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Board of Directors

2022-2023 Board of Directors

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Bob Gans
President

Bob Gans is an attorney who arrived in Del Mar from New York City 21 years ago with his wife, Melissa (a long-time Board member of the Del Mar Garden Club), and their two children, Seth (now 25 and living in Los Angeles as a recent graduate of CU-Boulder and Alliant University with a Masters’ Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy), and Leah (now 23 and living in New York as a recent graduate of NYU, where she has launched her own jewelry brand and will soon commence graduate studies at Columbia University – Teachers College).  Bob currently is a member of the City of Del Mar Finance Committee, and served in various positions on the Board of the Del Mar Foundation from 2012 to 2020, including as President from 2016 to 2018.  Bob has also served as President of the Del Mar Schools Education Foundation, Treasurer of the La Jolla Country Day School Board of Trustees, and as a Nation Leader in the Magdalena-Ecke YMCA “Y-Guide” and “Y-Princess” Programs.  He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and New York University School of Law.

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Tema Halpern
Secretary

Since moving to Del Mar in 2013, Tema has been actively involved with Newcomers Club of San Dieguito, most recently as President, and has worked on the Hospitality Committee of the Del Mar Foundation.  While living near Seattle, where her two children were born, she was involved primarily in PTA and Junior League.  After moving near Pasadena, she served in many roles on the board of Assistance League of Flintridge and also served on the boards of various education-related organizations, including as President of Caltech Women’s Club.  Tema and her husband Dave feel very fortunate that their son, his wife and three grandchildren also live in Del Mar.

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Wayne Otchis
Treasurer

Wayne moved to Del Mar 20 years ago with his wife Linda.  He has maintained a CPA practice for 45 years and recently became semi-retired.  He has been a volunteer driver for DMCC and is looking forward to serving as Treasurer on the new board.  He has 2 grandsons in Texas and 2 granddaughters in Colorado, so Wayne and Linda spend a lot of time on Southwest Airlines.  He is active with Seacrest Foundation and is also active with the San Diego Chapter of the Stanford Alumni Association.  Hobbies include travel, snorkeling, and collecting old political items, especially from 1912.  He loves walking around Del Mar and also belongs to a walking group in Encinitas.  

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Mary Walshok

Development Chair

Mary Walshok is a thought leader and subject-matter expert on aligning workforce development with regional economic growth. She has authored more than 100 articles, reports, and book chapters on regional innovation, workforce development and the role of research institutions in regional economies. As an industrial social scientist focused on the dynamics of regional economic development and transformation, Walshok has studied various communities across America. She has evaluated 13 WIRED regions funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, studied three innovative regions for a National Science Foundation-funded project and assessed one region’s efforts to grow an industry for a Lilly Foundation-funded endeavor.

As head of the continuing education and public programs arm of UC San Diego since 1981, Walshok oversees programs that educate more than 120,000 enrollees annually, which translates to more than 30,000 students in over 4,400 courses. Walshok has developed outreach efforts to help accelerate the San Diego region’s economic vitality, grow the region's globally competitive talent pool and help college graduates transition to high-demand employment areas. She also helps provide access to a vast array of regional intellectual resources through the award-winning UCSD-TV and nationwide through UCTV.

During her tenure at UCSD, Walshok has played an active role in helping the University expand its local impact, national reputation and global reach. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Kellogg Foundation’s Leadership Fellowship and was inducted into Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star. She currently serves on the boards of San Diego Connect (which she helped found in 1985), the La Jolla Playhouse, the United States-Mexico Foundation for Science (FUMEC), the Institute of the Americas (IOA), the San Diego Opera, the Smart Border Coalition and the Girard Foundation.

Walshok is a native of Palm Springs, California, she received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Pomona College in 1964, her master’s degree in sociology in 1966 and her Ph.D. in sociology in 1969 from Indiana University. She has been a visiting professor at the Stockholm School of Economics for many years and in 2004 held an international appointment in the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University in England.

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Marilyn Carpenter

Marilyn spent her early life in Montana, then lived in Chicago and Denver prior in arriving in San Diego & Del Mar. She has a BS degree in Nursing and a Master of Business Administration. Marilyn has a varied career in health care; computer hardware & software sales; faculty appointment at Northwestern University; business owner for several years; and VP of Compliance for an automated medical coding company. She was an avid runner for decades competing in numerous marathons and other distance events. Marilyn loves to travel and has happily crossed most places off her must-visit list. She has volunteered for numerous organizations over the years and currently serves the north coastal community for Trauma Intervention Program, responding to traumatic incidents to support survivors for the first hours following a tragedy.

Marilyn adores the seniors she has met being Grocery Van Hostess for DMCC. 

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Linda Chisari

Linda grew up on the East Coast, attended Mount Holyoke College and graduated with a BS and RN from Columbia University. After practicing pediatric nursing for several years, she and her husband relocated to Del Mar in 1973. Linda gave piano lessons to young children for 10 years while returning to Mesa College to study Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design. In 1981, she began a 35-year career as a Landscape Designer. She subsequently designed more than 800 residential and commercial landscapes in San Diego County, including more than 150 in Del Mar. Linda has been a member of the Del Mar Garden Club and the City’s Parks and Rec Committee for many years. She has led and accompanied DMCC’s ‘Singing Together‘ program since 2003. Linda's website is lindachisari.com.

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Pat JaCoby

Pat was raised in Pasadena, but spent her childhood summers in Del Mar where her family rented a beach front cottage. Many years later, armed with fresh journalism degrees from the University of Missouri, Pat and her husband arrived in Del Mar to purchase and publish two weeklies—the Del Mar Surfcomber and the Rancho Santa Fe Times. Pat plunged into volunteer work with the City of Del Mar, serving as chair of the Planning Commission, Design Review Board, Parks and Recreation, and chairing the city’s anniversary celebration. She served on the committee to select an architectural firm for the city’s new Civic Center and chaired the dedication ceremony which followed its completion. Her journalism work includes the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune and as Director of Communications at UCSD Medical Center.  Her hobbies include the theater (she served as president of the San Diego Theater League) and “off beat” adventures such as painting houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, teaching English in Costa Rica or wind-sailing off the Torrey Pines cliffs.

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Judy Schuckit

After graduating with a degree in research psychology from Washington University, Judy moved to Del Mar in 1971 with her husband Marc.  This was Judy’s first trip west of the Mississippi.  Del Mar was quite a change from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and St. Louis, Missouri. 

She worked at UCSD until 1980 when she started a small business buying and selling estate and antique jewelry. This business fits well with her deep interest in art and in history.  This interest has led to a number of lectures to the public focused on the changes over time in both the style and the manufacture of jewelry as women’s roles in society have changed over time.

Judy has served on the Boards of the Del Mar Foundation, The Friends of the Powerhouse and the Del Mar Garden Club.  She last spent seven years on the Board of DMCC as Treasurer. 

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Sheila Sharpe

Sheila is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in La Jolla. During the past 30 years she has served on the Board of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center and on the steering committee of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program. She also teaches in this program. For the past two years, she has served on the DMCC Salon Committee and is now working on the strategic planning committee of NeverAgain, an organization dedicated to banning the gun shows at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

 

Sheila has a BA from Connecticut College, an MSW from San Diego State University, an MFA in painting and film criticism from UCSD, and a PhD in clinical psychology from the Fielding Institute. She and her husband Michael have lived in Del Mar for 18 years.

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Al Sweedler

Alan Sweedler recently retired from San Diego State University, where he was Associate Vice President in charge of the university’s international programs, Director of the Center for Energy Studies and Professor of Physics. As SDSU’s Senior International Officer he was responsible for all of the university’s international relations and agreements. Professor Sweedler’s academic expertise is in the area of energy policy and technology and environmental impacts of energy use. He has been a leader in developing energy policy and researching energy issues for over 40 years, especially in the greater San Diego region, including Mexico. He was the founding Chair of the San Diego Regional Energy Office, the precursor to the current Center for Sustainable Energy and was a founding Board member of Clean Tech San Diego. Sweedler is a 44-year resident of Del Mar and currently serves on the Sustainability Advisory Committee (SAC) and is Del Mar’s representative to the Community Advisory Committee for the Clean Energy Alliance. His wife is retired from UC San Diego where she was a reference librarian at the Geisel Library.

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