Board of Directors

Marcelino Alvarez is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Photon Marine, a startup that is developing the world’s most powerful and intelligent electric outboard motor system and fleet management software, tailored to commercial boat fleets in tourism, transportation, and mariculture industries. Marcelino is a savvy digital pioneer and a lifelong boater who grew up fishing and scuba diving in South Florida. He began his career in advertising, producing digital campaigns at Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Wieden + Kennedy. His passion for creative and compelling digital solutions quickly drove him to cutting edge product solutions. Afterwards, he founded Uncorked Studios, a product design firm that helped companies such as Samsung, Nike, Google, Intel, and adidas bring innovative software and hardware products to market. Uncorked was acquired by Fresh Consulting in 2019. He sits on the board of The Freshwater Trust and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University. Marcelino and his wife Margaret have two sons, Caleb and Mateo; daughter Lucia; a dog named Luke; and a cat named Calvin.

Hank Ashforth is Executive Vice President of The Ashforth Company. He concentrates on providing strategic direction and sales for The Ashforth Company’s third party service subsidiaries and serves on the company’s investment committee. Prior to his current position, Mr. Ashforth was Chairman of Ashforth Pacific, Inc., the West Coast affiliate of The Ashforth Company located in Portland, Oregon. He created Ashforth Pacific in 1995 and helped grow the portfolio from 600,000 square feet to over 3 million square feet. While Chairman of Ashforth Pacific, Mr. Ashforth developed and still maintains a strong working relationship with the city of Portland. This relationship led to the 3.3 mile extension of The Portland Streetcar into Portland’s Lloyd District and Central Eastside neighborhoods. In addition, he led the creation of and is the current Chairman of the Lloyd Enhanced Services District, a private/public partnership, which focuses on economic growth, transportation and security issues in the District. Mr. Ashforth also helped spearhead the development of the Lloyd EcoDistrict, a partnership with the city of Portland, which focuses on economic development through sustainable practices.

Tim Boyle, a native Oregonian, is the Chairman, President & CEO of Columbia Sportswear Company – one of the world’s largest outdoor and active lifestyle apparel and footwear companies. Boyle’s career with Columbia Sportswear began during his senior year at the University of Oregon, when his father, who had been running the company since 1964, died suddenly of a heart attack. His mother quickly enlisted Tim's help in order to continue the aggressive expansion that her husband had initiated and that had expanded the company's sales that year to $1 million. Boyle has served in several different roles at Columbia Sportswear over the course of his 50-year long career, including chief executive officer, president, and chairman of the board. 

Chad Brown is the founder and president of Soul River Inc., a nonprofit organization that focuses on connecting veterans and introducing diverse urban youth of color to the outdoors, nature conservation and growing young leaders into advocacy for our public lands, wildlife and freshwater. Recently, Brown has launched a new nonprofit Love is King that he leads with the mission to dismantle the hate, bigotry, ignorance and racism in the outdoors for BIPOC and all marginalized groups to have the opportunity to roam further and bolder in the outdoors and create wonderful memories for themselves without having to face any aggression.

Dave Chen is the CEO and Chairman of Equilibrium, leading the firm’s growth, overseeing its strategy, and heading its investment product development. In 2008, Equilibrium was formed with the goal of being a global leader in sustainability-driven asset management for institutional investors, delivering sustainable alpha returns and creating intentional positive impact on society and the environment. Before establishing Equilibrium, Dave was a general partner with OVP Venture Partners from 2000-2007. Prior to joining OVP, Dave was founder and CEO of GeoTrust (acquired by VeriSign 2006); founder of The Ascent Group, a global strategy consultancy firm; Vice President Marketing at Mentor Graphics; associate at McKinsey & Company; and an early team member Solectron (1978-1985).

Arthine Cossey van Duyne is CEO & Founding Partner of WaterFunder, LLC, an infrastructure finance advisory firm accelerating water equity and water stewardship solutions.  Arthine has global management experience in the public, private, start-up, and non-profit industry sectors. Previously, she spearheaded growth and expansion strategies for development banks, foreign direct investment agencies, capital markets firms, and Silicon Valley tech giants. Arthine is also an Army veteran with previous roles in data management, military intelligence, and civil affairs. She is a recent Aspen climate policy fellow, has an BA in Economics from UC Davis and an MBA from IMD in Switzerland.  She is an ebullient mother of two creative and ambitious sons. Arthine swims most weekdays and has completed a swim from Alcatraz.

Scott Demorest is the Former Principal of Acme Business Consulting, a business consulting firm that guides clients who want to build their organizational capability, make "transformational" changes, and manage programs and complex technical projects. ACME was purchased in 2015 by North Highland, a worldwide consulting company.

Peter Doubleday is the Retired Managing Partner of Ernst & Young LLP, a multinational professional services firm.

Gary Fish is the founder and chairman of Deschutes Brewery. The 30-year-old company began as a modest public house and restaurant in Bend, Oregon, and is now heralded as one of the country’s original and most successful independent craft breweries. In addition to the pub and manufacturing headquarters in Bend, Deschutes Brewery has an additional location in Portland, Oregon, and plans to build in Roanoke, Virginia. The company employs more than 530 people nationwide and is on tap or in the beer aisle in 29 states and the District of Columbia. After graduating in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Gary continued working his way up in the restaurant industry. He and his wife Carol moved to Bend in the late 1980s to open Deschutes Brewery, where he remains active guiding the company and giving time to serve on boards of directors for various regional business, industry and non-profit groups. For every barrel of beer sold, Deschutes Brewery donates $1 to non-profits, upholding one of Gary’s long-held business values to build healthy communities everywhere the company operates.

Paul Fortino is retired of counsel of Perkins Coie, an international law firm headquartered in Seattle. In 1983, Fortino moved to Oregon to start a branch of the international law firm Perkins Coie. During his time in Oregon, two friends introduced him to fly fishing and the acclaimed trout of the Deschutes.

“They took me there once, and I was immediately hooked,” he said. “It’s really all it took for me to start getting involved.”

As Chief Executive Officer at Schwabe,  Graciela Gomez Cowger fosters a client-centric approach and leverages her training as an engineer to deliver efficiencies and bring diversity of thought to the historically slow-changing industry. Cowger practiced as an intellectual property attorney for over 20 years, helping individuals and companies protect innovations in technology and healthcare and build enduring brands. As an IP lawyer, she experienced the rapid rate of change in technology and the ever-increasing flow of data and information. 

“We have never been more interconnected than we are now. I am passionate about finding strategies to help our clients adapt to the ways that these rapid changes impact the markets in which they operate.”

Since the four founders began A to Z in her kitchen in 2002, Deb Hatcher has been the soul of the brand. From hand-selling and delivering A to Z’s early wines to developing all packaging and messaging for what is now one of Oregon’s largest wineries, Deb continues to be responsible for the brand’s integrity. With A to Z’s purchase of REX HILL in 2006, she led efforts to reduce, reclaim, and refine the legacy brand to focus only on the highest quality befitting the premier REX HILL of today named an Extraordinary Winery in the Americas by Michelin’s Wine Advocate. A to Z Wineworks was honored with Vinnie awards for marketing excellence in 2019 and 2020.

Natalie L. Hocken is senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Hocken is responsible for managing all of the legal, corporate communications, environmental policy, human resources and insurance functions for the company. Prior to taking this position, Hocken served as senior vice president in various legal and operational roles at PacifiCorp, including strategic initiatives and transmission and system operations where she was responsible for opportunities focusing on federal regulatory priorities and overseeing transmission development, open access transmission services and transmission planning for one of the largest privately held transmission systems in the western U.S. Hocken serves as a director of PacifiCorp, AltaLink Management Ltd., Kern River Gas Transmission Company and Northern Natural Gas Company and president of NVE Insurance Company, Inc. Prior to joining PacifiCorp in 2002, Natalie was an energy attorney with the law firms of Heller Ehrman LLP and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae LLP. Hocken is a graduate of the University of Washington and the University of Oregon School of Law.

David Howitt is an accomplished entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience providing business strategy and brand counsel to thriving start-ups, small businesses and Fortune 100 companies. The author of Heed Your Call, an integrated business book for entrepreneurs, David is an inspiring innovator and guiding mentor in the world of commerce.  David's ability to foster the growth of iconic consumer brands started right after law school. While serving as Corporate Counsel for adidas, the brand experienced explosive growth and David was invited to serve as Vice President of Licensing and Business Development. In this capacity, he oversaw a $250 million dollar licensing portfolio and drove successful acquisitions for several corporate entities including TaylorMade and Salomon.  Always an entrepreneur at heart, David supported his wife, Heather Howitt in the launch of an iconic tea-based product, Oregon Chai in 1994, where they grew sales of the home-crafted brew from twenty thousand to two-hundred thousand dollars within their first year of business. Within six short years, the brand had spread to forty countries and across five continents. In 2004, Heather and David sold the company for seventy-five million dollars.  David founded Meriwether Group, a boutique private equity, business accelerator, and advisory firm that supports some of the most disruptive and recognizable consumer brands. He and the firm are committed to transforming the way human values are expressed through business. Meriwether Group supports universal shifts in commerce by helping founders to “Fulfill their Journey,” as David and most of the team has personally done.  Meriwether Group has provided financial, operational, and strategic guidance to these companies: Stumptown, Pendleton, adidas, Voodoo Doughnut, Salomon, yogitoes, Klim, Bloch, Dave’s Killer Bread, Oregon Chai, ABC Carpet & Home, Living Harvest, Laughing Planet, Nautilus, ChefWorks, Barre3, Xterra, and many more.

Taylor Keen is a full time instructor in the Heider College of Business Administration in Strategy and Entrepreneurship. Keen is also the Founder of Sacred Seed, a not-for-profit entity whose mission is to propagate tribal seed sovereignty, battle for tribal sacred geography and the seek cultural revitalization among tribal peoples. Currently, Keen is embarking on a journey with indigenous seeds of the upper Missouri River tribes to grow, harvest and celebrate the cosmology of the 4 Sisters (corn, bean, squash, and sunflower). Additionally, from his book-in-progress, he incorporates teachings of the sacred masculine / feminine of tribal peoples including the cosmology of Mother Corn and the Earth Mother goddess.  Keen holds a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College as well as a Master's of Business Administration and Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University, where he served as a Fellow in the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Taylor is the author of the book-in-progress entitled "Rediscovering America: Sacred Geography, the Ancient Earthen Works and an Indigenous History of Turtle Island”. Keen is Trustee Emeritus of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Board member Emeritus of the Humanities Nebraska, and Chairman Emeritus of the Blackbird Bend Corporation (The Omaha Nation of Nebraska and Iowa’s Economic Development Corporation).

Randy Labbe serves as the President of Kerr Pacific Corp, a private, family-owned company with a long history in grain based foods and foodservice distribution.

David Laurance is the Chief Executive Officer of Confluence Rx, a consortium of long term care pharmacies around the country.

An industry leader, innovator, and disrupter, Kim Malek is the CEO and Co-Founder of Salt & Straw. Malek built the company from the ground up, from a humble ice cream cart into a fast-growing, family-run company with 18 locations in just seven years. Under Malek’s leadership, Salt & Straw has become known for doing things the hard way—the right way. Her vision and leadership at Salt & Straw have caught the attention of many, from Disney to Vice Presidents to Hollywood.  Prior to Salt & Straw, Malek was director of Global Innovation at Starbucks Coffee and marketing director for (RED), with prior marketing roles at Yahoo! and Adidas. Her recent efforts have landed the brand as editor’s pick in Food & Wine, on Food Network, and the brand has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart, O Magazine, Saveur, TIME, Cooking Channel, TODAY, and Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods.

Molly McCabe is the CEO of HaydenTanner, a development and investor advisory firm accelerating impact and sustainability in the built environment. A veteran of commercial real estate finance and capital markets, she serves as a bridge between risk and return, visionary development and the bottom-line, to create financially and environmentally resilient buildings and vibrant, sustainable cities. Experienced in leading through complexity, she has also helped launch and guide several start-ups, new ventures and change management initiatives. In addition to sitting on the board of The Freshwater Trust, City Craft Foundation and is co-founder and board member of The Lotus Campaign, providing housing-driven solutions for homelessness. She is also the past Chair of Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Responsible Property Investment Council, founder of a VC funded, commercial mortgage-backed securities firm, and manager, institutional real estate capital markets group, as well as the author of “Practical Greening: The Bottom Line On Sustainable Property Development & Investment” and “Financing and Driving Value: Responsible and Resilient Property Investing in the New Millennium.”  Industry leader on investment, climate change, social-impact and resilience. Mom, dog-lover, amateur “handy-woman,” serial entrepreneur (currently focusing on the intersection of climate and prop tech). 

Will Neuhauser is Founder of FBR CoMotion Venture Capital LP, a venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to co-founding CoMotion, Neuhauser served in a variety of executive management, marketing and engineering positions during 20 years in software industries. His work history includes Walt Disney's Infoseek/Go Network company after it acquired Quando, multimedia company Media Mosaic, later recast as Quando, as well as six years with Paris-based Chorus Systèmes. Additionally, he worked with SA, maker of distributed microkernel operating systems for large OEM applications and served as President of its US operation, Chorus Systems, in the USA for three years.

“Primary "drivers" in my work have been to create and work with world-class teams that build great products and to participate in growing entrepreneurial companies.”

Mike Pohl is a member of the Board of Directors with ThinkAnalytics. ThinkAnalytics is the leading provider and most widely deployed real-time personalized content recommendations engine. Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multi-channel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Ascent Media Group, Inc. provides end-to-end media and technology services for the creation, management and distribution of media content.

Brad Preble serves as the President of Carr Auto Group, a dealership selling and servicing GMC, Buick, Chevrolet, Subaru, Cadillac and Nissan vehicles in the greater Portland, Oregon area.

Scott Sandbo is the Founder and Former Chairman and CEO at Pacific Crest Securities Inc., an investment-banking firm that provides financial advisory services to public and privately held technology companies. The firm was founded in 1990 initially focused on the Pacific Northwest region then in 1998 the firm shifted to focus solely on the global technology sector in institutional equities (research, sales, trading) and investment banking (mergers and acquisitions and public offerings). Pacific Crest was an active managing underwriter for technology initial public offerings including Alibaba, Facebook, and Workday. 

Gia Schneider is a cofounder and the CEO of Natel Energy. Gia holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from MIT and has 20 years of experience in the energy industry. While in the utility practice at Accenture, she provided strategic solutions around asset management to major energy companies. After Accenture, she worked at Constellation Energy on optimizing generation asset value. Gia left Constellation in 2004 to help start the energy trading desk at Credit Suisse; and in 2005, she started the carbon emissions trading desk at Credit Suisse, growing it to a profitable business in its first year. Gia co-founded Natel in 2009 with her brother, Abe Schneider, motivated by the theme of climate change driving changes in water patterns and focused on the opportunity for innovative hydropower solutions to be force multipliers for positive change given hydro's position at the energy-water nexus.  Gia is passionate about finding economically viable solutions to mitigate climate change, foster sustainable development, and produce inexpensive renewable energy. In her spare time, she can be found surfing, kiting, and cooking with friends and family.

Marian Singer is a water entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Wellntel, a water technology business developing intuitive products and information systems to help people learn about, manage and sustain their water resources. She also serves as Partner in FiveTwelve Group, a leading research/strategy consultancy known for open and creative methods used by Global F250 clients, particularly in Water and Energy markets. Marian is committed to tackling and finding solutions to freshwater challenges as a director for Southeastern Wisconsin Watersheds Trust (Sweet Water) and advisor to University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences Professional Science Master’s Program.

Dr. Sara Spangelo of SpaceX was the co-founder and CEO of Swarm, the company that is developing the world's lowest-cost global communications network with breakthrough satellite technology and ground hardware for customers in remote locations. Swarm was acquired by SpaceX in 2021, where she is now the Sr. Director of Satellite Engineering. Before starting Swarm, Sara worked on small satellites and autonomous aircraft at the University of Michigan and was a lead systems engineer at both NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and Google X. Her expertise is in modeling and optimizing satellite constellations to maximize impact and business opportunities. Sara holds a PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and in 2017 was a Top 32 Canadian astronaut candidate. Sara also likes to fly small planes.

Tony Trunzo is a Partner at Gryphon Investors. Previously, Trunzo served as the CFO at FLIR Systems and Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer of FEI, a designer and manufacturer of microscope technology.