Dan Ripke : a native of Northern California, Dan Ripke holds a B.S. in international business, a B.A. in French, and a master’s degree in business administration from California State University, Chico. He has worked for the Center for Economic Development for ten years, serving as director for the center’s twenty-county service region. In this capacity, he provides economic development and planning technical assistance to over 20 percent of the state of California.
    Dan is a member of the American Economic Development Council, the California Association for Local Economic Development, and the National Association of Development Organizations. His areas of special training include data analysis and economic impact analysis.

Emilyn Sheffield : Dr. Emilyn Sheffield will be the keynote speaker for the "Tourism Growth on the Mendocino Coast" panel at the 2006 Mendocino Coast Economic Outlook Conference.
    Dr. Sheffield is a full professor and chairs the Department of Recreation and Parks Management at California State University, Chico, CA, the largest undergraduate recreation department in the West. She is active in tourism development and planning throughout California and the western United States. Dr. Sheffield has worked for more than twenty years with federal, state and local groups to increase support for public lands. She coordinates destination development projects involving scenic byways, heritage tourism infrastructure and visitor services. She is also part of an interdisciplinary team to increase branding, identity systems and public development about tourism, corporate marketing entrepreneurship and public land use. She recently appeared as a featured speaker at the 2006 Montana Governor's Conference on Tourism and Recreation.

Kenneth Smokoska : Ken Smokoska is bullish about smart energy solutions. For the last year he has traveled throughout California with his PowerPoint presentation and his golden retriever Sunshine, addressing local governments, school districts, and town hall meetings, urging cities and counties to enroll in the Sierra Club's Community Choice Program to get more power from green sources.
    Eldest of eight children, with a dad in the Air Force, Smokoska moved around a lot as a kid and developed a love of the outdoors through his dad. “He got me involved in scouts and took me camping—it was the only vacation we could afford.” These days he loves to head into the Yosemite high country, or the national forests with Sunshine, who he’s enrolling in a search and rescue program.
    A machine-shop worker in the Steelworkers Union before attending college, Smokoska logged a stint training on a nuclear sub in the Navy before spending most of his career in marketing. In 2004 he started California Alternative Technologies, where he is director. The company is working with the San Diego School District to design and install solar collectors and other green features.
    He is also helping expand a trade technology charter school where at-risk youth can live and study when they turn 18. “Kids get career counseling and vocational training in green trades, earn a high school diploma, and we hook them up with work on renewable energy construction projects.”
    Smokoska has raised a dozen adopted teenage boys over the last ten years, the last of whom is going to college this year. “I’m closely removed from a mental institution after that tour of duty,” he jokes.

Keith Woods : Keith Woods is the Chief Executive Officer of the North Coast Builders Exchange, headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif. The trade association, the largest of its kind in California and the 3rd largest in the nation, has nearly 1900 members and an annual budget of $3.5 million. The Builders Exchange represents construction industry businesses and serves a 3-county region comprised of Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino Counties.
    A native of California, Keith was born in San Jose and raised in San Carlos. A Journalism major at Fresno State University, he is also a graduate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management at the University of Santa Clara.
    Keith's professional experience includes 38 years of organizational management work, including staff and executive positions with the San Francisco and San Antonio Chambers of Commerce. He also served as President/CEO of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce for 13 years until assuming his current position in October, 2000.
    Keith was an organizational management instructor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for 22 years at eight universities around the nation. In 1999, he traveled to Moscow to conduct management training for Russian business executives at the request of the U.S. State Department. He has spoken to more than 600 audiences in 45 U.S. states, focusing on customer service, leadership, and management training for business, government, educational and non-profit organizations.
    In addition to his work at the Builders Exchange, he serves as Senior Advisor on Chamber Trends for the California Chamber of Commerce.
   Keith is married and the father of 19-year-old twins, Kevin and Kelly. In addition, he says he's just an all-around good guy.

James Bernard : James is currently the Executive Director of the Mendocino Land Trust. He brings over 20 years of experience in governmental and non-profit natural resource policy development.
    His responsibilities have included senior natural resource administration positions and/or studies at varying times for the states of Florida, Maine and Vermont, as well as the Canadian provinces of Labrador and Quebec, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
    He also worked in research and data gathering for the Center for Environmental Communication at Rutgers University.
    In 1994, as director, Natural Resources Policy Division, Maine State Planning Office, James was a presenter on a panel on Trends in Cultural/Eco-Tourism. His topics were: Defining Ecotourism, The Scope of Ecotourism, The Economic Development Perspective, The Environmental Perspective, The Challenge and Promise of Ecotourism, Developing a Conservation Ethic, and Marketing Ecotourism.

Jay Gordon : Jay Gordon is a retired corporate trainer and marketing writer for the travel industry. He writes frequently for area media and online resources to promote the arts and tourism in Mendocino County.
    Jay is President of the Willits Community Theatre, a member of the board of the Arts Council of Mendocino County, and a member of the board of the Mendocino County Promotional Alliance. Jay also serves as a Regional Advisor for the Community Foundation of Mendocino County.

Jim Tarbell : Jim Tarbell is an economic journalist and has a degree in economics and has written about the economy of the Northern Mendocino County Coast for over 25 years. He co-published and edited Ridge Review Magazine about the Mendocino and Sonoma County coastal communities from 1981 until 1995. In that time he published pieces on numerous industries from fishing and forestry to marijuana and tourism.
    He has written two books on globalization. He co-hosts the radio program Corporations and Democracy and works with the Noyo Headlands Unified Design Group (NHUDG). For the past year he has been working on creating economic strategies for the reuse of the Noyo Headlands to move from the extraction economy to the restoration economy.