Gerry De Young, Chairperson

Gerry De Young is the president of Ruth and Going, a local Planning and Civil Engineering consulting firm. Gerry has lived in San Jose since 1973 but first came to the Valley of Hearts Delight in 1967 to attend University of Santa Clara. Over the years he has served on over 15 Boards of local non-profit and community groups, and has assumed the responsibility of the Board Chair/President on well over half of these organizations. He is currently a Board member of the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, O'Conner Hospital Board, History San Jose Board, and the Lincoln High School Foundation Board. As a result of his involvement in many aspects of the community he has come to appreciate the need for community organizations, cultural groups and social service providers to have the opportunity to extend their outreach efforts by having access to the resources that will be provided by CreaTV San Jose.

Brenda McHenry, Vice-Chair

Brenda is the official representative for the League of Women Voters of San Jose-Santa Clara, and has served as president of the League in past years among other offices. She helped to produce and moderate the League’s TV program “Left, Right & Center” which aired on cable access and KICU-TV several years ago.  She has been ticket manager for Symphony Silicon Valley since its inception, as well as for the former San Jose Symphony, totaling almost 30 years. She believes strongly in the public’s right to access of information, and that CreaTV San Jose will be an important part of that effort.

Charlotte Powers, Treasurer

Kim Lawson, Secretary

I was part of the group that started Outlook Video in 1987.  In 2001 I was elected its Executive Director.  Over the years the show has won numerous awards for excellence, from local, regional and national judging events.  Most recently, we won two awards from the WAVE judging for best “Community Event” and “Community News” categories. I was appointed to the San Jose Community Media Access Corporation (CreaTV) in 2007 and became the Board Secretary in 2008.  My appointment was renewed in October 2008, for 1 year.

Maribel Andonian

Maribel brings years of industry and nonprofit experience to the CreaTV Board, acquired at Andonian Bauer and Holland Design Group, DNAX Research Institute (now Schering Plough Biopharma), and Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. Her strengths are in the areas of corporate communications, marketing communications, media relations, advertising, publication and website design, research, and advocacy, having worked in the biotech industry as well as for Catholic Charities. A committed community volunteer, she has served in leadership positions on the Boards of several community nonprofits, including the California Institute of Medical Research and the Fremont Union High School District Foundation. She currently serves on the Boards of Bellarmine College Preparatory and Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. She is a past member (and now an Emeritus member) of the Visiting Committee advisory council to the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of Michigan (1994-1998), and currently serves on the Board of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) of the University of Michigan. Maribel and her husband, Bob, reside in Cupertino, California. In her spare time she enjoys politics, international travel, literature, symphony and opera, photography, art history, bird watching, and scuba diving in the frigid waters of Monterey Bay.

Don Blankenship

Honored by the California State Assembly for his contributions to Education, Don is retired teacher from the Mission-West Valley Community College after 31 years in the two colleges English Departments. Among his additional duties, he has been the President of the District’s Academic Senate, the West Valley English Department Chair as well as the State President of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. Since he retirement Don as served as the Chairman of the San Jose Senior Citizens Commission as well as one of the Founding Board of Directors of CreaTV.

Jaime Contreras

Jaime is the community director of a youth civic engagement organization, GenerationEngage. He graduated with a MA in International Conflict Resolution at St. Mary’s University in Texas.  He has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area over 4 years forming partnerships between citizens, schools, and government through community dialogue, volunteerism, and civic actions.  He hosts local and national discussions, workshops, and film screenings to build awareness, foster involvment and create leadership within under-resourced populations. He believes in the power of ideas and in community leadership-building as a means to influence postive change on the local level. He also serves as a Housing Commissioner for the city of San Jose, CA.

Tricia Creason-Valencia

Tricia Creason-Valencia is an independent documentary producer and the founder of FLACAFILMS (www.flacafilms.com), where she works as a director and digital video editor. She directed the award-winning films, Eighty Layers of Me, a documentary about former cheerleaders turned activists and We Got Next, a narrative about young women basketball players. Tricia is currently co-producing and editing a documentary film titled Also Ran which tells the story of a dying racetrack a Mexican immigrant family who has gambled their future on the hardscrabble sport of horseracing. Tricia has taught film/video production and documentary filmmaking at San Francisco State University, Drexel University and in collaboration with several youth-related nonprofit organizations.

Breanna Gilbert

Michael La Rocca

Michael LaRocca is 4th generation Californian and a native of San Jose. After serving in U.S. Army during the Vietnam Era he finished up his formal education and received a degree in Supervision and Management. He worked in the public sector for the Town of Los Gatos for 30 plus years retiring in 1997 as their Director of Parks and Maintenance Services. Michael is a Designated Board Member representing United Neighborhoods of Santa Clara County a coalition of neighborhood associations and home owners associations in Santa Clara County who have come together for the purposes of education, communication and common action.

Chris Laxton

As the Director of Media Production and Delivery at San Jose State University, Chris Laxton oversees production projects, televised instruction facilities and cable and web delivery systems. In addition he manages the installation and support of smart classroom technology for the University. He has over twenty years of video production and media management experience ranging from running a university TV studio to operating an independent production company. He has produced public relations, instructional, cultural and sports programming for a variety of clients and project managed numerous technology installations.

Anna Marcoida-Harshbarger

Anna Marcoida-Harshbarger is a native of San Jose and one of the founders of AMH Consultants Inc.  Her expertise is in the areas of Planning and Economic Development. The firm is a woman-owned and minority-owned business.  It has a wide network of local and regional contacts in the business, employment training, education, community, real estate development, legal, multi-cultural, arts, media, nonprofit, public and private sectors. Ms. Marcoida-Harshbarger is committed to the success of Downtown San Jose and she and her husband Steve and daughter Maya have resided in both the Naglee Park Terrace and Northside neighborhoods.  Anna is a product of the 'Si Se Puede' civil rights movement in East San Jose and is proud to name her parents as her mentors who guided her activities in the social justice movement. As a businesswoman, she is also one of the owners of the Sonoma Chicken Coop Almaden restaurant where they take their philanthropic activities to another level by hosting fundraisers for community, nonprofit organizations.

Jim Risinger

Jim Risinger, Manager of Television Services for the Santa Clara County Office of Education has been in the television industry in the San Jose area for more than 40 years.  Risinger, a television producer, director and administrator, has extensive experience in all phases of television production.  While working for television broadcast stations, cable systems and independent program providers, Risinger has produced and directed productions including sports, news, information and entertainment programming.

Gerard Roney

Legal counsel for the Board of Directors, Gerard also has 15 years experience in video and TV production. He holds a B.A. from San Jose State University and a Juris Doctor from the University of California Hastings College of Law. He also holds two professional certificates in video production from UC Santa Cruz and  a degree in electronic engineering from the Heald Institute of Technology. Gerard is a San Francisco native, a 47 year San Jose resident, and a veteran community activist.