Dr. Amber Sciligo

Senior Director, The Organic Center

Max Perrey

Vice Mayor, Mill Valley

Max Perrey was sworn in on the Mill Valley City Council in June 2022 and is currently serving as Vice Mayor. He represents the Mill Valley City Council to MCE where he serves on the Board of Directors and as Chair of the Executive Committee, to the Association of Bay Area Governments, and to the League of California Cities where he serves as Vice Chair of the Environmental Quality Committee. He also is a liaison to the Mill Valley School District along with Mayor Burke, and serves on BayWave, the county-led sea level rise planning group. Prior to serving on the City Council, Max was a member of the City’s Emergency Preparedness Commission from 2019-2022, serving as Chair in 2022. Max’s other previous roles have included as a member of the Citizens Oversight Committee of the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority from 2020-2022, as a trained member of CERT, and as Co-Chair of Sustainable Mill Valley from 2019-2022.

Professionally, Max is the Director of Policy & External Relations for Aliados Health, a 6 county association of 17 community health centers. Max has a BA from UC Santa Cruz and a Masters degree from the London School of Economics. He is a resident of the Shelter Ridge neighborhood, is a 16 time Dipsea race finisher, and enjoys all the outdoors and cultural activities that Mill Valley provides.

ALFRED COURCHESNE

Owner / Farmer, Frog Hollow Farm

In his signature overalls, “Farmer Al” Courchesne has been a beloved leader in California’s sustainable agriculture for over 40 years. Like his legendary peaches, Al is deeply rooted in California soil. Born in Louisiana and raised in Berkeley and El Cerrito, Al graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in anthropology before moving to Hawaii, where he taught at the Punahou School and discovered his passion for farming. For two years, he grew lettuce and tomatoes on the islands before returning to the Bay Area to pursue his agricultural calling.

In 1976, he planted his first peach orchard in Brentwood. Thirteen years later, Al transitioned to organic farming, inspired by a commitment to nurture the soil, protect the water, and support the local community. 

Throughout his career, Farmer Al has been a pioneering advocate for sustainable land use, conservation, and organic regenerative practices. He lives on the farm with his wife, Becky, and their daughters, Maddie and Millie, continuing to cultivate a legacy of flavor, community, and land stewardship.

BARBARA JELLISON

Executive Director, Nutrition Services West Contra Costa Unified School District

Barbara leads a team of over 240 food service professionals in serving 27,500 students across 54 sites in a high needs district where 67% qualify for free and reduced meals. Barbara is a motivated, results-driven food service professional who most recently took on the challenges of the pandemic to test and bring organic products into the food service program. She has since continued to procure roughly 50% of food for the district from organic supplies, prioritizing CA fresh and minimally processed foods. Barbara has led her team in achieving equipment, training, and sourcing changes that are allowing them to increase the amount of fresh, organic, scratch-cooked menu items that they make in the central kitchen for service across the district. Having served the district for 22 years, Barbara’s experience extends back to culinary school and restaurant management and she continues to work to improve the food service quality and experience for students across her district. Barbara has successfully worked with both CDFA and USDA grants to help set goals for the district, link farm to school educational opportunities to the food service programming, and achieve procurement and recipe changes that incorporate fresh, local, organic products into school meals.

Caralee Ellis

Events & Engagement Manager, Conscious Kitchen

Caralee Ellis is the Events & Engagement Manager for Conscious Kitchen, where she leads statewide initiatives that bring the farm-to-school movement to life across California. She manages and executes all Conscious Kitchen events and on-the-ground projects, including the Organic Farm-to-School Workshop series, hosted in partnership with The Alice Waters Institute, and the Organic Farm-to-School Road Tour, which connected small organic farmers with school districts throughout California in the summer of 2025. In her role, Caralee also oversees strategic communications that extend beyond social media to reach food service leaders, farmers, and community partners. She develops and distributes key resources such as a Weekly Organic Availability List and the Organic Produce of the Month series, supporting schools in sourcing fresh, local, organic ingredients directly from regional producers. Caralee joined Conscious Kitchen in 2021 and has since played an integral role in scaling its impact — coordinating farm-to-school procurement, managing multi-stakeholder partnerships, and advancing the vision of 100% organic school meals for all students.

DEBBIE RAPHAEL

Environmental Strategy Consulting

In May of 2014, Mayor Ed Lee appointed Debbie as the Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, a city agency that creates visionary policies and programs to ensure a sustainable future for San Francisco. Raphael returned to San Francisco after three years leading the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, where she enacted the groundbreaking Safer Consumer Products program that has removed toxic chemicals from consumer products sold in California and beyond.

Raphael believes that cities like San Francisco are incubators for bold action that results in meaningful change. Her approach to environmental decision-making focused on using  rigorous science and robust community participation to ensure that all voices are honored. This perspective has allowed her to succeed in addressing some of the most challenging environmental problems, including addressing climate change, circular economies, and community resilience.

During her 30 years of public service at city, county, and state levels, Raphael has crafted and implemented award-winning programs in zero waste, toxics reduction, clean energy and transportation, and green building. Debbie was named by Apolitical as one of the world’s 100 most impactful leaders on climate change and by Climate Insider as one of the 10 Climate Voices to Know in 2024. She is a strategic advisor to academic institutions, businesses large and small, non-profits, philanthropic organizations, and governments around the world.

Godfred Owusu

Teaching and Research Assistant, Department of Planning, KNUST

Godfred is a leading climate change and environmental sustainability advocate from Ghana, currently serving as a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). He was crowned the PGC 2024 Champion for his “Kumasi Waste Free Project,” which employed a circular economy model to eradicate plastic waste and successfully transformed over 900kg of plastics into items like student desks and community waste bins. Godfred joined the Turning Green Organization as a campus representative in 2023 and further deepened his commitment by interning with Turning Green during the summer of 2025. He now leverages his experience as a mentor and motivator, inspiring young leaders across Ghana and ensuring students continue to engage massively in PGC.

Jennifer Sherman

Culinary Director, Alice Waters Institute

Before joining the Alice Waters Institute, Jennifer spent most of her culinary career working with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse as a cook, co-chef, and General Manager as well as supporting Alice’s global projects and programs in edible education. Jennifer spent 10 years developing food product lines at scale for Rock Field, Japan, Ltd. She has served on the board and was the Culinary Director at The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano, a 30 acre educational farm and culinary program, and currently serves on the board of Chez Panisse Restaurant.

JUDI SHILS

Founder / Executive Director Turning Green

Judi has spent the last 33 years of her life spearheading grassroots community projects. The dearth of answers around Marin County’s high cancer rates led Judi to found the nonprofit Search for the Cause, now Turning Green, a global student-led movement advocating for healthy food, safer products, and ethical businesses. She is also the force behind The Conscious Kitchen, a paradigm shifting model for school food service, transitioning school meals from pre-packaged, processed, heat-and-serve to chef-prepared, scratch cooked local, organic food, prepared in on-site low waste kitchens. Believing that access to healthy food is a right, not a privilege, she began this work on a campus where 95% of children live below the poverty line, qualifying for free-and-reduced government-subsidized school meals. Moving to the Bay Area in 1989 and becoming a mother to daughter Erin changed the course of Judi’s life. Prior to this, she was an Emmy Award-winning television producer for 25 years with ABC Sports, FOX and Oxygen, founded The Diary Project forum for youth at the onset of the internet, and created the first reality based television show for Fox.