Stuart is an active Certified Public Accountant licensed in California with over 25 years of experience in the areas of corporate treasury and tax. Stuart is eager to help revitalize the San Lorenzo River in an effort to increase its use for recreation and public education, as well as improve the quality of the main water source for the city of Santa Cruz. He holds a Master in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas in Austin and Bachelor’s Degree from Rice University. Stuart lives in the Happy Valley area of Santa Cruz with his wife and two children. One of his favorite activities is to go for a run along the Riverwalk.

Artist, Educator, Community organizer, Environmentalist and Friend of the river Linda Cover lives and works at the Tannery Arts Center, located on the banks of the San Lorenzo River. She is a photographer/artist focused on community and the natural world. At the Tannery, she is a board member of ARTU the tenant’s union. She is the founder of Camp Tannery Arts, a summer camp for young artists and Art Outside, a nature-based summer camp. Linda is a SPECTRA teaching artist, through the Arts Council Santa Cruz County, teaching “Watershed Art” in schools throughout the county. As a city of Santa Cruz Arts Commissioner, she is honored to serve both the city and artist communities. Linda has organized clean-ups with kids and families in Watsonville & Santa Cruz for 20 years. You may see Linda on her yellow bike riding on the river walkway where she socializes with folks along the way, photographs the ever-changing landscape, and creates “sand doodles” and mandalas at the river mouth beach.

Mike, a former five-time mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, works part-time as an organizer for the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers He played a major role in the creation of the greenbelt around the City of Santa Cruz and other environmental legislation and City programs during his six terms of City Council service between 1979 and 2010. Mike recently retired from both the City Council and his 42-year teaching career in Community Studies at UCSC, where he served as Director of the Field Studies Program, supervising student interns working on social and environmental issues in Santa Cruz and around the globe. Mike, an avid ocean kayaker, has decided to dedicate his retirement to protecting and enhancing the Santa Cruz environment and has a particular passion for the CWC’s San Lorenzo River project.

Jonathan currently serves as the Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. He is the former Director of Development of Housing Matter and former Director of Development & Partnerships at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) and was previously an executive at a successful Silicon Valley tech business as well as an academic who wrote about undocumented migration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

He brings a unique approach to development and marketing: one part traditional fundraising, two parts Silicon Valley with an academic’s twist. Also an avid recreational outdoorsman and passionate community builder, Jonathan says, “CWC is poised to transform how our community connects with the San Lorenzo River.”

Emily is a proud resident of the Lower Ocean neighborhood. She truly embraces her love of the San Lorenzo River – you’ll find her walking, running, or skateboarding the Riverwalk with her dog nearly every day. She earned her Master in Public Health at UCLA and undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley. Emily brings to the CWC Board nearly a decade of experience working for government health agencies, promoting public and population health. She shares her breadth of experience working for and supporting non-profits through grant-writing, policy advocacy, fundraising, and community organizing. She currently works for the County of Santa Cruz, Health Services Agency. Emily is passionate about contributing positively to this community that she’s proud to call “home”. She has a great love of nature and outdoor adventures, from local hikes to backpacking mountains and jungles of foreign countries. Serving on the CWC Board is a culmination of her commitment to service and the environment.

Stuart is an active Certified Public Accountant licensed in California with over 25 years of experience in the areas of corporate treasury and tax. Stuart is eager to help revitalize the San Lorenzo River in an effort to increase its use for recreation and public education, as well as improve the quality of the main water source for the city of Santa Cruz. He holds a Master in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas in Austin and Bachelor’s Degree from Rice University. Stuart lives in the Happy Valley area of Santa Cruz with his wife and two children. One of his favorite activities is to go for a run along the Riverwalk.

Eva is a Costa Rican biologist that moved to Santa Cruz around 2011. She spent many years working in marine ecosystems and has witnessed firsthand the critical influence that rivers have on the ocean. She feels lucky to be living in Monterey Bay, a very unique place in the Pacific Ocean with a deep underwater canyon and lush kelp forests, and she knows that it is fundamental to take care of watersheds to keep that beauty going. She joined the CWC board because she believes in the importance of involving herself and the local neighbors in the vision for our San Lorenzo River.

She feels quite privileged to live right next to the Santa Cruz Riverwalk, a place to meditate, walk, admire nature, and her main biking route to get anywhere in this amazing community. She particularly loves to see the changing faces of the San Lorenzo River throughout the year.

She has a PhD in ecology and Evolutionary Biology from UC Santa Cruz, is married, and has one child. Works at FISHBIO doing research and monitoring of fish in California, SE Asia, and Costa Rica. Loves mountain biking, scuba diving, paddle boarding, and hanging out with friends and family.

Richard, a resident of Santa Cruz County for 45 years, has worked in Silicon Valley startups, multinational companies and local real estate, utilizing his knowledge and experience in engineering, marketing and sales, finance and business management. He holds a BS in Engineering from SF State University, MSEE and MBA from Stanford University. Now mostly retired, Richard enjoys time focusing on his interests in environment, education and water projects and “paying it forward” to the next generation as they embark on their careers. CWC combines these interests and as a Board member, Richard uses his business background and love of community to sustain and grow the organization as it works to transform the lower San Lorenzo River. Richard also serves as the Chairman of the Scholarship Committee for the Santa Cruz Rotary and supports projects with Cabrillo College through the Presidents Circle and the Engineering Abroad Programs, the Ventana Wilderness Alliance and water and educational projects in Uganda.

Artist, Educator, Community organizer, Environmentalist and Friend of the river Linda Cover lives and works at the Tannery Arts Center, located on the banks of the San Lorenzo River. She is a photographer/artist focused on community and the natural world. At the Tannery, she is a board member of ARTU the tenant’s union. She is the founder of Camp Tannery Arts, a summer camp for young artists and Art Outside, a nature-based summer camp. Linda is a SPECTRA teaching artist, through the Arts Council Santa Cruz County, teaching “Watershed Art” in schools throughout the county. As a city of Santa Cruz Arts Commissioner, she is honored to serve both the city and artist communities. Linda has organized clean-ups with kids and families in Watsonville & Santa Cruz for 20 years. You may see Linda on her yellow bike riding on the river walkway where she socializes with folks along the way, photographs the ever-changing landscape, and creates “sand doodles” and mandalas at the river mouth beach.

Megan is a long time resident of Santa Cruz County and she grew up in Aptos and currently lives in the City of Santa Cruz. Megan has always had a passion for water resources. She has an educational background of Water Resources, Watershed Science and GIS mapping to the CWC Board. She obtained a Masters and PhD from Clemson University with research specifically examining the impacts of land use change on water quality in small urban watersheds. She also has a BS from UC Davis in Environmental Resources with an emphasis on freshwater aquatic chemistry.

Megan brings years of work experience as a mapping expert and program manager to the CWC. She has been an employee of Google since 2006 with roles ranging from GIS mapping, Accessibility and creating accessible products for people with disabilities. She currently is a program manager for Google Maps.

Megan is a lifelong explorer and has traveled to 60+ countries for work, tourism, and scuba diving. She has lived and worked in Europe and Africa as an environmental consultant to water projects. Megan also graduated from the Leadership Santa Cruz County program in 2022 as part of class 35.

Drew leads cloud storage product marketing for Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that makes cloud computing services. An Idaho native and former professional whitewater guide in the US, Central and South America, Drew has lived firsthand the impacts of ecotourism, resource extraction and seen the delicate balance between use and abuse of river communities. He was appointed to two terms on the Santa Cruz Historic Preservation Commission, where he advised on the controversial La Bahia project, numerous private development projects and advocated the City adopt a Mills Act ordinance.

Drew holds a BA in Political Science with minors in French and English from the University of Puget Sound, and lives in a historic house with his wife (wedding confection artist Edith Meyer) and their twin boys in Santa Cruz, California.

Mike, a former five-time mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, works part-time as an organizer for the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers He played a major role in the creation of the greenbelt around the City of Santa Cruz and other environmental legislation and City programs during his six terms of City Council service between 1979 and 2010. Mike recently retired from both the City Council and his 42-year teaching career in Community Studies at UCSC, where he served as Director of the Field Studies Program, supervising student interns working on social and environmental issues in Santa Cruz and around the globe. Mike, an avid ocean kayaker, has decided to dedicate his retirement to protecting and enhancing the Santa Cruz environment and has a particular passion for the CWC’s San Lorenzo River project.

Cindy has extensive experience as a public affairs professional in government and in the high technology industry. A good part of her career was spent at IBM San Jose as the manager of the company’s California state and local government affairs programs. In 2003, Cindy established a public affairs consulting business advising government organizations on community outreach, economic development, and campaign communications.

Cindy’s passion for the environment was inspired by living in Los Angeles for 15 years and returning to the SF Bay Area where she experienced the joy of being able to hike among thousands of acres of protected open space within easy access of the metropolitan area. This inspiration led to decades of volunteer work in leadership roles with regional environmental organizations including the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, Committee for Green Foothills and Greenbelt Alliance. Cindy views the Coastal Watershed Council as a critical player in ensuring the overall health of the region.

Cindy has a B.A. from UCLA in Political Science and a Masters from USC in public administration.