Staff

E. Kim Coontz, Executive Director

Kim has been working with cooperatives for more than 30 years. She was Executive Director of Yolo Mutual Housing Association for four years and held an academic position with the Center for Cooperatives at the University of California at Davis for 14 years. Kim's experience includes assisting groups in the start-up of cooperatives, teaching cooperative board governance seminars, providing technical assistance to cooperatives, conducting research, writing, and endeavoring to find new ways to grow and strengthen the cooperative movement. She has authored and co-authored more than 12 publications about cooperatives and written numerous articles. These include the 2021 Landscape of California Cooperatives report, Cooperative Start-up manuals, and Bringing Families Together: A Guide to Parent Cooperatives, a book on child care cooperatives. She has also published articles on housing cooperatives. In 2011, Cooperative Preschools International presented Kim with the National Award for Demonstrated Leadership. In 2004, she was awarded Author of the Year by the National Association of Housing Cooperatives. Kim has an MA degree in Sociology from the University of California, Davis.

Jennifer Attridge, Bookkeeper

Jennifer joined CCCD in July 2022 with more than 30 years of bookkeeping and HR experience. She is integral in managing CCCD’s accounts, including supporting grant budgeting and management, and financial compliance. Jennifer’s professional experience includes employment with for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, both nationally and internationally. She has a BA in Organizational Studies from the University of California at Davis and a Cambridge English Language Teaching Accreditation (CELTA) from Holmes College in Melbourne, Australia.

Rafael Flores-Jones, IT Support Specialist and Systems / Network Administrator

Rafael has provided a wide range of technical support to CCCD for more than 12 years. He has over twenty years of experience providing technical services to multiple non-profits and residential and commercial clients. He migrated CCCD’s infrastructure to a cloud-based platform to facilitate staff working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, and he continues to provide ongoing support for data management, security, analytics, and user account management. Rafael has been instrumental in CCCD’s ongoing efforts to provide workshops as webinars that have been viewed live by thousands of individuals. He manages behind-the-scenes aspects of deployment, monitors events, and conducts post seminar outreach, including graphic design and video editing of recordings for upload to media platforms. Rafael holds degrees in Computer Science, Graphic Communication, and Fine Art, as well as multiple industry certifications. He is also bilingual in English and Spanish.

Randy Keller, Manufactured Home Parks Acquisitions and Advocacy Manager

Randy has over 38 years of experience in the manufactured and mobile home industry as a realtor, manufactured home dealer, and community manager. He has also worked on forming HOAs to help residents acquire their mobile home communities. Randy got started in real estate development using manufactured housing to develop affordable housing on single family lots and in mobile home communities. Randy will be working with residents to purchase their manufactured/mobile home communities and will also be helping to preserve affordable housing through cooperative resident ownership.

Aldo de la Mora, Agriculture Cooperatives Specialist

Aldo has extensive experience in pest management and working with small farmers. He worked with coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, for more than ten years during which time he completed his PhD. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Vermont with work associated with small coffee farmer associations or ejidos, including forming informal cooperatives and developing technical farming resources. The post-doctoral project focused on building resilient communities in the face of climate change and unpredictable coffee markets. Aldo has successfully led collaborations between farmers and researchers for numerous research projects, and has effectively overseen budget management for projects he has participated in. One of these projects was the CONACYT-UC MEXUS binational grant, which included professors and students from both Mexico and California. His work at CCCD involves working with underserved farming communities in California.

Deborah Yashar, Agriculture and Food Cooperatives Specialist

Deborah has dedicated her career to supporting the resiliency of regenerative farmers and the organizations that support them. She has worked with the Ecological Farming Association (EcoFarm), Agriculture Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA), Community Agroecology Network (CAN), and Awe Sum Organics. Projects included the development of farmers markets, business and marketing education, and increasing access to healthy, organically produced foods both on the ground and through policy advocacy. She has launched a variety of creative campaigns and organized events such as the annual EcoFarm Conference - the largest sustainable agriculture conference west of the Mississippi. Deborah serves on the board of directors of her local BriarPatch Food Co-op. Deborah holds a BA in Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture from UC Santa Cruz and enjoys any opportunity to put her Spanish or Portuguese speaking ability to use.

Jamie Duong, Cooperative Finance Specialist

Jamie began her tenure with CCCD as a volunteer student intern. Following a year of interning, Jamie joined the staff. She specializes in worker and housing cooperatives, and provides financial services support for CCCD’s CaliROC program. She has led trainings on the financial structure of worker cooperatives and is a resource for patronage accounting and audits. She is active in CCCD’s grant planning and writing. She is also a founding member of Resolve Financial Cooperative, a bookkeeping worker cooperative. Jamie has a BA in Economics with minors in Accounting and Classical Civilization from the University of California, Davis.

Pedro Maturana, Worker Cooperatives Specialist

Pedro's role is to support CCCD’s worker cooperative development. He serves as a mentor to the center's green cleaning worker cooperative and provides advice in the development and operation of worker cooperatives. Pedro’s experience also includes 7 years of worker-cooperative membership where he was involved in member recruitment, orientation, training, and scheduling. As well as two years of technical assistance for the Arizmendi Association, an innovative worker cooperative incubator program in the Bay Area that brings worker cooperatives to scale through replication and providing networking and support services. With the association, he developed procedures, systems of accountability, as well as coordination and facilitation support to member cooperatives. Pedro has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and a double minor in professional writing and sociology.

Liliana Lomeli, Cooperative Housing Outreach and Community Development Specialist

Liliana is passionate about education and helping others. In her position as Housing Outreach & Community Development Specialist, she works closely with communities in both the pre- and post-acquisition stages. Her role is to assist residents in understanding their roles as new owners and establishing their Board and democratic governance for successful ownership. Liliana graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in Business Management and she is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Tahnisha Crooks, Outreach and Communications Associate

Tahnisha began at CCCD as a student intern in 2019, supporting the annual CA Co-op Conference and related initiatives. Following a break, Tahnisha began part time employment with CCCD in 2021. Her work focuses on administering CCCD's outreach and communication and managing cooperative education and informational posts on social media platforms. She also provides administrative support. Tahnisha is a full-time student majoring in English.

Jordan Trujillo, Co-op Housing: Systems and Funds Development Associate

Jordan assists CCCD’s Co-op Housing program as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. He works on developing systems and strategies that streamline operations, conducting research on available funding and market trends, documenting model policies, and generally assisting project supervisors. He first became aware of cooperatives while writing a profile on his late grandfather, who had established a cooperative in his small hometown in Mexico. Jordan has a BA in International Relations from the University of California, Davis. He is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Karina Kung, Administrative Assistant