Class III

Oscar Menjivar is the Educational Technology Curriculum Specialist for Animo Pat Brown High School where he teaches technology courses. He is also a multimedia arts consultant for the USC Upward Bound Math/Science Program. During his tenure at USC, he successfully implemented a leadership and digital arts course for youth in Los Angeles. The digital arts course has produced winners for a national website competition.

Prior to USC, he worked as a multimedia and technology consultant for Small Business Development Centers in the Los Angeles County. As a small business consultant, Oscar guided over 100 small business owners with marketing, business planning, and budgeting.

In 2004, Oscar joined the Long Beach YMCA Youth Institute as Multimedia Technology Program Coordinator. He worked in collaboration with staff to design and implement the summer digital arts and leadership program for over 100 high school students. Oscar successfully developed the first youth civil rights journey for the Long Beach YMCA.

Oscar has used his leadership and technology skills to promote high expectations among youth groups and improve the quality of educational programs and youth student achievement.

Gasper Martinez is a Management Analyst for the National Farm Workers Service Center, a not-for-profit affordable housing developer. As a staff member in Housing and Economic Development Fund with the supporting role to the Executive Vice President, he has had the unique opportunity to work on a wide array of projects within the Development, Community Services, and Property Management departments.

In addition, he has also been able to have a contributive role in the development and implementation of strategic perspectives, organization-wide. The nature of his position requires that he is willing to wear many hats, most recently of which has required him to play a substantial role in providing information technology support and resources.

Gasper sees growing up in South Central Los Angeles, raised by his single mother, as a point of pride. He attributes a lot of who he is today and where his interests have taken him to the values and work ethic he developed as a youth. The desire to learn and a commitment to put his best effort in everything he did empowered him to be successful throughout his life. He was able to attend Loyola High School, one of the premier college preparatory high schools in the nation. He was accepted to and studied at Stanford University, where he pursued a B.S. in Management Science and Engineering. He continues to take his passion for growth and making a difference now in the various organizations, projects, and causes he is active in.

Sean McLaughlin is an educator, media access advocate and non-profit executive. He is known for his tendency to live in proximity with spectacular natural environments, an affinity for diverse multi-cultural engagement, a reputation for fearless innovation and a dry eclectic sense of humor. Born in the Year of the Fire Rooster, he is a Libra with four siblings – an older sister and brother and a younger sister and brother – some would say he’s a natural diplomat with trickster tendencies.

In July 2006, Sean McLaughlin became the first executive director for Access Humboldt (accesshumboldt.net) a community media organization providing local access channels, broadband network connections, digital media production resources, training and support for local governments, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and residents of Humboldt County, California USA.

McLaughlin is a policy wonk – currently serving as public policy work group chair for the Alliance for Community Media (alliancecm.org) as a Board member for the Alliance for Communications Democracy (theacd.org), and an active member of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (natoa.org). He has published articles, provided expert testimony before legislative and regulatory agencies, and participated in international conferences around the world – including India, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Australia. Favorite cities: Lana’i City, Eureka, Paris & Hong Kong.

Previously, McLaughlin was the first chief executive officer for Akaku: Maui Community Television, providing media access for the Hawaiian islands of Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i. During his tenure, Akaku grew to include five cable TV channels, low power FM radio and online media services. After serving as vice chair of Maui County's Charter Commission, McLaughlin was named Maui's outstanding non-profit executive director for 2004. He founded and serves as spokesperson for Hawaii Consumers. And he is a founding member of Haoles Against Haoles (HAH). Favorite Hawaiian word: ha’aha’a – which means “humility.”

Educated at Dartmouth College, McLaughlin taught "Politics of Media" in the 1980’s at the University of Hawai’i (UH-Manoa) and served on the University of Hawaii’s Broadcast Communications Authority as vice chair. Vox clamantis in paradise.

McLaughlin started a successful broadcast media design, production, and consulting firm based in Honolulu. He also served as director of telecommunications for the Honolulu City Council. Many of McLaughlin’s media projects have received national recognition, including: ACE Awards for Cable Excellence; Broadcast Media Awards; an Achievement Award from the National Association of Counties - NACo; and, numerous other awards and festival showings. He later developed projects as an international news consultant for Hawaii Public Television and the Hawaii based co-production (with NHK-Japan and KCTS-Seattle) Asia Now. Favorite color: Green.

Michael McCarthy is an independent consultant who has spent the last 15 years working with low-income families and communities. He has created welfare to work and technology training programs at Compass Family Center and Homeless Prenatal Program.

Michael has been an IT Director, employment specialist, technology curriculum developer, counselor, successful fund raiser, and program manager. He recently managed OpNet Community Ventures a workforce development program that trained young adults for jobs in the IT industry. He is currently assisting several San Francisco non-profits in developing community technology programs. For the past two years he has created wireless networks in low income communities in San Francisco. He was an active member of the San Francisco Mayors Digital Inclusion Task Force. He is on the steering committee of the Bay Area Community Technology Network and on the board of directors of Compass Community Services. He lives near Golden Gate Park with his wife and two young children. He holds a B.A. from Earlham College in Richmond, IN.

I began working in communications over 20 years ago, editing, writing, producing newsletters, and eventually developing websites, mostly in corporate settings. I learned a lot along the way, but I knew something was missing. I wanted to find a way to connect the skills I had learned with what I cared most deeply about: that we should all have what we need to live lives of health, dignity, and sacredness.

Inspired by this purpose, five years ago, I made a decision that has changed my life: to work at the Southern California Library, an independent library and archives in South L.A. that holds the histories of how people have struggled together for justice—in their schools, their workplaces, and their communities.

The Library’s mission is to document, preserve, and provide access to the stories of these struggles for justice. Being part of this work has immense meaning for me because I believe these stories are critical to helping us understand how things have come to be the way they are, particularly in poor communities of color, and what we can do to create change. This takes on added weight given that the histories we hold are the ones that are usually silenced and left out: stories of tenants living in roach-infested buildings fighting for their rights; of people coming out of prison with no money, nowhere to go, and no place to get a job; of immigrant workers struggling to get livable wages and decent working conditions.

An important part of my job as the Library’s Communications Director is to help provide access to and create spaces of interaction with these and other stories of marginalized, under-represented, and under-served communities, so that we can learn from them. In my time at the Library, I have had the opportunity to help develop programming and materials on topics like L.A.’s housing crisis and the impacts of incarceration on communities; produce a reader entitled “Without Fear...Claiming Safe Communities Without Sacrificing Ourselves”; work with women just getting out of prison to develop digital stories of their life journeys; and gather stories from young people in South L.A. about their day-to-day life in the neighborhood. Through these and other experiences, I have seen the impact it has when we create, share, and interact with our stories in community.

I am excited about the possibilities of using new media and communications technologies to even further increase the impact of the Library’s rich collections as we use the power of stories to help create a world that works for all of us.

In 2002 Judi Rogers received the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award for her work on issues concerning disabled women in breast health, pregnancy and parenting with a disability. Growing up with a disability, being a mother with a disability and later having breast cancer, have molded Judi's career path. She is the leading author on Pregnancy with a disability.

She has created adaptive equipment for parents with disabilities in her work at Through the Looking Glass in Berkeley, California. She is on Bright Futures for Women’s Health and Wellness steering committee for Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Before aging set in Judi loved to ski, she still loves to travel, cook and discover new restaurants.

Bernadette Montez is currently the In-School Program Director at Streetside Stories, a literacy and arts community based organization that inspires young people to share the stories of their lives through writing, digital media, performance and the visual arts. Prior to working with Streetside Stories, Bernadette worked as an art educator with institutions such as Zeum, the University of California, Berkeley, New York University, the Guggenheim Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York.

An artist and Bay Area native, Bernadette is committed to ensuring that all young people are empowered and have equal access to educational, creative and career development opportunities.

Bernadette holds a BA in Film and American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA in Studio Art from New York University.

Joanne Kim is the Director of Photography Education and New Media at Venice Arts. She is a photographic artist who has been working with photography and digital media for the past 7 years in various teaching and creative capacities.

Joanne was Adjunct Faculty in Photography at Evergreen State College, where she also managed the photography lab and darkroom. She also taught community–based photography classes in the Northwest for three years. Her digital media job experience includes work as a web designer for an independent record company and working with companies on digital asset management systems.

Joanne has had numerous shows of her work at galleries in the Northwest and has exhibited in a group show in Los Angeles, where she moved in the Fall of 2005. She recently traveled to Mozaambique with Venice Arts to work on The House is Small but the Welcome is Big project, where she taught photography to youth who have been orphaned by AIDS and to youth activists working with UNICEF.

Currently, she’s working on a documentary project with youth living in the Garment District of Downtown Los Angeles teaching them to tell their stories through photography and digital media.

Born prematurely in 1968 I was left blind but alive after receiving too much oxygen in an incubator. I was salutatorian of my high school in 1987 and went on to attend California State University San Bernardino. I am the proud father of one daughter. I currently teach other blind and visually impaired people to use computers and the adaptive technology we need to access them.

I have been living in the eastern Sierra for the past ten years. It is a pristine and exceedingly beautiful high desert environment. My most significant mentors here have been Paiute elder Norma Nelson, and my friend and Paiute community leader, Paul W. Chavez. Following my father’s career as a diplomat for the U.S. Government, my parents raised me in diverse surroundings including Mexico where I was born, Turkey and Illinois where I spent my childhood, in Greece and Virginia as a young adult.

I moved to California via Wyoming in 1993. Heroes outside my family include Jacques Cousteau, Carmen Campbell, and Jean Kondo-Weigel. Since 1996 I have initiated programs for community-based action mostly around the revitalization of Indian languages but also on environmental diversity and restoration. I have been fundraiser, program planner and manager, and lead technician and trainer. I work in small towns, reservations, and low-income neighborhoods where experiences of these types are uncommon because much work of this nature must initially be volunteered. I am a geeky girl and have loved digital media development technology since Photoshop 2.5 (before layers!). When attending college for fine arts and writing, computer-based tools for these topics had not yet been introduced to the general public. When I finally did get my hands on these tools, I saw how everyone else should get their hands on them too. At that time, Norma Nelson was teaching me how keeping Indian languages alive is directly connected to the health of Indian communities and the health of the community’s traditional environment. For Indian cultures that are very endangered and rely on being passed on orally, imaginative citizen groups have found digital recording and editing technology particularly useful for preserving and perpetuating their languages. They are also able to control the distribution of media that portrays them in the public eye.

Since 1996, I have trained people from at least 20 language groups to become self-sufficient in technological skills that enable them to have better economic opportunities and opportunities for self expression. In collaboration with the director and staff of the Owens Valley Career Development Center, in 1997 I initiated the Nüümü Yadoha Program, a California Indian language revitalization program that operates in five counties.

This year I am working independently with several colleagues on audio and video productions in native California languages. My interest in public policy issues includes community-controlled, independent media production and the infrastructure development for distribution of media.