As a shift leader at Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Company, Kari Christensen became an experienced manager of a café staff.  She developed management skills pertaining specifically to the operations of a café, including delegating responsibilities and tasks, promoting excellence in customer service and barista skills, effectively dealing with customer feedback, and daily balancing of the books. 

Kari has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Washington, and more recently has completed a course in small business management at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center in San Francisco and maintains connection to that organization and its many resources.  She is also involved with the Small Business Administration and S.C.O.R.E. (Counselors to America’s Small Businesses), and has recently completed a course with the Cal State East Bay Small Business Development Center.

Kari will be responsible for the day-to-day business management of the Awaken Café.  She will be at the forefront of hiring staff and working with outside professionals for accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, legal needs, insurance needs, real-estate, office space, banking, and working with suppliers and vendors. 

With a degree in the theatrical arts, a long history working with performing companies, and connections to local arts organizations, like Burning Man, Kari will manage booking for the Awaken Café.

[contact Kari]

Cortt Dunlap brings to this project over five years of owning and operating his own business, bookkeeping, and marketing as a sole-proprietor of his own successful massage practice.  In 2005, Cortt’s massage practice grossed nearly twice the national average.  Designing his own advertising campaigns, web-sites, and marketing materials, Cortt is a member of the Association of Bodyworkers and Massage Professionals, the Bliss community, and is the moderator of a thousand member online massage forum.

Prior to launching his massage practice, Cortt was the Marketing Manager for Duraswitch, Inc. a publicly traded company based in Mesa, Arizona.  During his time at Duraswitch, Cortt oversaw the re-branding of the company from a manufacturing to a licensing operation, including a new mission, vision, logo, and launched an interactive website. 

Cortt holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated with Distinction in General Scholarship and was a member of the Golden Key International Honor Society.  He has over 650 hours of massage certification training, and has completed courses in leadership and community development.

He is also an experienced graphic designer for print and web, having created marketing collateral and web sites, including his massage web site (www.shockabuku.com), the Awaken Café site, and for other small businesses, through his sustainably-minded graphic design business Greenerdesigner.com.

At the Awaken Cafe, Cortt will be primarily responsible for marketing, promotion, publicity, advertisement, community involvement, and networking with local arts, community, environmental and government entities and organizations in addition to overseeing and managing the day-to-day operations of the café.

Cortt will also be responsible for the management of our technological resources and outside contractors, including our in-house wireless (or wi-fi) network, the Awaken Café web site, and overseeing and implementing the social networking software at the heart of the “Who’s Here?” system.

Cortt Dunlap has also had experience in food-service, working at Javanican Coffee Café in San Diego, two different Pizzerias in Boston and Berkeley, and a yogurt shop in Scottsdale, AZ.

[contact Cortt]

[LinkedIn]
[Biznik]
[Tribe.net]
[Friendster]
[MySpace]
[Barista Connection]
[Barista Exchange]

Nick Neuhausel, Managing Partner
Business Development and Consulting

Laura Basha Neuhausel, Ph.D., is a certified trainer and holds a B.A. in Fine Arts, a M.A. in Counseling Psychology, and a doctorate in Clinical and Organizational Psychology. She has been a consultant, educator, and personal coach for thousands of clients since 1978.

As a personal and ogranizational consultant and Speaker's Bureau presenter for Personal Style Counselors, an Oakland, CA-based image consulting firm, she worked for ten years with an international clientele. During this time she assisted her clients in developing their presentation and communication skills through personal transformation. As a senior consultant, she led seminars and trainings, made presentations and television appearances, and provided private coaching consultations for the company.

She has worked with a principle-based paradigm of health and empowerment since 1990, and has acted as consultant, trainer, speaker, and personal coach in community, clinical, academic, public, and corporate settings. She was a principal in the development of a national training program for organizational leadership. With a focus on results, her unique style and approach to trainings and coaching offers individuals access to innate creativity, motivation, and well being. Her work offers organizations co-operative engagement of people's resources, targeted to specific deliverables. She has assisted in creating and supporting environments which elicit, harness and capitalize on the potential and productivity of its leaders and staff.

A national sparker and accomplished artist, Dr. Basha has co-written and co-produced several pubic service announcements, collaborated on two books, and is currently co-authoring a book on the positive impact of joy an lightheartedness in organizations and business. She continues to offer individual and organizational coaching, workshops, and tailored presentation through her transformative arts business: White Bird Rising. She resides with her husband in Northern California.

[contact Laura]

Nick Neuhausel is Executive Vice President and Partner at Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group, LLC. Nick has extensive experience working to change large organizations from the inside, and has spent much of his career as a member of top organizational teams helping those companies meet the challenges of a dynamic environment.

With his extensive business and human resources background, Nick is able to advise organizations on how to effectively integrate all of the organizational and human resources processes with the culture shift effort.

Prior to joining Senn-Delaney Leadership, Nick spent 25 years with Sun Company starting as an engineer in a processing plant and moving through various positions to become Vice President of Human Resources and Administration.

After leaving Sun and a brief stint in consulting, he was recruited by the CEO of Transco Energy Company as Senior Vice President of HR and Administration, to help that organization shift the culture to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing regulatory environment. The changes at Transco were dramatic and the CEO described the rapidly shifting culture as one of the most important events in the company's history. This became evident when the senior management team worked together in a healthy way to successfully negotiate the merger of Transco with The Williams Companies. Nick has been with Senn-Delaney Leadership since 1995 and enjoys the opportunity to work with organizations in every line of business.

As an entertaining speaker, he has spoken to numerous academic, business, and social groups on organizational issues and what it takes to create "healthy, high performance." Nick and his wife, Laura, live in Oakland, California. Between them, they have five grown children and six grandchildren. Nick enjoys exercising and taking part in the many activities the San Francisco Bay area offers.

[contact Nick]

Alexander Zendzian is a dance artist based in San Francisco CA.

His lifelong study of movement ranges from classical ballet through numerous modem techniques, traditional dance forms, and improvisation and into the research of dance and movement ritual as cultural and social vehicle. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Performance Studies received in 2001 from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.

Since re-locating to San Francisco in 2001 he has performed with Anna Halprin, Sara Shelton Mann, MotionLab, and Capacitor and toured nationally and internationally with Project Bandaloop. Currently, he is working with the Joe Goode Performance Group. In addition to his work on stage, Alexander has taught dance at studios in Maine and northern California, as an artist-in-residence at Salem State College in Salem, MA and as a guest instructor at The Eagle Rock School in Estes Park, CO. He has been a participant in the Sea Ranch Collective from 2002 to 2004.

In 2006 Alexander founded the 'Round The Mountain Arts' Residence Program as an opportunity for artists to have intensive creative space in a natural environment. Utilizing a Yurt located in Siskiyou County near Mt Shasta, the fall 2006 season housed six national artists (from SF and NY), including dancers, painters, writers, and healing artists. Currently, he is working on invitations for this coming fall.

[contact Alex]

Ann Dunlap is an Ohio native who migrated with her family to Arizona in the late 1970s where she raised two sons with her late husband of 37 years Terren Dunlap. She has taught Art at public schools in and around her home town of Scottsdale, AZ. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Art Education. She has played an active role in her husband's businesses, including raising millions of dollars in capital. She is a talented and prolific painter, a budding Yogini, and is very interested in protecting and saving Mother Earth so that her granddaughter can enjoy its beauty.

[contact Ann]

Dr. Christensen is Professor Emeritus at the Univ. of North Carolina School of Pharmacy and an Affiliate Professor, Univ. of Washington School of Pharmacy. Previously, he was Ferguson Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, and before that, he was a Professor at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Prior to entering academia, he practiced in community, hospital, managed care pharmacy settings.

His research interests are in the areas of drug taking compliance, pharmaco-economics and drug policy evaluation. He has worked with the Medicaid agencies, both in the state of Washington and in North Carolina on drug-related issues. He has served as a member of each state’s Drug Use Review Committee and as a technical advisor on drug-related issues and policies. He has investigated use of anti-psychotics, both in schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorders.

He has a special interest in developing and evaluating pharmacist medication therapy management services. In North Carolina, he supervised the evaluation of the Asheville diabetes disease management project and other polypharmacy medication therapy management projects in ambulatory and nursing home settings.

He now works part-time as a consultant to the pharmaceutical health care community, primarily involved in the design, implementation and analysis of drug benefit and medication therapy management services.

But his real interests are in sports related activities (biking, mountain climbing, skiing, water sports), and photography.

[contact Dale]

Shalene Rose is a dedicated Realtor, with the commitment that her clients are connected with the perfect residential, income or commercial property, are totally taken care of, and have fun in all parts of the process. Down-to-earth, friendly and savvy, she truly enjoys bringing people together. As a Bay Area native, Oakland resident and Realtor, Shalene is actively involved in helping to transform Oakland into a world-class city. Committed to environmentally and socially conscious business, Shalene holds a Bachelor’s Degree from San Francisco State University, where she studied Biology and Ecology.

Shalene and Co-Founder Cortt Dunlap were married in an ecologically responsible wedding in October 2007.

[contact Shalene]

Larry Biggie is a Vice President & Regional Contracts Manager at the Union Bank of California. He holds a B.A. with honors in Philosophy from St. Bonaventure University and a J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law.

Larry's professional experience centers around intellectual property licensing and contract negotiations. He has negotiated a wide variety of commercial transactions for software & hardware vendors and more recently for financial institutions. He also has significant experience with vendor management, spend management and mergers & acquisitions.

Originally from Western New York, Larry has been a resident of Oakland's Adams Point neighborhood since 1996. He enjoys practicing jujitsu & yoga, sailing and collecting contemporary art.

[contact Larry]

Eric L. Berlow grew up in Buffalo, New York, in a bilingual Algerian French/American home that also served as a boarding house for artists and musicians of the likes of John Cage. After receiving his BA in Biology at Brown University, he worked short stints radio-collaring wolves and lynx in Alaska, climbing trees in the Costa Rican rain forest, studying tadpoles on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, and bar tending in Paris, before going on to get a Ph.D. in Marine Ecology at Oregon State University. He then moved from the tide pools of the Oregon Coast to alpine meadows in the Sierra Nevada mountains as a Research Scientist for the University of California at Berkeley. Never satisfied working within the confines of one discipline, during his tenure as a Research Scientist, Eric worked professionally as a Certified Massage Therapist, a professional telemark ski instructor, an environmental consultant, and a cook. Since 2006, Eric has been instrumental in starting from scratch the first University of California environmental research and education facility in Yosemite National Park.

Eric built and lives part time in an ‘Eco House’ in the Eastern Sierra: tecumtha.de/smid

Eric is excited to contribute to three broad areas of the Awaken Café: Creatinga a Co-Working Environment; Leaving a Positive Legacy; and Encouraging Conversations among Disciplines.

[contact Eric]

David Mills has hired, trained, and set new standards for the staff at Spasso Coffee House in Rockridge.  In his various roles at coffee houses in Seattle, he has become a world-class barista having studied under some of the most highly skilled baristas in the country. 

David will serve as an independent consultant and trainer, who’s primary responsibilities will be designing the back-bar area and kitchen; selecting and ordering ingredients; selecting and purchasing equipment; set up, repair, and maintenance of the equipment; and training the principles and the staff on making excellent coffee.

[contact Tabasco]

We currently are working with certified green builder and licensed contractor Dan Antonioli as a paid consultant. He will be hired as the general contractor to oversee the build-out.  Dan’s current projects include developing eco-villages in West Oakland and Laytonville and City Repair Oakland West, “a grassroots organization helping people reclaim their urban spaces to create community oriented spaces.”  Dan is a committed community leader and inspiration for growth of environmental sustainability.  Dan will consult on potential spaces before we make a final decision and negotiate the lease.

Bill Gaffney is now working alongside Dan Antonioli in heading up the build out of the cafe. Bill is an amazing contractor, a wonderfully positive person, and known for getting things done. He comes to us with years of experience, including overseeing the build out of all the Café Gratitude locations.

Sandy Chan, the Awaken Café’s green architect, is committed to developing and increasing awareness of sustainable architecture and design in the Bay Area.  She has been a local architect since graduating from UC Berkeley in 1991, and started her own architectural firm in 2000 which focuses on smaller commercial and residential projects.  Her interests lie in creating systems of living which include integration with nature, permaculture and architecture.

Joetta Marie Johnson, with Conscious Bookkeeping, is a financial coach and bookkeeper.  She is most passionate about developing comprehensive systems for engaging with money, which are adapted to individual needs.  This includes all aspects of accounting and financial analysis combined with supporting intentional relationship with money.  Joetta thrives on working with social entrepreneurs, but loves diversity and also works with start ups, existing businesses and individuals.

Jonathan Balter is an experienced tax accountant.

William Taylor of Taylor & Goins, LLP also known as the "The Business Lawyers" provides legal services to businesses and their owners. The law firm concentrates in areas that are important to business: Corporations, Commercial Litigation, Tax Law, Partnerships and LLCs, Real Property Law, Securities (the capital raising process). The Business Lawyers have been providing competent services to businesses and private investment companies for over 10 years.