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BPN Volunteers

Berkeley Parents Network > Help & Frequently Asked Questions > BPN Volunteers

This page lists the volunteers who run the Berkeley Parents Network, keep newsletters going out and the website updated.
See Current BPN Volunteers   See Past Volunteers


June 2005 - some of the BPN volunteers
Back row (L-R): Kathy K, Jennifer M
Front row (L-R): Ginger O, Paz N, Jean F, Laurel C, Carrie S

Current BPN Volunteers

Past Volunteers

About the Moderators

Carrie

Carrie has been moderating the Advice newsletter ever since 2002, when she responded to a request to "just do it for a couple of months till we find somebody else". Carrie is known on BPN for her dry wit and self-described thick skin. She says she is "a small person, with more guts than brains". She can't cook, has no mechanical sense, loud noises make her jump and she is extremely acrophobic. Carrie was born and raised in Southeastern Louisiana, where her sister and her mom, immigrants from Ecuador, still live. For fun, Carrie likes portrait sketching, long distance running, amateur photography, and cartooning at "deadratsinmyfreezer.com". She can be found during the day at UC Berkeley Summer Sessions where she is a web programmer/designer and marketing editor. At night and on weekends she is at home in Albany with her husband and two daughters, 11 and 13, who attend Albany public schools. They have 1 dog, 2 cats, and a snake. (Jan 2010)

Ginger

Ginger started BPN in 1993 and it has been her main hobby ever since, often interfering with more suitable pasttimes such as parenting her 3 children. Ginger grew up in Alabama in a family of southern "librals" and moved to Berkeley in 1980 with the idea of going to law school. Instead she started a family and then went to grad school in Computer Science, where she met her husband Wayne, also an EECS grad student (and now also a BPN moderator). Ginger started the BPN in order to connect with other EECS student parents, and it just took off from there. Ginger is a database programmer for a group of climate scientists at the Berkeley Institute of the Environment. She lives in Berkeley with Wayne and three sons AJ, who goes to Walden Center & School in Berkeley, Jake, a starving artist/hipster/musician, and Joe, who works for an online sports company, and is a BHS lacrosse coach. Their household also includes a dog, 2 cats, 4 birds, and the occasional relative living in the spare room. (Oct 2010)

Jean

Jean began moderating the Recommendations newsletters in January 2005 after being coerced into volunteering by her friend Ginger, and in 2007 she took over the Schools newsletter from her departing friend, Paz. Jean lives in Berkeley with her partner Wendy and their son Michael, 8, who is in 3rd grade at Oxford Elementary School. Jean grew up in the Bay Area where she was the middle child of 5 children, most of whom still live near enough to provide plenty of warmth and angst on a regular basis. Jean's paid job is Props Director for the UC Berkeley Theater Department, where she has worked for many, many years. Although Jean's degree is in Health Education, and she volunteered for many years as a medic at the Berkeley Free Clinic, her allegiance to a paid job, not to mention the freakish pleasure she takes in collecting dusty old semi-useless items, has kept her a local resource for Bay Areans looking for theater props. She was featured in an article in The Berkeleyan which you can read here. (Jan 2010)

Jennifer M.

Jennifer M. has been a BPN member since 1999 as a grad student parent at Cal. She was Announcements moderator in 2003-2004, then took a six-year hiatus before returning in 2010. Her day job is as Communications Manager for Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, because she likes putting parents in touch with information. Jennifer lives in Oakland with her two children, her fiance, and two soon-to-be stepchildren. With three last names under one roof, they still don't know what to put on the welcome mat (other than "welcome"). Jennifer enjoys cycling, rowing, and watching all the kiddos get astonishingly large and accomplished. (Jan 2010)

Jennifer P.

Jennifer lives with her husband Scott in the Elmwood neighborhood of Berkeley with her growing belly; baby #1 is expected at the end of May/beginning of June! Jennifer loves going on walks with her husband, knitting, sewing, reading and traveling. Jennifer graduated from UC Berkeley in 1993. After earning 2 graduate degrees, she now works as a law librarian and an occasional doula. (April 2010)

Jon

Jon is a computer manager and programmer at UC Berkeley. He helped Ginger set up the BPN computers when BPN was first getting started back in 1993. But, that's all he did until Ginger coerced him into becoming a moderator in 2007. Jon lives in posh Kensington with his wife, Anne. Their daughter attended Portola Middle School and El Cerrito High School, and is currently attending Southern Oregon University. Jon rides his bicycle to and from work, except when it's dark early. He likes playing 60s rock and roll on guitar, ham radio, and other hobbies that were popular once but no longer. His main claim to fame is having invented the famous "No Bozo" bumper sticker. (Jan 2010)

Laurel

Laurel began moderating the Marketplace portion of the newsletter in 1999, when she was a student parent at Cal. Other than a two year hiatus when she lived in the South Bay, Laurel has been in charge of Marketplace ever since. She has watched it grow from a few items in each newsletter to 100+ items. She remembers debating with Ginger whether or not cars should be allowed! Laurel lives with her family (mother, husband, two kids, two cats, a dog and a snake) in Berkeley. Laurel homeschooled her two kids until they reached 5th and 3rd grades, and they now attend Berkwood Hedge School in Berkeley. Laurel is a birth doula and student midwife, and when she's not sleeping she likes reading, cooking, and walking her goofy basset hound. (Jan 2010)

Layla

Layla has been moderating the Childcare newsletter since Fall 2007. She and her husband have a 4 year old son and they are expecting a daughter this month! Layla is a stay at home mom who also works part-time for a non-profit. Previously she has worked as a Manager at Pixar Animation Studios, and as an editor at ChickClick.com, a magazine for teen girls. (April 2010)

Paz

Paz Navarro began moderating the Schools Newsletter in March 2005. Paz and her husband Scott have two children Uma, 5, a kindergartener at Oxford Elementary and Diego, 1.5, still a rugrat at home. Paz grew up in a rural coal mining town in West Virginia, before moving to the Bay Area at age 13. She has always been determined to be a Berkeleyan, sneaking out to 924 Gilman Street since age 14. After attending Cal, Paz decided to never leave Berkeley and has settled here for good. She volunteered for years at the Berkeley Free Clinic, while also working at the Berkeley High School Health Center. Currently, Paz heads up the reading coach program at Oxford Elementary. She plans to attend a Physician Assistant program soonish, if they let her in. Paz has a fondness for tattoos, music, dancing to 80s music, gallavanting abroad, clinical things and designer duds. Paz is currently accepting applications for new friends and acquaintances, contact her via the Schools Newsletter. (Oct 2006)

Sally

Sally joined the BPN in 1999 when her kids were at King Middle School and Berkeley High School. She wrote a quick email to Ginger saying "It's not that I feel that thumb sucking and toilet training aren't important----they have just ceased to be so for me. However, let's talk about Berkeley High, driver's training, SEX, etc. and I really get interested." Ginger (with teens of her own) willingly set it up and Sally agreed to moderate the newly minted "Parents of Teens" digest. Sally's son is now 26 and after several years in New York is back at home working at Chez Panisse and waiting to start graduate school at the UC Berkeley Journalism School. He pays the rent by bringing home leftovers and tending the vegetable garden. Sally's daughter has flown the coop and moved to Austin, Texas but still calls home for advice. Sally lives with her husband, Paul, in Berkeley. Weekdays you'll find her up on the hill at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab where among other things she coordinates Nano*High. Sundays you'll find her singing in the choir at Epworth United Methodist Church. (Feb 2010)
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this page was last updated: Apr 11, 2011
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