MEET THE FACULTY

Our faculty are leading experts and practitioners in their field. Instructors include public administration and public policy faculty from the premiere California universities and other institutions, along with extraordinary county practitioners, elected officials, and state and national subject experts comprise the 50+ individuals who serve on the CSAC Institute faculty.

Institute instructors are selected with three criteria in mind:
  • Subject-matter expertise
  • Practical experience with counties or public agencies
  • Practice facilitating adult education
Faculty members receive preparatory coaching and feedback from participants and the Dean after class to help improve instruction and achieve excellence in learning.
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Adele James Consulting & CoachingAdèle James
Through a blending of organizational development tools and individualized coaching, Adele is able to support nonprofit professionals in moving from understanding to action and accountability on issues of importance. Her goal, in both her organizational development consulting and career/life transition coaching, is to support others in giving voic ...View More
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Antenore and AssociatesAngela Antenore
Angela Antenore, M.Ed., combines her background in education and psychology to pursue leadership and organizational effectiveness strategies with her clients. She has a unique back-ground including both international consulting experience as well as hands-on experience as a director, manager, small business owner and educator. In these roles, Ange ...View More
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University of NebraskaDavid Landis
David Landis is a former Nebraska state senator, an award-winning teacher and a skilled negotiator in the public arena. As a Senator, he chaired the Revenue Committee for the Nebraska Unicameral. Many of the over 250 bills he has passed in twenty-four years in the Unicameral have been consensus measures forged by negotiation that brought contest ...View More
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Department of FinanceDiane M. Cummins
Diane Cummins served as Special Advisor to the Director of Finance on a wide range of budget and policy issues. From January 2011 through 2018, she served as the Special Advisor to Governor Brown on State and Local Realignment and was instrumental in the development and implementation of the 2011 Public Safety Realignment. She officially retired i ...View More
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San Mateo CountyDonna Vaillancourt
Donna Vaillancourt is an HR consultant and former director of the Department of Human Resources with San Mateo County. Donna is passionate about pursuing the Department’s mission to position San Mateo County as an employer of choice and maximize individual and organizational potential. To that end, she has spearheaded new workforce planning effor ...View More
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 Dr. Jerry Estenson
Professor Estenson has spent twenty-five years working in various management positions leading to chief administrative and operations officer of a public agency and chief executive officer of two private corporations. His primary management focus has been on turning around organizations in trouble and start-ups. He is now dedicated to taking his h ...View More
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 Eric Douglas
Eric Douglas is a principal consultant, president, and founder of Leading Resources Inc. (“LRI”), a consulting firm whose purpose is to develop leaders and leading organizations. Headquartered in Sacramento, LRI’s clients include public agencies, corporations, and non-profit organizations in the United States and abroad. LRI focuses on five dimens ...View More
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CSAC InstituteFrank Benest
Until August 2008, Dr. Frank Benest served as the City Manager of Palo Alto, California. Frank is a noted consultant and trainer on collaborative service delivery, entrepreneurial government, civic engagement, leadership development and succession planning. Prior to his appointment in Palo Alto, Frank served as City Manager in Brea and Colton, C ...View More
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 Gage Dungy
Gage Dungy provides management side representation and legal counsel to clients in all matters pertaining to labor and employment law throughout California. This includes both private and public sector employers, including cities, counties, and special districts, among others. Gage is experienced in representing and advising employers on various l ...View More
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 Jack Pellegrino
Jack has over 35 years of Government contracting and procurement experience leading diverse teams of contracting, procurement, and pricing staff for large organizations in both the public and private sectors. Prior to re-joining the County as the Director of Purchasing and Contracting in 2013, Jack held executive contracting and procurement posit ...View More
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Hurst Brooks Espinosa, LLCJean Kinney Hurst
Jean Kinney Hurst brings unique and varied policy expertise in complex state and local fiscal matters to HBE clients. As a founding partner of Hurst Brooks Espinosa, LLC, Jean assists public and private sector clients with legislative issues associated with state and local finance, state budget, governance, elections, and revenue and taxation, amo ...View More
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Delia and AssociatesJim Delia
Jim Delia is the Principal Consultant with Delia and Associates. He has over 25 years of hands-on organizational development consulting, coaching and human resources experience helping county organizations and private sector companies plan and implement strategic, organizational and personal changes to improve performance and achieve better result ...View More
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Paragon Government RelationsJoe Krahn
Joe Krahn is a Senior Associate at the Washington, D.C. government relations firm of Waterman & Associates. Mr. Krahn has over 13 years of federal lobbying experience, with expertise in local government advocacy in both the legislative and regulatory arenas. Since 1996, he has served as one of Waterman & Associates’ chief advocates for the Calif ...View More
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Emotous at IntersectJohn Dare
John brings over 25 years of experience transforming and building businesses and cultures to thrive through accelerating change, including deep expertise in emotional intelligence, neuroscience and people analytics. John is a Silicon Valley veteran, where he co-founded Dissero Partners, a world-class transformation consultancy, which later sold t ...View More
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Contra Costa CountyJohn Gioia
John Gioia is a member of the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors. First elected in 1998, John has been overwhelmingly re-elected five times and represents 210,000 residents in the western most urban and diverse area of the county. He previously served for 10 years on the East Bay Municipal Utility District Board, serving as President in 1995 and 19 ...View More
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Monterey CountyJohn Mineau
Undersheriff John Mineau has over 26-years of law enforcement experience. Mineau joined the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office in 2016 as the Chief Deputy of the Corrections Operations Bureau. In that role, Mineau was responsible for managing the Monterey County Jail, Transportation Division, and Court Security of all facilities of the Superior C ...View More
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The Pun GroupKenneth H. Pun
Kenneth H. Pun is the Managing Partner and an Assurance Partner at The Pun Group, LLP, which he founded in 2012 after serving in senior-level positions for well-established national and regional firms. Under his leadership, The Pun Group has become one of the fastest growing in the region, currently ranking among the top 40, according to the Orang ...View More
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 Kerry Shearer
Faculty Bio Kerry Shearer is an extremely versatile communications professional, with skills ranging from issues management to crisis response, social media outreach, marketing campaigns, audio and video production, news reporting, broadcasting and webcasting. He thrives on helping communications colleagues develop their proficiency and expertise! ...View More
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WeWill, Inc.Laree Kiely
Laree was born on February 27th in Fort Collins, Colorado. She’s the granddaughter of a train robber and daughter to a couple of very nice, childlike parents who hated school. Seeing education as a vehicle, she put herself through undergrad at the University of Colorado as The Lady Barber. She slapped a magnetic sign on the side of her roommate’s ...View More
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Liberty Consulting TeamLarry Liberty
Larry is the first person in his family to have the privilege of a college education. He left University California Davis and went to Brazil as a Peace Corps volunteer for 15 months working with extreme poverty and illiteracy in small towns and in Rio de Janeiro. He completed a Master's Degree and later a Ph.D. in pursuit of understanding how indi ...View More
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