Angélica Salceda, (President from February 2020 to present; Member from December 2015 to present)
Staff Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California

Angélica Salceda is a staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, where she advocates for the civil rights and civil liberties of people in the Central Valley. Prior to joining the ACLU-NC as a staff attorney, Angélica was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the ACLU-NC, sponsored by Fenwick & West LLP. During her fellowship Angélica made significant strides toward education equality for pregnant and parenting students in California’s Central Valley through advocacy, litigation and organizing. Angélica also worked with community organizations and young parents to enact AB 302, which was signed into law on October 9, 2015. AB 302 reaffirms the right of parenting students in California schools to reasonable lactation accommodations. Before joining the ACLU-NC, Angélica was a legislative aide in the California State Assembly. Prior to that she was an Jesse M. Unruh Assembly fellow.

Angélica earned her law degree at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Angélica earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Horacio Amezquita, (Member from August 2023 to present)

Horacio Amezquita was the General Manager for the San Jerardo Housing Cooperative and a resident of  the Coop for thirty-six years. The community of San Jerardo has faced water contamination issues since 1990. Residents encountered major health issues by showering with and consuming contaminated drinking water. Numerous communities on the Central Coast are also struggling from contaminated drinking water. Clean water is becoming difficult to have access to and at the same time less affordable to low-income people and creating health issues.

Horacio has been serving other organizations in the Salinas Valley including: the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association, Safe Ag Safe Schools, Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, and Monterey Water Keeper. In the past he has been involved with other organizations including: The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, The Greater Monterey County Regional Water Management Group, Monterey Bay Community Power, the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience Advisory Group, and other grassroots organizations.

Horacio is currently working on a family farm in the Salinas Valley. He graduated from California State University of Monterey Bay with a concentration in Agriculture Business Management. He attended Hartnell College in Salinas and received two college degrees. Horacio was born in Mexico and came to live in the Salinas Valley in 1974. He has worked in managing farming, marketing, and housing cooperatives. His family participated in part of an antipoverty federal program that was provided by the President Carter Administration. 

Kathryn Gilje, (Vice President from February 2020 to present; Member from March 2019 to present)
Executive Director of Ceres Trust

Kathryn Gilje is an auntie, cousin, daughter & sweets who loves (and relies on) plants and insects. She works with institutional philanthropy to shift money, hearts and minds to organizing and movement–building for a just and regenerative economy. 

She is director of Ceres Trust, a foundation that supports healthy and resilient farms, forests and communities; and the ecosystems upon which we all depend. Kathryn co–chairs Justice Funders, a partner and guide for philanthropy in re-imagining practice; serves on the advisory board of the Building Equity and Alignment for Impact Fund and allies caucus, born of a shared recognition that we must support and resource grassroots groups led by people of color, Indigenous people, and working class white people to create community–based solutions to ecological crises. She sits on the steering committee of the Health and Environmental Funders Network, which works to mobilize philanthropy around solutions for environmental health and justice. Kathryn organizes money because it is a core currency of power within current economic and governance systems, and also because she loves math. 

A community organizer raised in the forest, prairie and city, Kathryn received training and guidance from Voices for Racial Justice/Organizing Apprenticeship Project, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, the UFW South Texas, and the Gamaliel Foundation, along with Victor and Gloria Contreras, Doug Nopar, Monica Moore, and Sarojeni V. Rengam, among many others. She previously was co–director of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, working with global allies to transform food and agricultural systems in the face of multinational chemical corporations; co–founder of Centro Campesino, a migrant farmworker–led organizing group focused on issues of worker justice, immigration, affordable housing, and health promotion; and was facilitator with the Program on Intergroup Relations and Conflict, where she dove into deep learning about systems of oppression, co-facilitation practice, and dialogue across identities as education for change. She learned foundational skills during her years as a secretary, and as personal assistant for Yvonne Duffy, disability rights activist, who taught her so much about ableism and its damage on our souls, bodies and society, teachings she comes back to again and again as she lives with (in)visible disability. She studied crops and soil science on Dancing Winds Farm, where she fell in love with goats (and became a milker), for a brief moment in Cuba with other Minnesota farmers, and with the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture.  She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Agricultural Science.

Kathryn participates with #Interfaith4BlackLives, and studies with the Oakland Peace Center and the Chaplaincy Institute toward understanding interfaith histories, possibilities, principles, and practice for people within regimes of white supremacy, wealth and power to intentionally disrupt, repair/heal and transform – toward our full humanity, interdependence, stewardship of creation, and deep joy. 

Martha Davis, (Treasurer from February 2020 to present; Member from November 2017 to present; Secretary from February 2018 to February 2020)
Retired Assistant General Manager/Executive Manager for Policy Development at the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA)

Ms. Martha Davis retired in late 2017 from her position as Assistant General Manager/Executive Manager for Policy Development at the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA), a municipal water district serving 830,000 people in the western portion of San Bernardino County.  IEUA provides regional sewage treatment services, distributes imported water and recycled water supplies, and provides other utility services for the Chino Basin.  Since 2000, Ms. Davis led many of the Agency’s award-winning conservation; planning and green programs including initiatives promoting water conservation, renewable energy, stormwater capture, and recycled water. 

Ms. Davis continues to serve on the board of directors of the California Section of the WateReuse Association. She also serves on the boards of the Mono Lake Committee and the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment. 

Previously, Ms. Davis served as the Executive Director for Californians and the Land (1998-2000) and for the Mono Lake Committee (1984-1996).  Under her leadership, the Mono Lake campaign culminated in a unanimous landmark public trust decision by the State Water Resources Control Board to protect Mono Lake. 

Ms. Davis graduated from Stanford University cum laude with a degree in human biology and received her master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  She is the recipient of an honorary PhD in Public Policy from the Kennedy College in Oakland, California.

Jenny Rempel, (Secretary from February 2020 to present; Member from December 2018 to present)
Graduate Student, Energy and Resources Group - UC Berkeley

Jenny Rempel is a graduate student in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, where she researches access to safe and affordable drinking water in California. Born and raised in Fresno, California, Jenny has supported community-led social justice movements through philanthropy, policy, organizing, and research. Jenny was on staff at Community Water Center for four years, working to build community power and shape the narrative about access to safe and affordable drinking water. Previously, Jenny worked with grassroots food and environmental justice organizations nationwide as a Tom Ford Fellow at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. Jenny also served as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow at PolicyLink, a racial equity think tank, where she advocated for federal food and transportation policies that benefit low-income communities and communities of color. Jenny graduated from Stanford University with an interdisciplinary environmental science and policy degree in Earth Systems.

Bessma Mourad, (Member from October 2014 to present; Former President from February 2018 to February 2020; Former Vice President from April 2016 to January 2018)
Consultant

Bessma joined the board of the Community Water Center at the beginning of 2015, and has worked for a decade on issues that range from water resources, to environmental health, and to women’s rights. She is currently a Program Officer for Water at Skoll Global Threats Fund, where she works on water and climate security. Prior to joining Skoll, Bessma worked with the United Nations Environment Programme, research and writing on topics of natural resource management, conflict prevention, and peace building.

Bessma holds a M.S. from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Susana De Anda, (Member, 2008 to Present)
Executive Director and Co-founder, Community Water Center

Susana De Anda co-founded and co-directs the Community Water Center. Susana is a seasoned community organizer and has received numerous awards and recognitions, including: the 2009 Petra Foundation Fellowship award; “150 Fearless Women in the World” by Newsweek Magazine (2012); “Women on Top – Top Activist” by Marie Claire magazine (2012); AOL sponsored PBS 3-part series titled, Makers: Women Who Have Shaped America (2012); and “Las Fabulosas” and “Inspiring Latinas” by Powerful Latinas (2011). In addition, Jill Iscol’s book, Hearts on Fire, features a chapter on Susana De Anda and CWC (2011).

Susana’s experience includes planning and organizing positions at the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment; the County of Merced Planning Department; the Santa Barbara County Water Agency; and the Santa Barbara non-profit Community Environmental Council. Susana earned a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara while completing a double major in Environmental Studies and Geography. Susana served for the past few years on the Community Funding Board of the Grassroots Fund through the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment and now serves on the Tulare County Water Commission and the Board of Directors of the Tulare County United Way.