The Dean’s Council was created to support, promote, and guide the Bren School in its quest to become the most outstanding school of its kind in the nation, while also serving as the primary conduit between the School and the community at large. The Council holds three informative, action-oriented meetings per year, one each during the fall, winter, and spring academic quarters. It also sponsors the Breakfast Club, which meets quarterly at the University Club in Santa Barbara for sessions that are open to the invited public.

DEAN'S COUNCIL MEMBERS

Dennis Allen, Chair
Dennis Allen is president of Allen Associates, a general contracting firm specializing in environmentally friendly custom residential building. The company has won 27 awards from the Santa Barbara Contractors Association for the quality and beauty of its projects, and is the only firm to have received has received the Builder of the Year Award multiple times, in 2000, 2003, and 2004. It has also received the Green Builder of the Year Award six times, and has earned a Green Business Award from the County of Santa Barbara.

A number of its projects have been featured in national publications, and two have earned National Chrysalis Awards. Several years ago, Remodeling magazine honored Allen Associates as one of the top 50 remodeling companies in the country.

Mr. Allen is active in community organizations, including The Sustainability Project, the Green BuildingAlliance, and the Santa Barbara Contractors Association. For the past five years, he has served as a consultant on the County of Santa Barbara’s Innovative Building Review Committee, which encourages energy efficiency and sustainable practices in building projects within the county.

Dennis J. Aigner
Dennis J. Aigner is Emeritus Professor of Management & Economics in the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). From 2000-05, he was Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1988-97 he was Dean of the Graduate School of Management at UCI. Before that, he was Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles.  He received his BS and Ph.D. degrees in Agricultural Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and holds an MA in Applied Statistics from that same institution.  He was on the teaching faculties at the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prior to his appointment at USC in 1976.  

Aigner's publication record includes several books and numerous articles on statistical and econometric methodology, and applied economics.  He was founding editor of the Journal of Econometrics and one of its co-editors for 20 years. His research interests include corporate environmental management, international trade, and state and local economic issues.

From 1990-92, Aigner served as Chair of the California Workers’ Compensation Rate Study Commission, whose work culminated in deregulation of the California Workers’ Compensation insurance market beginning in 1995. Within that same period, he also served on the National Research Council’s Committee on the National Energy Modeling System, which conducted a two-year evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy’s energy modeling and forecasting program.  More recently he concluded service on another National Research Council panel, this time to review the research program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. From 2003-09 he served as a member of the National Advisory Committee to the U.S. EPA Administrator on the environmental aspects of NAFTA.

Aigner is frequently called upon to provide expert testimony in business litigation cases involving statistical sampling and estimation. Over the past several years he has also provided pro bono consulting services on a variety of economic and econometric issues to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental NGO.


Jack Amon
Jack Amon owns and operates orange groves in Florida and a lavender ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. He is an avid environmentalist who has served as president of Friends of Lake Apopka, a group of citizen advocates that was instrumental in raising more than $100 million to help restore the lake. He has two grown sons, one daughter, and six grandchildren. Jack lives in Santa Barbara and is a member of the UCSB Chancellor’s Council.

 

 

Jim Boyden
Jim Boyden, a management consultantenergy projects and investments, served as Director of Energy and Environment Programs within the Technology R&D group at Vulcan, Inc, the investment and project-management company founded by Paul G. Allen. In that role from 2000 to 2009, Mr. Boyden proposed, evaluated, and managed environment- and energy-related projects.

He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of a Vulcan investment company dedicated to producing clean, low-cost energy without greenhouse gas emissions. Before joining Vulcan, Dr. Boyden was senior vice president at Interval Research Corp., an independent R&D firm financed by Allen, and prior to that, he made significant contributions to computing technology as Laboratory Director at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, where he headed the innovation of the inkjet and laser printers. Boyden received his BS and MS degrees in Physics from Carnegie-Mellon University and his PhD in Physics from Caltech. He has more than 25 patents to his name. Mr. Boyden divides his time between residences in Seattle, Wash., and Ojai, Calif.

Brigitte Bren
Brigitte Bren is an attorney who co-founded International Strategic Planning, Inc., a business consulting firm, in 1992. She has served as “of Counsel” to the law firm of Arter and Hadden, with an area of emphasis in international affairs and entertainment law, and she was vice president of International Marketing for Mark Goodson Productions.

A graduate of Loyola Law School and the College of Honors at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ms. Bren has been a director and member of the Audit Committee of Ambassadors Group, Inc. since 2001. She is a trustee of the California Institute of Technology, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Think Together. She has served on the Board of Trustees of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and on the Advisory Committee of the Los Angeles Universal Preschool Master Plan.

Tim Cohen
Tim Cohen is a Vice President of URS Corporation, a fully integrated engineering, environmental, construction, and technical-services firm with the capabilities to support every stage of a project life cycle for public sector clients and Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Mr. Cohen manages offices and major project locations for URS in the Central Coast region. In addition to his management responsibilities, he serves as a senior principal and program manager on a wide range of projects including CEQA and NEPA analysis, public and stakeholder involvement, energy facility siting and licensing, and environmental permitting. Tim has a BA in biological sciences and an MA in environmental resource management. He is a member of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Certified Planners.

James Brenton ("Brent") Dehlsen
Brent Dehlsen is cofounder and CEO of Ecomerit Technologies, which focuses on investments in Clean Technology industries. Ecomerit’s key areas of interest include marine energy technologies, distributed generation, and energy efficiency. He cofounded Clipper Windpower in 2001 and managed the growth of the Company as COO until 2008 and is currently a non-executive Board Member. At Clipper Mr. Dehlsen was responsible for leading all of the operational activities, including technology development and testing of the Liberty 2.5 MW turbine, establishment of manufacturing and assembly facilities, development of the supply chain, and manufacturing startup with production and deployment of the first 230 turbines, totaling 575 MW. Mr. Dehlsen also had operational responsibility for the project development activities which involved assembling an 8,500 MW wind resource portfolio. Additional operational responsibility included initial turbine sales and administrative coordination of the Company’s IPO.

In 1997, Mr. Dehlsen founded Dehlsen Associates, a research-and-development organization specializing in renewable-energy technologies, and is now again leading Dehlsen Associates, which originated and patented the DGEN drivetrain used in Clipper turbines. Mr. Dehlsen is founder and president of Avianda, LLC, which is utilizing an efficient panelized building systemto develop and construct sustainable residential properties in Mexico. Mr. Dehlsen currently serves on the Board of Directors for Northstar Wind Towers and on the Board of Trustees for Dunn School. He worked previously at Zond Corporation, where he was responsible for assessing and reporting production for 2,500 wind turbines, heading plant operations and maintenance, and commissioning new facilities. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University and his master's in business administration from the University of San Diego.

Charles Eckberg
Active in real estate since 1975, Mr. Eckberg has managed the 15,000-acre Hollister Ranch Owners Association residential development and served as a Senior Trust Real Estate Officer for Security Pacific Bank and the Bank of America. Among his personal projects, he created the nationally recognized Rancho San Marcos Public Golf Course, and as vice-president of Investec Real Estate Companies from 1994 to 2009, he planned and entitled environmentally progressive residential and commercial developments.

In 2004 Mr. Eckberg joined the Advisory Board of Sea Breeze Power Corp. and was elected a company director in June 2006. Sea Breeze Power Corp. is a publicly traded Canadian corporation developing wind farms and high-efficiency transmission lines in Canada and the western United States. In 2009 he established MettaEnergy, a consulting company promoting renewable-energy strategies.

Mr. Eckberg has advocated for society’s conversion to renewable-energy technologies for nearly 30 years. As a director of Get Oil Out!, an internationally recognized NGO originating from the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, he successfully sought greater transparency regarding the energy sector and controls over offshore oil development in the Santa Barbara Channel.

In other NGO activities, he spent 13 years as a director and three years as president of Santa Barbara’s Community Environmental Council, a prominent think tank focused on recycling and the development of renewable-energy policies, strategies, and projects. Mr. Eckberg has also been a director of Santa Barbara’s nonprofit Sustainability Project, which raises community awareness regarding sustainable building design, land use, and resource issues. As a member of the Gaviota Study Group, Mr. Eckberg represented landowner and environmental interests in proposing land-use protection policies for the Gaviota Coast.

Mr. Eckberg received bachelor degrees in economics and political science from UCSB in 1970. He was honored in 1992 as a Local Hero for his community activism and leadership in establishing Earth Day as a Santa Barbara institution.

Kim Kimbell
Charles D. (Kim) Kimbell is a founding partner of the Santa Barbara law firm of Allen & Kimbell, LLP, a medium-size firm specializing in real estate matters, estate planning, general business, and litigation relating to those fields. He has been active in many civic organizations that are involved with improving the local environment.

He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Community Environmental Council and its president for five years; he has served on the Santa Barbara City Downtown Waterfront Visioning Process, and was co-chair of the Committee for Santa Barbara, an ad hoc group formed to help implement the vision for the waterfront. He was also acting chairman of the Gaviota Coast Study Group, a group of diverse local residents working on a locally controlled plan for the long-term preservation of the Gaviota Coast.

Mr. Kimbell received his bachelor of arts degree from Washington and Lee University in 1964 and his juris doctorate degree from Indiana University in 1967. His service in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps included one year of active duty in Vietnam. He is married and has three sons.

Angel Martinez
A leader in product and marketing innovation and in recognizing and shaping future trends, Angel Martinez, is the former Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the Reebok portfolio of brands. As one of the Reebok Corporation’s founding employees, Angel’s vision was instrumental in the creation of the Reebok Brand worldwide.

Angel joined Reebok International Ltd. in 1980 as a West Coast sales representative. In 1992, he was appointed president of the Fitness Division for the Reebok Brand. amd twp years later, be was named President and CEO of The Rockport Company, the largest subsidiary of Reebok International Ltd. He was honored as the 1997 Man Of The Year by Footwear News, the leading industry trade publication. Angel retired from Reebok in 2001.

Angel was CEO and Vice Chairman of Keen LLC from 2003 to 2005, when the company was selected “Vendor Partner of the Year” by REI, making Keen the youngest company ever to be so recognized.

Angel joined Deckers Outdoor Corporation 2005 as CEO and President. He was named Chairman of the Board in 2008. Deckers offers six brands of footwear; Teva®, UGG® Australia, TSUBO®, Ahnu®, MOZO®, and Sanuk®. In 2008, Deckers Outdoor was honored as Company of the Year by both Footwear News and Footwear Plus.

Angel is a founding member of the Board of Advisors for the Reebok Human Rights Awards. He serves on the boards of Tupperware, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and the Advisory Board for the Bren School. Angel was named Person Of The Year by Footwear News in 2008, making him one of only two individuals to have received that honor twice.

A native of Cuba, Angel immigrated to the United States in 1958. He is a graduate of the UC Davis, where he was an All-American in cross country and track. Angel and his wife, Frankie, have four children and now live in Santa Barbara.

Lindene Patton
Lindene Patton is Chief Climate Product Officer for Zurich Financial Services. She is responsible for product development and risk management related to climate change.

Patton also serves on numerous government and non-governmental advisory boards, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Financial Advisory Board, the Bureau of National Affairs' monthly publication Environmental Due Diligence Guide, and the US EPA Environmental Technology Verification Program. She is a members of the Low Carbon Finance Initiative and a Steering Committee Member for the Forest Carbon Finance Initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Patton is an attorney licensed in California and the District of Columbia and an American Board of Industrial Hygiene Certified Industrial Hygienist. She holds a bachelor of science in biochemistry from the UC Davis, a Master of Public Health from the UC Berkeley, and a juris doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law.

Lynn Scarlett
Lynn Scarlett served as Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. As President George W. Bush's Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, she was responsible for providing policy guidance and administrative and fiscal oversight of Interior. While in Washington, D.C., Ms. Scarlett was on leave from active participation on the Dean’s Council.

She is the former President of the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles–based policy research organization. Her research focuses primarily on environmental issues, with an emphasis on industrial ecology and incentive-based environmental policy tools.

In 1994, Ms. Scarlett was appointed by former Governor Pete Wilson to chair the California Inspection and Maintenance Review Committee, a position she still holds. From 1993-1996, she chaired the “How Clean is Clean” Working Group of the Washington, D.C.–based National Environmental Policy Institute and also served as a member of the Enterprise for Environment Task Force from 1995-1997. In 1995, she was an expert panelist for the Environmental Protection Agency's "Pay-as-You-Throw" and "Full-Cost Accounting" projects.

Ms. Scarlett also served as Advisor to the Houghton-Mifflin "Encyclopedia of the Environment" project from 1992-1994. She has authored numerous articles in academic publications, and has written for general audiences in major newspapers and magazines. She discussed environmental issues as a guest on such national television news shows as ABC's "Good Morning, America", PBS's "Crossfire," and “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”

Ms. Scarlett received her BA and MA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in political science.

Naomi Schwartz
Naomi Schwartz was elected to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in November 1992, re-elected in March 1996, and re-elected for her third term in March 2000. In January 2005 she concluded her service as Supervisor for the First District, which extends from Carpinteria through the city of Santa Barbara. Ms. Schwartz was also the Board's representative to the California State Association of Counties, chairperson of the Families and Children First Commission, and a member of the National Association of Counties' (NACo) Environment, Energy and Land Use Steering Committee. She is a former chairperson of the KIDS Policy Council.

Ms. Schwartz has served as member and chairperson of the California Coastal Commission, and from 1982 to 1992 she was Administrative Assistant to State Senator Gary K. Hart. She is a founding member of Coastwatch, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and the Santa Barbara Women's Political Committee. She has received awards for her public service from the County Commission on Women, the Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the community organization Network, and the Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County. In 2001, she was honored by the Tres Condados Girl Scout Council as a Woman of Distinction, and by the League for Coastal Protection for her long-standing and unwavering commitment to preserving the coast. She received the Community Service Award from the UCSB Environmental Studies Program in 2004.

Ms. Schwartz received a bachelor of arts degree from Queens College in New York, and a doctor of jurisprudence degree from Santa Barbara College of Law. A former elementary school teacher and social psychology researcher, she has four children and has been a Santa Barbara resident since 1967.

Dana Severy
An industry veteran who is president of Severy Realty Group and a founding principal of the resort hotel company, Postcard Properties, Dana Severy has over 30 years of hands-on experience and proven success in the development of commercial, resort, and resort hospitality projects of lasting value and quality throughout North America.  A hallmark of his portfolio is that these site sensitive projects garnered significant support from environmental constituencies and other  stakeholders for their significant embrace of land stewardship values and best land-use management practices. 

 

Tom Umenhofer
Tom Umenhofer is a principal of Natural Resource Group, LLC (NRG). NRG provides public-affairs support and environmental permitting and compliance services for natural-gas, crude-oil, and refined-products pipelines. NRG also provides environmental and public-affairs services for new and expanded gas storage facilities, including LNG terminals; the electric generation, transmission, and utilities sector; and all aspects of renewable energy.

An environmental engineer and applied meteorologist for more than 30 years, Dr. Umenhofer has served as an air- and water-quality consultant to industry and government, with expertise in pollution control and local/federal environmental policy development. He has been an instructor in air-pollution meteorology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his severe-storm seminars while serving in the Air National Guard.

Dr. Umenhofer began his career in the mid-1970s as a research meteorologist working with famed tornado expert Dr. T. T. Fujita at the University of Chicago. A former municipal planning commissioner, he served for more than a decade on the Santa Barbara County Agency Formation Commission. He has leadership roles with the Calleguas Creek Watershed Management Plan, the County of Santa Barbara Industrial Association, Ventura County Regional Energy Alliance, and the Ventura County Economic Development Association.

In 1993, he founded and served as President and CEO of Sierra-Pacific Environmental, Inc., which merged with another environmental consulting firm in 1999. Under Dr. Umenhofer's stewardship, these firms received two environmental leadership awards, including recognition for a project associated with the Bren School MESM Program in 1999. dr. Umenhofer is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) and California Registered Environmental Assessor (REA). He received his BS from Western Illinois University in geography, an MS in meteorology from Northern Illinois University, and another MS in environmental engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology. He completed his PhD coursework at the University of Chicago, focusing on environmental geomorphology.

Robert Weber
Robert C. Weber is President and Chief Executive Officer of ENSR/AECOM, one of the world’s leading environmental consulting, engineering, and remediation firms, with 70 offices around the world and 45 in the United States. ENSR, which has completed environmental projects in more than 100 countries, recently merged with AECOM, a global design and management company with a staff of 24,000.

A highly experienced environmentally focused executive and technical leader, Mr. Weber joined ENSR in 1981 after serving with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to his role as ENSR President/CEO, he led the company’s North American operations and launched its highly successful Key Account Program.The program has served to forge strong relationships with ENSR's major multinational corporate clients and has fueled the company's recent exemplary performance and profitable growth, culminating in a 2005 Environmental Business Journal Gold Medal.

Previously, Mr. Weber served ENSR in progressive leadership and technical roles, including that of Senior Industrial Remediation Program Leader. A registered professional engineer, Mr. Weber holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Lehigh University and an M.S. in environmental management/public health from the University of North Carolina. He also attended the Amos Tuck School Executive Business Program at Dartmouth College.

Das Williams
Das Williams was elected to the California Assembly in November 2010 and represents the 35th Assembly District, which includes over half of the County of Santa Barbara and nearly a quarter of Ventura County.

He was previously elected to the Santa Barbara City Council in 2003, where he led the successful effort to ensure that 34 percent of the city’s energy would come from renewable sources by 2012, while also fighting to preserve open space, keep oil wells out of coastal waters, and expand public transit to reduce traffic and pollution.

In addition to his service on the Santa Barbara City Council, Mr. Williams has been an active participant in numerous community endeavors.  He served for years as a community organizer for CAUSE, a Ventura based nonprofit, and headed the group’s efforts to stop a proposed big-box retail development in Ventura.  Always the education advocate, Williams also served as a Trustee of Peabody Charter School. Until his election, Williams served as a national board member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and taught at Antioch University in Santa Barbara.

Prior to his public service, Mr. Williams worked as a junior high school teacher, as well as a legislative aide to California State Assemblymember Hannah Beth Jackson, also of District 35.

A Bren School alumnus, Williams holds a Master of Environmental Science & Management degree, with a focus on water pollution, planning processes, and land-use law .

In the California Assembly, Mr. Williams is focused on reforming the state budget process to ensure that California children have access to a world-class education, fixing the state’s dysfunctional health-care system, and protecting the environment, primarily through reducing the state’s reliance on oil and coal.

Mel Willis
Visiting Lecturer Mel Willis has more than 25 years of experience as a professional environmental planner.

Having entered the Bren School’s Master’s program as a mid-career professional, Dr. Willis graduated in 1999, then entered the doctoral program and received his Ph.D. in Environmental Science & Management in 2003. He also holds a Master of City and Regional Planning degree from California State University, Fresno, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Dr. Willis was Vice President for Environmental Sciences and Planning Services with Fugro West, a subsidiary of Fugro NV, an international engineering, environmental, and geotechnical consulting firm. In that position, he supervised the provision of environmental services to government and industry in the western United States, and served as the principal-in-charge of a project office in Moscow, the Russian Federation.

Dr. Willis’s experience includes major environmental projects throughout the U.S., Russia, South America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In addition to serving on the Bren School Advisory Board, Dr. Willis serves on the board of directors of the California Association of Environmental Professionals.