September BRM “Women, Work & Identity – Having It All”
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This month’s Business Resource Meeting features a panel of Powerful Women in Business.
The panel consists of Barbara Mason, Kathi Reed and Marissa LaMagna. Read their bio’s below.
Barbara Mason has been in the economic development field for the past two decades. She has served as State Director of the California Main Street Program under the Davis administration, been intimately involved in the revitalization of three historic downtowns — Jamestown, Sonora and Livermore — and has just finished a five year stint as the Director of Redevelopment and Economic Development for the City of Oakley.
Barbara recently opened her own economic development consulting firm in the middle of the economic recession and has several clients including the City of Brentwood, City of Oakley, iPark Solar and others. In addition, Barbara has successfully operated an eBay store for the past five years, has been married for twelve years and has two sons ages 7 and 8.
Kathi Reed, 2008 President of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, has been self-employed for over twenty years. After “paying her dues” in the corporate world as a paralegal with Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Kathi formed Pacific Hydro Consulting Group with three other former PG&E employees. When that company was sold, Kathi realized she missed being her own boss and started her next career in direct sales … initially with Weekenders Fashions and currently with WineShop at Home.
Kathi lives in Brentwood with her husband of 42 years, Bob, and they have two daughters, two sons-in-law and four “absolutely amazing” grandsons. In addition to her passion for wine, Kathi loves to travel and is an avid San Francisco Giants fan.
Marissa LaMagna founded East Bay Green Tours in Fall 2008 and is thrilled to be showcasing the local green businesses developing in her East Bay backyard known as The Green Corridor. She has worked as a community organizer most of her life and helped to start a teen center in New York that is now a Boys & Girls Club. She has taught high school, elementary school, vegetarian cooking and yoga. She has also been a film editor and was associate producer for “The Sounds of Science”, (now Pulse of the Planet) an internationally syndicated radio show.
In 2004, Marissa founded Studio Rasa, a green certified community arts and wellness center in Berkeley with a mission of fostering environmental awareness. She has been passionate about the environment ever since the fourth grade, when growing up in New York City, she often worried about where the garbage would go. She came up with an eco-friendly disposal system comprised of arteries underground that would whisk away garbage from apartments and sidewalks to be incinerated naturally in the center of the earth. She is still working out the kinks for this invention.
Marissa is on the Board of Directors of The Sustainable Business Alliance, a member of BNI, The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and Buy Local Berkeley. She has recently moved her office into the new Leed Certified David Brower Center as part of the Dominican University Green Business Cluster in Berkeley.
osully @ August 11, 2009