Board of Directors
Camp Tawonga’s Board of Directors is an extraordinary group of dedicated and talented leaders, many of whom are also Tawonga alumni and Camp parents. The strength or our agency is in large part thanks to their commitment and leadership.
Stacy Mason
President
Board member since: 2015
Stacy is co-founder and executive director of WomenCount, a progressive non-profit organization that promotes women in politics. She moved with her family to California ten years ago from Washington, DC, where she worked in political journalism for many years. She is involved in the local community as a board member at Congregation Beth Am and former board member of Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School. Her three kids are all diehard Tawongans – as campers and staff — and she never gets tired of listening to them talk about camp. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Tufts University and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.
Jeff Zlot
Vice President
Board member since: 2017
Jeff was born and raised in Marin County where he currently resides with his wife and three children. Jeff is a Camp Tawonga alum and a parent of three boys who can’t wait to spend part of their summer at Camp Tawonga. Jeff is a founder and partner of Tiedemann Wealth Management where he serves as a trusted advisor to wealthy families and their charitable entities. Jeff has been active in the Jewish community and has served on several boards including the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and the Mt. Zion Health Fund. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Colby College. Jeff along with his wife Connie and their three children enjoy skiing, traveling and exploring the outdoors.
Ezra Berman
Treasurer
Board member since: 2016
Ezra attended Camp Tawonga for seven years and worked on the staff for three years, and celebrated both his 9th and 21st birthdays at Camp. A native San Franciscan, Ezra currently owns several restaurants and bars throughout the city. He earned a BS in Business Management Economics at UC Santa Cruz, an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and spent six years working in finance before jumping into the hospitality business full time. He is very excited to be giving back to Camp Tawonga through board service and cherishes the friendships and memories he has made through Camp over the years.
Deborah Wexler
Secretary
Board member since: 2015
Deborah, along with her husband Peter and son Benjamin moved to the Bay Area almost 20 years ago from the frigid Northeast. They have been a Tawonga family for nine years as Ben has progressed through Tawonga as a camper, a TSL teen, a CIT and finally, a counselor for the last two years. Deborah has been involved in the Jewish community for many years serving on the boards of Congregation Sinai Preschool and Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School and on advisory committees for the North Peninsula Jewish Teen Foundation and the JCF Regional Impact Grant Initiative. She earned a Masters degree in Business Administration at Boston University where she also served on the board of Boston University Hillel. She is currently a board member of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Deborah is looking forward to spending more time at Camp Tawonga and experiencing that little tingle that always comes with the drive down the hill to the camp gate!
Seth Leslie
Member-At-Large
Board member since: 2013
Seth earned a M.A. in Management from the Sloan Fellows program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He has since consulted for Bay Area start-ups in the areas of operations, business development, and strategy. Prior to that, Seth was a founder of East Palo Alto Academy High School, where he successfully transitioned from a math teacher to Assistant Principal over a fourteen-year career. Seth serves on multiple non-profit boards, where he offers expertise in development and fundraising.
Jessica Chizen
Board member since: 2018
Growing up in the Bay Area, Jessica was a Tawonga camper for many years. She spent three summers on staff and has been involved with Tawonga ever since. Jessica was recently Co-Chair of Tawonga’s inaugural Young Alumni Board. Jessica is a speech-language pathologist at SPEECH, Inc., a pediatric clinic in San Francisco and also works part-time at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. She has always loved working with children and feels lucky to have a job helping them learn to communicate. Jessica is excited to bring her passion for kids and Tawonga to the Board of Directors.
Rabbi Mychal Copeland
Board member since: 2017
Rabbi Mychal Copeland speaks and writes about the inclusion of LGBTQI people and interfaith families in religious life. She is the Bay Area Director of InterfaithFamily, and served for thirteen years as a university Rabbi at UCLA and Stanford University. Her book, Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives, grew out of her campus work. Mychal is the founder of a Rosh Hodesh (new moon) project for teens, It’s a Girl Thing, that celebrates the monthly lunar cycle and strengthens teen girls’ self-esteem and spirituality with over 100 groups around the country. Her writing can be found at J., HuffPost, OnFaith.org, and Interfaithfamily.com. She never got to attend Jewish camp as a kid and is making up for it now, spending time at Tawonga every summer as camp Rabbi, attending Keshet family camp, and now happily serving on the Board. She lives with her partner of over 20 years in Mountain View with their two children.
Neil Hallinan
Board member since: 2016
Neil is a Camp Tawonga vet, having spent six years at Tawonga as a camper and subsequently as a summer staff member. Born and raised in San Francisco, Neil still lives in the city along with his wife Vanessa Peña-Hallinan and their three-year old daughter, Xochitl. Neil is currently a Deputy Public Defender in Oakland. He has two nieces who have attended Tawonga as campers and looks forward to raising his daughter in the same tradition.
Michelle Kletter
Board member since: 2016
Michelle is a San Francisco native and Camp Tawonga alum. She fondly refers to her time at Camp Tawonga as her best summers ever. Michelle is a co-owner/operator of a nation-wide health care system that provides substance use disorder treatment, mental health services and primary medical care. She lives in San Francisco with her wife and two children. Michelle enjoys spending time with her friends and family (especially at Camp Tawonga’s Keshet Family Camp), Soulcycle, traveling and good books.
Tali Levy
Board member since: 2018
Tali Levy grew up on the Peninsula and spent six years as a camper at Tawonga. She attended Cal Berkeley for undergraduate, the Fletcher School at Tufts University for a masters, and received a JD from Stanford Law School. Tali was an attorney at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office for 15 years. She lives in Oakland with her husband and two kids and is often near Tawonga at Evergreen Lodge and Rush Creek Lodge, her husband Lee’s businesses. She is thrilled that her two kids are now Tawonga campers, as so many of her happy childhood memories center on Tawonga. Additionally, Tali’s son is involved “down the mountain” in the inaugural Tawonga Bar Mitzvah class. Tali is excited to serve on the Board and contribute to an organization that has given her and her family so much.
Alexis Lezin
Board member since: 2017
Alexis Lezin is a psychotherapist in private practice in Oakland and San Francisco. She works primarily with individual adults and couples. Her approach to her work is informed by a commitment to racial and social justice, creative expression and training in AEDP, EFT and drama therapy. She was very fortunate to work at Tawonga in the role of therapist from 2009 – 2014, and she is delighted to join the Board of Directors.
Marcy Scott Lynn
Board Member since: 2019
Marcy Scott Lynn is a Director on Facebook’s Partnerships team, focusing primarily on the intersection of community and philanthropy. During her tenure at Facebook, Marcy has led teams designing, developing and managing various programs focused on issues including privacy, crisis response, charitable giving and news literacy. Prior to joining Facebook in 2011, Marcy was the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Sun Microsystems (and Oracle following its acquisition of Sun). Marcy spent eight years working as a strategic communications consultant with a focus on issues management and corporate responsibility and spent her early career working in politics and government. Marcy has an MBA from University of California Haas School of Business and a BA from Boston University. She is a former marathoner and triathlete and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two daughters.
Mike Potter
Board member since: 2015
Mike is a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. At UCSF he sees patients, teaches medical students, and directs a primary healthcare practice based research network. He and his wife Yeva have served as infirmary volunteers at Camp Tawonga since 2003, and it recently occurred to them that their two teenageers (Myer and Natan) have spent over 6 months of their lives at Camp Tawonga as campers and “staff kids”! Mike is grateful for the many friends and meaningful experiences that Camp Tawonga has provided to his family through the years. As a member of the board, Mike looks forward to new opportunities to contribute to the vision and reality of a safe and healthy environment at camp.
Ariel Rabin
Board member since: 2017
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Ariel spent many summers of his childhood as a camper at Tawonga. The Tawonga summers hiking through Yosemite left a deep mark, and now Ariel spends much of his free time playing and exploring in the High Sierra with his wife Sarah and young children Ayla and Aron. He enjoys photography, biking, hiking and running. Ariel received a Bachelors in Engineering from UC Davis and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. He has spent the past 10 years working in commercial real estate investment and asset management. As a board member, Ariel is excited to share his love for the outdoors and Jewish values with future generations of campers.
Renee Samson
Board member since: 2016
Renee has been a part of the San Francisco Jewish community for more than a decade. Her family discovered Tawonga’s Family Camp in 2010 and fell in love with the camp. Renee, a former tax lawyer, spent nine years at PG&E before joining Accenture Consulting, serving utilities and energy companies. Most recently, she joined ChargePoint, the largest electric vehicle charging services company in North America. Renee loves the outdoors and Yosemite and is cultivating in her two young children the joys of hiking and camping. Renee also loves to bike, cook, and decorate cakes.
Lori Silverstein
Board member since: 2015
Lori, a 4th generation San Franciscan, was a camper since the early days at the PJCC, where she was also a CIT, counselor and unit head. She attended Camp Tawonga starting at age 8 for many summers. Her last year at session III, in 1967, she had an experience of a lifetime when Janis Joplin and Big Brother and The Holding Company were guests at camp. Camp has always been an important part of her life, and she has always carried the Tawonga spirit (ruach) in her life and work. Lori currently lives on the Peninsula and is the Chief Beauty Officer of Peninsula Beauty. She has served on the board and executive board of The Wornick Jewish Day School and is currently finishing her 4 year term on The Hillbarn Theater board. Development and fundraising have been her areas of excellence. She has also been involved in supporting Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Recreation Therapy Department, and Bay Area Cancer Connections for many years.
Jen Spitzer
Board Member since: 2019
Jennifer Spitzer (formerly Gorovitz) is Vice President for Finance, Operations and Administration of the New Israel Fund (NIF). Spitzer comes to NIF from Manatt, Phelps and Phillips law firm, where she practiced estate planning and represented nonprofit organizations. Previously, Jennifer was with the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund for 10 years as the first woman CEO of a major North American Federation. During her tenure in that role, Spitzer was recognized in The Jewish Daily Forward’s “Forward 50” list and was selected as one of the Bay Area’s “Most Influential Women” by the San Francisco Business Times. In 2015, Spitzer was the recipient of special recognition by Death Penalty Focus for her pro bono efforts, and in 2014, was the recipient of the Landres Courage for Dignity Award by Keshet. She is an alumna of the Wexner Heritage Program and currently serves on the board of Urban Adamah. Jennifer has a long relationship with Camp Tawonga and is the proud parent of a Camp Tawonga counselor who was a very happy camper for many years prior.
Jennifer Strasburg
Board Member since: 2013
A native of Seattle, Jennifer came to the Tawonga Board as part of the Jewish Federation Fellowship program, a two-year leadership building program that develops the next generations of leaders for the Jewish community. At the conclusion of the fellowship, Jen was honored when asked to apply for a permanent board seat. Although she never attended Tawonga, she was a die-hard camper for eight summers at B’nai Brith Camp on the Oregon coast. Jen has spent the last 15 years working in Public Relations and currently works at an agency that specializes in consumer products. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and three young children.
Dennis Troper
Board Member since: 2019
Dennis Troper is director of product for Wear OS by Google. He joined Google in early 2003 and has worked on several product areas since then including AdWords, G Suite and Google Fiber. Dennis grew up in Costa Rica and from an early age was actively involved in the small but thriving Jewish community in San José. Since moving to the Bay Area more than 20 years ago, Dennis has served on the boards of Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School and the Anti-Defamation League. He has five children all of which love Camp Tawonga! They’ve been attending camp for more than 10 years along with their first cousins from Costa Rica. Dennis attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his BA in Economics and the University of California at Santa Cruz where he earned his M.S. in Applied Economics. He currently lives in Los Altos with his wife and children.
Raziel Ungar
Board member since: 2018
Raziel is excited to join the Camp Tawonga Board and combine two of the most important things to him – camping and the outdoors – with his Jewish heritage. As an alum, Raziel has participated in several Tawonga Family Camps with his wife and five-year-old son and loved every minute of them. He is a Realtor at Compass in Burlingame working with nice people to support their perfect real estate experience. Raziel received a Bachelors in Economics from UCLA, and lives in Burlingame (where he grew up).
Jon Yolles
Board Member since: 2019
A Bay Area native, Jon has attended multiple Tawonga family camps with his wife and daughters, current and former Tawonga campers. Jon is the principal of Covus Development, a real estate investment and development company. Jon’s career spans the non-profit housing, public and private sectors and a wide range of development projects. Jon has been active in Jewish agencies and the Jewish Community Federation for two decades. He currently serves on Federation’s Capital Planning Committee and chairs Caliber School’s building advisory committee. Jon studied real estate at the Urban Land Institute’s Real Estate Development School and is a graduate of the Wexner Heritage Program and the University of Colorado. He enjoys many outdoor activities, especially sleeping under the stars at Camp Tawonga with his daughters.
Betsy Zeger
Board member since: 2018
After 25 exciting years working as an agent and personal manager in the music industry, Betsy switched tracks and has been working as a Mediator and Conflict coach in the Bay Area for 12 years. She is a perpetual student of the Art of Communication, which she practices and teaches every day with her work. Believing deeply in her practice is what led Betsy to co-create Community Boards Conflict Coaching Trainings for mediators. She also teaches these critical life skills to teens at Redwood, Tam, and Terra Linda High Schools. Betsy is certified in Co-Active Coaching, Applied Positive Psychology, Business Leadership from Dominican University, and Mindfulness Training from Mindfulness Without Borders. She also chairs the Wellness Advisory Board for Tamalpais Union High School District in Larkspur. Betsy happily resides in Marin with her husband Paul, a Camp Tawonga Board alum. Her three children spent most of their childhood being surrounded by the love and support that is Camp Tawonga, and Betsy is excited to show that love and support during her time serving on the Board of Directors.
To learn about board service at Camp Tawonga, please reach our San Francisco office at 415.543.2267