Ray Ellis

RTFH BOARD CHAIR

Since 2005, Ray Ellis has focused his energies on community and public service. Ray currently serves as Board Chair of The Parker Foundation and Regional Task Force on Homelessness.  He is also a member of Funders Together to End Homelessness. Ray has also served on the boards of: Neighborhood House Association, Del Mar Mesa Community Planning Group, San Diego City Employees Retirement System, Voices for Children and others.  In addition to these volunteer activities, Ray is the Principal of Ellis & Associates, LLC, an investment firm. Ray also manages the activities of the Ellis Family Foundation, which is a private foundation funding other non-profit organizations. Prior to his current activities, Ray was the President of the Marketing Services Division of Protocol Communications, Inc. Prior to joining Protocol through an acquisition of Ray’s firm in June 2001, he was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MC Direct. Ray has extensive experience in a wide range of direct response programs, with an emphasis on direct mail and digital programs.

Reverend Rolland Slade

CoC BOARD CHAIR

A native of San Diego, California, Pastor Rolland accepted his call into the ministry in 1987 under the pastorate of Rev. Dr. Timothy J. Winters at the Bayview Baptist Church, San Diego. It was there that he was baptized, licensed and later ordained to preach the Gospel. While at Highland Park, Pastor Rolland served as Minister of Missions and Church Planter for the Meadowbrook Fellowship congregation located in a large apartment complex near the church, which was originally funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Additionally, he served during that time as the Development Coordinator for the church’s community retail ministry, called Stamps and Things. Pastor Rolland shepherded, qualified and secured the designation of Stamps and Things to become an authorized United States Postal Contract Station in the community. In 2016 Pastor Rolland was named to the fill the Faith Community seat on the San Diego Regional Continuum of Care Council. The San Diego Regional Continuum of Care Council recently (January 2017) merged with the San Diego County Regional Task Force on Homelessness in a combined effort to better serve those who are homeless in San Diego County.

Stephanie Kilkenny

Secretary

Stephanie Kilkenny takes a vision and makes it reality through step-by-step strategy development. She intuitively sees the threads of opportunity that wind through an organization and brings them together into a coherent whole. She is an inspirational leader who inspires action based on facts. Respected as a credible voice in decision making, Stephanie earns a seat at the table wherever she serves.

Stephanie holds a BS, Psychology from Ursinus College in Pennsylvania and relocated to California immediately upon earning her degree. She began her post-college career in Client Services at the corporate offices of Mail Boxes Etc. and as an Operations Manager at the corporate offices of Insurance Express Services. After a few years in the corporate world, Stephanie returned to the classroom to study photography and acquire an AA, Interior Design from Mesa College; and then opened her own photography and design firm, Adair Interiors, LLC.

Stephanie serves on several Boards of Directors including as the President of the Lucky Duck Foundation. She is also a Founding Member of San Diego’s Tuesday Group.

Galen Baggs

Treasurer

David Baker

Lived Experience

David Baker is an advocate for equitable housing policy across the nation and works as a Youth Systems Navigator for the YMCA of San Diego County. As a survivor of extreme-poverty and intergenerational homelessness, he uses his experience to guide the creation and implementation of realistic solutions to address social issues like youth homelessness. His mission in life is to promote agency, access, and hope for marginalized populations in society.

Janet Carson

With over 20 years of experience, Janet Carson is an accomplished contracts executive. She currently holds the position of Senior Manager in Contracts at Qualcomm Technologies, were she has managed procurements in excess of $100 million annually and served as the Founding Chair of the Qualcomm African & African-American Diversity Employee Network. Before coming to Qualcomm, Carson worked as the Director of Business Law at Mindspeed Technologies and the Manager of the Small Business Program at Rockewell International Corporation. She considers herself a lifelong learner, attending numerous courses and seminars for the purchasing, licensing, and legal disciplines. Carson is a 2013 LEAD San Diego Impact graduate, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of San Diego.

Veronica Dela Rosa

Veronica Dela Rosa has spent over 25 years in the health care industry. Veronica currently is the Executive Vice President of Operations at San Ysidro Health, Her responsibilities include overseeing Clinic Operations, IT, Population Health and Performance Excellence, HR, Compliance and Diversity and Inclusion initiatives.

Prior experience includes over 20 years as a health care administrator for Kaiser Permanente where her oversight encompassed the medical group’s Primary Care Services Division focusing on quality, access and innovative health care delivery services to over 600,000+ patients.

In both her career and community involvement, Veronica has a long history of advocating for: women’s health, social justice and health equity. She has helped shape multiple non-profit organizations as a board member, and continues that work today.

David Deng

David Deng is a Vice President and Banker in the La Jolla, California office of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. He provides tailored strategies to address the totality of his clients’ financial lives, helping them realize their ultimate goals.

Immediately prior to joining J.P. Morgan, David was a Private Wealth Advisor with U.S. Bank, working with high-net-worth individuals, families and nonprofit organizations. Before that, he spent 14 years honing his craft as a Private Banker with Wells Fargo.

David holds an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. A fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, he also holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses.

When he’s not helping clients achieve their fin ancial goals, David is an avid golfer and road cyclist. He is passionate about community participation and volunteers with both Junior Achievement and the Ronald McDonald House. A San Diego native, David and his wife now reside in Poway, California. David is a member of the Salvation Army advisory board, and serving on its finance committee.

Amy Denhart

Amy Denhart is the Director of Funders Together to End Homelessness San Diego (FTEHSD) at San Diego Grantmakers, where she supports FTEHSD’s strategic grantmaking and advocacy in systems change and permanent housing opportunities to reduce homelessness. For the past 22 years, Amy held positions in fundraising, public policy, and community engagement. During more than a decade as Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood, she worked with donors and the Board of Directors to advance public policy in support of reproductive health care. Prior to that, she was Area Director for US Senator Barbara Boxer, serving as the Senator’s liaison to the San Diego community, connecting constituents to the Senate and other government bodies. Just prior to joining FTEHSD, Amy worked closely with the City of San Diego and County governments as the lead finance and contract management staff for a local community engagement and design firm. She has served on the City of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation committee and is currently a board member on the Regional Task Force on Homelessness.

Nancy Sasaki

For over 38 years, Nancy has demonstrated leadership, compassion, innovation, and excellence in the nonprofit sector, profoundly affecting the lives of the underserved: the poor, working poor, children and homeless. She currently serves as the CEO of United Way of San Diego County, a nonprofit organization which works in partnership with others to align goals, leverage resources and expertise to resolve inequities to transform the lives of children, young adults and families. Her 38+ year professional career has been exclusively served in the nonprofit sector. Her strengths include leadership and strategic thought partnership that advances the mission of the organization. She has also served as the Chair of the Funders Together to End Homelessness-San Diego, and is a member representing collective impact on the Regional Taskforce on the Homeless’ governance board. She is an advisory board member of San Diego Impact Investors, and a volunteer for National Philanthropy Day. She works to make a positive difference in the community through collaboration & partnerships, social innovation and social entrepreneurship. 

Joel John Roberts

Service Provider

For 23 years, Joel John Roberts has led PATH, and its housing development agency PATH Ventures, as the Chief Executive Officer. PATH serves 140 cities in California in four major regions: Los Angeles/Southern California, San Diego/South, Santa Barbara/Central Coast, and San Jose/Silicon Valley. Since 2014, PATH has moved more than 8,500 formerly homeless people into permanent apartments. PATH Ventures has 20 supportive housing communities completed or in development that includes more than 1,300 housing units. Roberts is currently a member of San Diego’s Regional Task Force For the Homeless (Continuum of Care) Board of Directors, San Diego’s New Market Tax Credit Advisory Board, Destination: Home’s (Santa Clara County’s Continuum of Care) Board of Directors and recently was the co-Chairperson for the Governor’s California Interagency Council on Veterans/Interventions to Solve Homelessness Sub-Committee.

Lindsey Wright

Lindsey Wright is the Community Health Manager at Kaiser Permanente San Diego, where she oversees efforts to improve the health and social conditions of under resourced populations and impact community-based social disparities of health. This work includes philanthropic programming, non-profit management, strategic planning, social impact development and evaluation, advocacy, and community mobilization. She currently serves on the LISC San Diego Advisory Board, the Hunger Free San Diego Advisory Board, and the Funders to End Homelessness Together San Diego Committee.

Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Lindsey worked at the County of San Diego as a Health and Human Services Policy Advisor and in the San Diego offices of two prominent California Assembly Members. At the County and in the Assembly, Wright was responsible for assessing and recommending policy in all areas of health, housing, behavioral health, and social services. She cultivated strong relationships with and led coalitions of hospitals, community clinics, non- profits and business groups. Lindsey served as President of the California Women Lead San Diego Chapter, was Committee Consultant for the Select Committee on Homelessness and has served on several other committees, task forces, and advisory groups.

Lindsey’s twelve years of experience in local government and non-profit settings has given her extensive knowledge of the workings of state and local policy and a vast personal network of community leaders. Lindsey is a change maker and has a life-long commitment to ensure socio and economic access, mobility, equity, and inclusion for the underserved populations in San Diego County.

Born and raised in Oceanside, Wright graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in Political Science. She lives in San Diego with her husband, a Naval Officer of 23 years and their two young children. Her personal interests during the COVID-19 pandemic include listening to podcasts, trying new recipes, and eating donuts on the beach with her family.

Ollie Benn 

Lucky Michael 

Rebecca Louie

Rebecca Louie is a longtime leader in the affordable housing sector, with more than two decades of experience planning, building and operating affordable and supportive housing communities throughout Southern California. Since starting at Wakeland in 2005, she has overseen the development and operation of 41 affordable housing communities, creating over 2,200 homes for families, seniors, veterans, transition-age youth and people experiencing homelessness.

A Native Alaskan and a member of the Tlingit-Haida tribe, Ms. Louie is widely known as a strong advocate for affordable housing, social and environmental justice, and homelessness due to work at Wakeland and past employers, including the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the Center on Policy Initiatives, and United Indian Nations Community Development Corporation. She has a broad network of strong relationships with stakeholders working to build a more just and equitable world through housing, including government agencies, labor organizations, advocacy groups and decisionmakers at the state, county and city levels.

Her expertise has made her a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and garnered recognition across several platforms, including an Innovations Award from the San Diego Housing Federation for her development of the Supportive Housing Learning Network, a cutting-edge training program for staff at supportive housing communities. Ms. Louie was also named one of San Diego’s Most Influential Women by the San Diego Daily Transcript for her leadership efforts to improve communities with high-quality affordable housing. She currently serves as the Board Chair for the San Diego Housing Federation and is involved with the statewide housing advocacy groups California Housing Consortium and Housing California.

Before taking the leadership role as President and CEO, Ms. Louie was Wakeland’s Vice President and COO. Prior to working at Wakeland, she held positions at SANDAG, where she spent six years working on housing and social equity issues; at the Center on Policy Initiatives, where she served as fundraising and development manager; and at the United Indian Nations, where she coordinated the development of housing and cultural resources for Native Americans living in the urban Bay Area.

Ms. Louie holds a B.A. in Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in San Diego with her two daughters, Elise and Simone, and their dog, Wesley.

Mitch Dubick

HFM Partner Mitch Dubick concentrates his practice in tax controversy matters, representing individuals and business entities before the IRS and all state taxing authorities, and his work also includes business, real estate, and tax planning.

Mr. Dubick’s years of experience and cost-effective solutions have made him the choice of clients, accountants, and other lawyers to handle their tax disputes, including audits, overdue returns, offshore accounts, appeals, employee/independent contractor status, collection matters (including liens and levies), installment agreements and Offers in Compromise.

In several noteworthy matters, Mr. Dubick has:

• Persuaded the IRS in a Tax Court case to concede more than $10,000,000 in proposed taxes and refunds.
• Permitted struggling businesses to avoid threatened closure by both federal and state tax agencies, including a recently negotiated installment agreement with the IRS allowing the business to escape from over $11,000,000 in back taxes.
• Secured an installment agreement allowing an elderly taxpayer to pay only $1,000 per month for the rest of his life even though his tax debt was almost $2,000,000 and he had assets worth more than $1,000,000.
• Obtained tax and penalty relief for taxpayers with undisclosed foreign bank accounts.
• Negotiated Offers in Compromise with the IRS, FTB, EDD, and SBE (now CDTFA).
• Successfully concluded civil audits and appeals and criminal fraud investigations.
• Tried one of the first cases before the new California Office of Tax Appeals, relieving a chief financial officer of $1,000,000 of his company’s unpaid sales taxes.

Lovie Edwards

Lovie Edwards is a dedicated Accounting Executive with extensive experience in leading financial functions across diverse organizations.   Her professional journey has enabled her to work both tactically and strategically, and through active pursuit, she has gained valuable insights into the intricacies of financial operations. Currently, Ms. Edwards serves on the Finance Committee of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness (RTFH).  In this role, she actively collaborates with fellow committee members, leveraging her financial and leadership expertise to support the organization’s mission. Ms. Edwards holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, an MBA in Finance, and the Enrolled Agent (EA) designation.