiliate and Vice President-Senior Controller of Sugarland Properties Incorporated, the developer of First Colony in Sugar Land, Texas. Perkinson is a member of the Urban Land Institute and is Chair of its Community Development Council-Silver Flight. She is also a member of ICSC and AICPA and is active in numerous community Organizations. Perkinson has a BS in Accountancy with a minor in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Soapy Mulholland, Executive Director, Sequoia Riverlands Trust
Soapy’s unique history and experience bring to the Tejon Ranch Conservancy valuable insights from many different points of view. She has been a real estate developer and rancher and has served on numerous boards and councils up and down the state of California. Soapy began her real estate career in 1978 working for a major west coast developer, managing the acquisition and construction of 15,000 apartment units. She then formed a sole proprietorship, Sopac and Associates, and consulted on the construction and property management of numerous large-scale projects in the Western United States. Soapy’s love of agriculture and the Sierra foothills motivated her to relocate from San Diego to Springville in 1993, where she has owned and managed ranches and a small citrus operation since 1989. Soapy served as interim director of the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation and then joined Sequoia Riverlands Trust in 2002 as the first paid Executive Director, a position she continues to hold. Her experience in land development, ranch management and agriculture give her a unique conservation vision that has guided the development of a widely recognized and respected regional land trust working in farmland conservation and open space protection. Soapy served under Governor Pete Wilson on the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (OSHA). She participated in Class XXV of the California Ag Leadership Program and went on to later work for the program as Director of Development, and then to serve as a member of their Board of Directors. Currently, Soapy sits on the Board of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Stewardship Council, the Statewide Blue Print Committee, the California Ag Visioning Committee, the Aldo Leopold Award selection committee, and the Tejon Ranch Conservancy Board of Directors. She is a member of the California Cattlemen’s Association and the Farm Bureau.
Jim Dodson, Sierra Club
Jim Dodson is a long-time Sierra Club leader from Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley on the south side of the Tejon Ranch. His years of volunteer service have focused on public lands protection, including helping author and pass the California Desert Protection Act of 1994. He has held numerous Sierra Club positions, including serving on the National Board of Directors. In addition, he recently was President of the California Wilderness Coalition and chaired the Antelope Valley Resource Conservation District. He retired in 2003 from his career in financial management at Edwards Air Force Base, where he last served as Deputy Controller.
Gary Hunt, California Strategies
Gary H. Hunt brings over 30 years of experience in government, business, major land use planning, entitlement and development, government and political affairs to California Strategies.
Hunt spent over 25 years with The Irvine Company, one of the nation’s leading master planning and land development organizations. Working at the local, regional, state and federal levels, Hunt directed the company’s major entitlement, regional infrastructure, planning and strategic government, media and community relations activities. As Executive Vice President, he served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of The Irvine Company for 10 years. Hunt also served on the Boards of Directors of the California Business Roundtable, State Chamber of Commerce, and other statewide and national business organizations. Hunt currently is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Kennecott Land Company in Salt Lake, Utah and serves on the Board of Directors of Grubb & Ellis and William Lyon Homes.
Hunt’s political experience included staff positions with the California State Legislature, U.S. House of Representatives, California Governor Ronald Reagan, and Executive Director of the Californian Republican Party. In 1980 he was appointed Deputy Director of the Republican National Convention and subsequently served as Group Vice Chairman of the Presidential Inauguration Committee for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He was elected as a Delegate and Alternate Delegate to the 1996 and 2000 Republican National Conventions. He served as Vice Chairman of the 1996 Host Committee and State Vice Chairman for the election of President George W. Bush in 2000. He was California State Finance Vice Chairman for Governor Pete Wilson in 1990 and 1994, and Finance Chairman in 1998 for the Republican Nominee for Governor. Currently, Hunt serves as State Finance Chairman for Governor Schwarzenegger.
Hunt’s Government experience includes appointments by Governor Pete Wilson to the California Constitutional Revision Commission and the Hoover Commission. Assembly Speakers Villaraigosa and Hertzberg appointed him to the Speaker’s Commissions on Fiscal Reform, Initiatives Reform, and Governmental Reform. Governor Gray Davis appointed him to the State Infrastructure Commission and to the California Bay Delta Advisory Board, where he currently serves as its Chairman. He also serves as Chairman of the California Bay Delta Authority, appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Hunt attended Antelope Valley Community College, University of Cincinnati, Long Beach and Sacramento State College, where he majored in Political Science. He holds a Juris Doctorate from Irvine University School of Law.
Randall Lewis, Executive Vice President, Lewis Operating Corporation
Randall Lewis oversees the sales and marketing operations of the Company. Randall received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College. Randall has been President of the Inland Empire Arts Foundation, Secretary of the Los Angeles County Citizens Planning Council, director of the HomeBuilder’s Council, and national director of the National Association of HomeBuilders. Randall has been named the Builder of the Year by the Baldy View Chapter of the B.I.A., and was the recipient of the Sales and Marketing Council’s MAME Awards Marketing Person of the Year. Randall is a long time ULI member as well as a Governor of the ULI Foundation. Randall serves on several executive boards including the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development and the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. He is recognized as an expert in the real estate industry and frequently quoted in various newspapers, magazines and trade journals. Randall has over 30 years of experience in the real estate industry.
Roberta Marshall, General Manager and Vice President, Tejon Mountain Village
Ms. Marshall joined DMB Associates as General Manager and Vice President of Tejon Mountain Village, a 28,000 acre resort and residential community planned within the 270,000 acre Tejon Ranch in Lebec, California. Prior to joining DMB, Ms. Marshall served as Vice President of Community Development for Irvine Community Development Company, a subsidiary of The Irvine Company in Newport Beach, California. During her 21 year career with The Irvine Company, Ms. Marshall managed the entitlement, design and development of the Newport Coast Planned Community, a 10,000 acre master planned community located on the Pacific Ocean between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. The Newport Coast Planned Community includes a 700 unit Marriott Vacation Club, The Inn at Pelican Hill-a high end, 250 room boutique hotel and vacation club program, two Fazio-designed 18 hole golf courses, 2,600 high end merchant builder lots and custom home sites, 200,000 square feet of tourist commercial and neighborhood commercial development, related community and recreational facilities and over 80 per cent open space. Due to its location adjacent the Pacific Ocean, the project withstood several major entitlement challenges, litigation from environmental groups and an appeal by the California Coastal Commission. The final phase of land development was completed in 2006.
In her role as Vice President for Irvine Community Development Company, Ms. Marshall also managed the entitlement of a new 6,050 unit residential community located at the intersection of I-405 and Laguna Canyon Road in Irvine, California. This project included single-family residential units, apartments and supporting school/recreational amenities. The first phase of this project construction for this project is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2007.
Prior to joining The Irvine Company, Ms. Marshall worked for the SWA Group, a nationally recognized planning and design firm in Laguna Beach, California.
Ms. Marshall holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont, a Masters of City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University and a Masters of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and is an associate member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Frank Davis, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UCSB
Dr. Frank Davis is a professor at the Bren School. Between 1995 and 1998 he served as Deputy Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a National Science Foundation Center at UCSB that sponsors synthetic, interdisciplinary ecological research. His expertise is in terrestrial biogeography, plant ecology, and conservation biology. His research has focused on the ecology of California chaparral and oak woodlands, and on the use of digital satellite data and geographic information systems for mapping vegetation, modeling species distributions, Gap Analysis, and conservation planning. Davis has been involved in a variety of large scale conservation and ecosystem management project, serving as PI of the California Gap Analysis Project, a Science Team member on the USDA Forest Service Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, and related research projects for NASA, EPA, the USDA Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the Resources Agency of California.
Joel Reynolds, Natural Resources Defense Council
Joel Reynolds is Senior Attorney and Director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Urban Program and Director of the Marine Mammal Protection and Southern California Ecosystem projects. Reynolds, who has been practicing environmental and land use law in Southern California since 1980, joined NRDC nearly 20 years ago and has spearheaded NRDC’s efforts to obtain or preserve legal protection for wildlife and its habitat in California and Baja, California. He currently specializes in issues of coastal protection, land use, environmental justice and transportation.
Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League
Dan Silver is chief executive officer of the Endangered Habitats League (EHL). A physician by training, Silver left his internal medicine practice in 1991 to work full time on environmental issues. With EHL since its inception, he has seen the organization emerge as a regional leader in conservation and growth management.
Al Wright, Former Director of the Wildlife Conservation Board
Continuing his lifelong interest in conservation, Wright joined the Tejon Ranch Conservancy in 2008. Prior to that, he served as Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB). During his time with the WCB, over 750,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat were acquired, protected or restored with the help of numerous partnerships. Some of the more notable acquisitions included the Cargil salt ponds in San Francisco Bay, Ballona Wetlands in Los Angles, and preserving the Hearst Ranch. In addition the WCB provided money and oversight for restoration of thousands of acres of wetlands in the central valley. Prior to WCB, Wright worked for 34 years for the Bureau of Land Management. He retired in 2000 as Associate State Director of California. Wright was the recipient of the Secretary of Interior’s Meritorious Service Award, as well as other commendations throughout his career which included assignments in Nevada, Colorado, and Washington DC.
Emmy Cattani, Cattani Farming
Emmy Cattani is a fourth generation member of her family’s agricultural business, based in Kern County, California where the majority of the ranch is located. Her family business operations include farming, cattle ranching, oil production, real estate and almond processing, as well as conservation through a partnership in Greenbridges, a for-profit investor in conservation real estate. Prior to returning to her family business in 2009, Ms. Cattani spent five years as a private equity professional, first with The Shansby Group and then with VMG Partners, where she advised portfolio company CEOs on brand development, operations and business strategy. Earlier in her career, Ms. Cattani worked in management consulting at Bain & Company and in strategy and business development for high tech start up HiFusion, Inc. Ms. Cattani is also a Director on the boards of the Sunkist Growers Cooperative and the Famoso Nut Company. She received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and her bachelors of arts from Harvard University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
Tom Soto, Senior Advisor to the Board of Trustees, Former Tejon Conservancy Board Member, Craton Equity Partners
Tom is a Managing Partner and member of the Board of Directors and a senior investment professional of Craton. For 15 years, Tom has combined his experience as an environmental activist with his skill at meeting the needs of the private sector to help companies become more profitable while enhancing the environment. Tom founded PS Enterprises in 1989, working with both corporate and government clients. In 1990, Mr. Soto participated in the drafting of the amendments to the National Clean Air Act and the California Clean Air Act. For instance, Mr. Soto was instrumental in creating the National Business Council for a Sustainable Energy Future, a successful collaboration of environmental groups, government agencies, and energy companies that designed and implemented creative incentive programs to boost natural gas and alternative fuel use. He played a leading role in American Airlines’ $450 million conversion of their ground service equipment to electric power. Tom graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
