- 2024 Board of Directors
President Freddy Coronado Barraza and Vice President Devin Jackson
with Board Member Jessica Jane Robinson at the CAW Birthday Party, 2022
Staff
Board Bios Staff Bios
Freddy Coronado, Residential Zero Waste Specialist, San Francisco Department of the Environment and Advisor to Zero Waste Youth USA (term ends 12/2025)
Freddy Coronado is a proud member of the San Francisco Bay Area Latinx, Zero Waste and queer communities. He works for the San Francisco Department of the Environment as the Residential Zero Waste Specialist where he implements San Francisco’s Zero Waste policies and programs across the residential sector. His nine plus year Zero Waste experience includes working with multifamily buildings, property managers, large refuse generators, event producers, and affordable housing properties. In the past he has worked on projects with Cascadia Consulting, Envirolutions, Recology and Gigantic Idea Studio. Freddy also assisted the City of Sausalito with the implementation of its Single-Use Plastics Ban Ordinance. Since 2014, Freddy has been an active member of Zero Waste Youth USA, where he is now an advisor to the youth-led organization.
Devin Joseph Guilford Jackson, (term ends 12/2025)
Middle school STEM/STEAM – Earth, Life & Physical Science/Engineering – teacher, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, 2021 CCC Leadership in Sustainability Award Winner, Recycle SMART “green” educator, 2018 “Bronze” CA Green Ribbon School Award Winner, certified Climate Change educator with National Geographic Explorers, NASA GLOBE Educator, NOAA Ocean Guardian educator & Education Consultant of a K-8 environmental education non-profit called Outside the Box 925. Being “green” and a certified naturalist “environmental steward/citizen scientist” are fundamental aspects of my personality, actions, and daily life. I have a strong connection, passion, and bond with nature, the environment, environmental sustainability, eco-literacy, water, energy, resource conservation, recycling, composting, and other waste/landfill diversion practices, which are linked to the UN Climate Principles. I have been a member of NCRA for one year. NCRA has played an integral role in my pathway as an environmental sustainability coordinator to guide and support future Zero Waste schools and districts. I am currently the sole teacher on the NCRA committee for CA Zero Waste Schools. I am looking forward to contributing to and supporting NCRA and the school committee in new ways as my career expands with new opportunities unfolding.
Alina Bekkerman, Zero Waste Specialist, (term ends 12/2024)
Alina began shifting her 
career focus from marketing data towards sustainability and Zero Waste in 2014 while traveling in Ecuador. Connecting with the local community abroad, she collaborated on a recycling education initiative called Proyecto Puerto López Limpio, engaging the youth and municipality in a 3-week long project and Earth Day fair. As a Zero Waste Specialist
Julia Au, Sr. Outreach, Education and Compliance Manager, RethinkWaste (term ends 12/2024) 
Julia has worked on environmental policy, outreach and education for over a decade while at RethinkWaste, San Mateo County, California Product Stewardship Council, SF Department of the Environment, and Californians Against Waste. She has been involved in a variety of programs and initiatives, from household hazardous waste outreach and policy to bag ban and safe medicine disposal ordinances and recycling and composting campaigns. Julia is passionate about motivating positive environmental behavior change and boosting awareness throughout the community via research, creative outreach, and sound policy. Julia holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning with a Water Quality emphasis from the University of California, Davis.
Bailey Hall, Zero Waste Coordinator, City of Sunnyvale (term ends 12/2025)
Bailey Hall is an Environmental Programs Specialist/Zero Waste Coordinator in the Environmental Services Department for the City of Sunnyvale. She represents the Solid Waste and Recycling Division as their outreach and communications lead, and engages the Sunnyvale community through public speaking, social media, events, and Youtube videos. She loves debunking recycling myths and teaching others about Zero Waste living, and discusses both in a regular column called “Talkin’ Trash” in the city-wide newsletter. Prior to this role, Bailey was Program Director for Climate Corps AmeriCorps, a fellowship program that helps young professionals kickstart their career in the environmental field. Over the course of three years, she mentored 84 Fellows. Bailey also has past experience leading outdoor science field trips, educating community members on energy efficiency, and environmental communication in a corporate setting. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies with a Politics minor. Bailey looks forward to a long career ahead in the waste-reduction and recycling realm.
David Hott, Director of Operations, Loaves & Fishes Family Kitchen (term ends 12/2024)With an educational background in Collaborative Health and Human Services from the University of California Monterey Bay, David brings extensive work experience in food recovery and corporate leadership. David serves as the CEO at Loaves and Fishes in Silicon Valley, the home of the A La Carte Program. He holds a Board Position on the Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA) and is certified as a Practitioner in Zero Waste Principles and Practices from SWANA. David is also a member of the Edible Food Recovery Technical Council Executive Committee California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA). Recently David embarked on a journey at the University of California Monterey Bay to obtain his MBA, graduating in May of 2024. A San Francisco Bay area native, David spends his free time as a wilderness guide in the backcountry of Yosemite.
Jessica Robinson
, M.A.S.C., Climate Leader, Resilience Birthright (term ends 12/2024)
Jessica Jane Robinson has a BA degree in Performing Arts and Social Justice, minor in dance from the University of San Francisco. Jessica participated as Miss Alameda for the 2010 and 2011 Miss California USA pageant; with the platform of reducing landfill and greenhouse gas emissions and promoting clean technology and energy. As Miss Alameda, Jessica has sought to encourage behavior changes among the public by promoting Alameda’s recycling and composting program in local schools and businesses. She is one of the founders of the MASC program (Miss Alameda Says Compost), recruiting restaurants in Alameda to recycle and compost. She has helped the City of Alameda reach 75% diversion goal in 2012, by the success of her programs and outreach. Currently, she is developing a transmedia project called “Resilience: Birthright,” with the goal to inspire cultural and social change with the help of entertainment and multi-media.
Casey Fritz
, New Board Member and Zero Food Waste, (term ends 12/2025)
Casey grew up in the Bay Area and has worked in the Zero Waste field since she graduated from UC Berkeley in 2017. After college, Casey worked for a non-profit and worked with schools to educate staff and students about proper sorting, infrastructure set-up, waste audits, and more. Seeing how engaged students, families, and staff were in reducing landfill on school campuses helped develop a strong passion for Zero Waste. Over the next few years Casey went on to work for the outreach and education teams at both Marin Sanitary Service and Recology in San Francisco, deepening her knowledge of how waste is handled and furthering her passion for helping people reduce what they send to landfill.
In 2023 Casey completed a Master of Science in Environmental Management degree at the University of San Francisco, and wrote her Masters’ thesis on the lifecycle emissions of our food system and how local governments can reduce those climate impacts. She currently works for the County of Marin as a Senior Planner, where she manages the Zero Waste Marin Schools Program, the edible food recovery program, social media, and Marin’s Local Task Force. She is excited to serve on the NCRA Board to advance Zero Waste solutions.
Randy Russell, Zero Waste Planner at WSP USA, (term ends 12/2024)
Xinci Tan, New Board Member, DEI Committee and and Zero Food Waste, (term ends 12/2025)
Xinci is excited to join the NCRA board and hopes to continue pushing the organization to be more equitable, inclusive, and accessible as it continues to advance progressive waste reduction policy for the state and country. Xinci leads the countywide implementation of state law Short-lived Climate Pollutants (SB 1383) in Sonoma County, is involved in the County’s efforts to permit and site a new composting facility, and manages several grants related to carbon sequestration, among other responsibilities. She moved to California for her current role in 2018. Before joining the compost industry, she earned a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Minnesota. Her senior research project involved studying the mating behaviors of crickets. She spent a few years working for the USDA studying how environmental variability could affect plant absorption of nitrogen and compared techniques to limit fertilizer runoff. In her free time, she enjoys rock climbing, tennis, hiking, cooking, and reading.
Naama Brenner Abramovitch, Membership Engagement and Activities, (term ends 12/2025)
Recent Former Board Members can be found here.
Staff
Portia M. Sinnott, Executive Director, Former President and long-term Board member. Portia is a Zero Waste advocate consultant that co-leads teams working with the USEPA, UN-Habitat and a variety of jurisdictions and businesses. Favorite projects include the EPA Zero Waste Community Assessment Framework. She serves as Development Director for Zero Waste USA, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of LITE Initiatives – the sustainable practices group that operates Zero Waste Action – Sonoma County and Community Bikes – now 20+ years old.
Juliana Gerber, NCRA’s Administrative Coordinator from 2015 – 2021, has kindly agreed to continue as our Financial Coordinator. In 2021, she was promoted to Associate Director of Envirolutions Consulting, LLC, having serving as Project Lead since its inception in 2015.
Chris Sparnicht, Web Maestro, Laughter On Water
Chris Sparnicht provides program management, technical and website support to environmental and citizen-science nonprofits throughout the US and Canada. A certified Zero Waste Associate, he is NCRA’s IT consultant and a valued member of NCRA’s webinar and conference production team. Chris has degrees in biology, horticulture and landscape architecture, and is interested in music and video production. He has been involved with the Bear Hollow Zoo in Athens, Georgia for six years and on the board for three.
Bonnie Betts, Environmental Content Creator, Mission Driven Marketing & Social Media Consultant. Bonnie is thrilled to be the Social Media Coordinator for the Northern California Recycling Association since 2020. As a project manager, Zero Waste Advocate, and environmental content creator, Bonnie enjoys the opportunity to create and lead projects within the resource recovery and Zero Waste space. In 2019 Bonnie joined Zero Waste Youth USA to lead community engagement and content development for their annual youth convergence. For the past 3 years, Bonnie’s focus has been to support programs that build leadership skills and empower youth to advocate for Zero Waste in their communities.