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Howard Himes has dedicated twenty-four years to helping abused children and their families. He is the Director of the Fresno County Department of Social Services. In addition, Himes has provided more than 600 hours of child welfare training and taught for both the Central California and Bay Area Child Welfare Academies. He co-authored a CaiSWEC training curriculum on Child Welfare Services within the Southeast Asian community, as well as developed training on Ethnographic Risk Assessment for the Bay Area Training Academy.
Himes currently teaches graduate courses in Advanced Child Welfare and Community Organization at California State University Fresno. He also sits on the Board for the Child & Family Policy Institute of California, as well as the advocacy committee for the California Evidence Based Clearing House.
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Wilma Hashimoto earned her Business Administration degree from the University of Southern California and her Master of Arts degree in Education Administration from California State University Fresno. She began her career as a corporate auditor then discovered her passion in teaching, specifically with at-risk children. She had a successful journey as a classroom teacher, and administrator at the school site district level with the Clovis Unified School District. In her current capacity as the Associate Director for the Fresno County Office of Education, she oversees the Early Care and Education department and serves as the liaison between the California Department of Education and the more than 250 subsidized child care programs in Fresno County. She is now developing the implementation of Transitional Kindergarten in both the county and statewide.
Hashimoto is a lifelong resident of Fresno County and currently resides in Clovis with her husband, Russell and daughter, Kylene. She is actively involved in the community and proudly serves as Executive Board member to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and committee member for the Marjaree Mason Center aside from her role as Commissioner for First 5 Fresno County. She was named one of Fresno County’s Top 10 Business Women of the Year in 2009 for contributions to her community.
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Susan B. Anderson is currently serving as a Fresno County Supervisor representing District 2. She was elected County Clerk/Registrar of Voters for Fresno County from 1991 to 2001. Previously, Susan was a Deputy District Attorney, working in the Juvenile Courts from 1989 to 1991. She was in private practice from 1987 to 1989.
Susan is a graduate of San Joaquin College of Law, and served as President of the Student Association and the Alumni Association. Prior to law school, she was employed for 11 years with the Central Valley YMCA as its Marketing Director.
She is active in community service and is a Member of Rotary Club of Fresno, National Women's Political Caucus and the League of Women Voters. Susan is a past member of the Board of Directors for Big Brother/Big Sisters, Central Valley YMCA, Fresno Women's Network, Cedar Vista Hospital Board of Trustee, Boy Scouts of America-Sequoia Council and Court Appointed Special Advocates.
Karin Chao-Bushoven graduated from UCLA, with graduate studies at Brown University. Before relocating to Fresno, she directed Boston Public Library’s Literacy and Education Programs. She is most proud of her work in furthering public awareness of functional illiteracy’s socio-economic impact in the state of Massachusetts. While serving our Nation’s first Public Library, she worked with Bernard Margolis, President of the Library, currently New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner of Libraries.
Prior to this, Chao-Bushoven was the founding Coordinator for City of Providence (State of Rhode Island) Even Start Family Literacy Program, a federal program focusing on Early Childhood Education, Parenting and Adult Education. While with Even Start, she worked under Dr. Brenda Dann-Messier, currently the United State Assistant Secretary of Education, Obama administration.
Previously, Chao-Bushoven was an Education Evaluation Consultant and worked with NASA’s Challenger Learning Centers and the George Soros Foundation’s development of cross-cultural education models in Eastern and Central Europe.
Chao-Bushoven has served the Fresno Philharmonic Association as its Director of Development since 2006. Under her leadership, the Philharmonic has successfully met and has surpassed the agency’s unprecedented fundraising goals each year. In addition to leading the Symphony’s major gifts program, she has also procured funding for its Youth and Family Concerts, which has seen its service of the under-served Central Valley students and teachers grow from 1,000 to 7,000 in four years.
In addition, Chao-Bushoven has been a guest lecturer at California State University, Fresno, in “Philanthropy and Grant Making.”
Chao-Bushoven was appointed to the Children and Family Commission of Fresno County in May of 2008, a five-year term. She believes her charge is to engage the public in improving the well-being of our citizens--“doing what is right by our stakeholders—our children and community at large,” said Commissioner Chao-Bushoven, as “we cannot afford to be passive bystanders, especially for those without a voice."
Chao-Bushoven lives in Fresno with her husband, Dr. John Bushoven, Professor of Plant Science, California State University, Fresno.
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Lisa Nichols is a Medical Social Worker with Fresno Community Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Maternal Child Unit. She provides intensive case management services to high risk infants and their parents.
Lisa was previously employed with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) working with neglected & abused children, at-risk families, and transition-age foster youth. She had the unique opportunity to oversee a nationally known initiative, California Connected by 25 (CC25), that aims at ensuring foster and probation youth are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and services to be successful in their transition into adulthood. In addition to coordinating the CC25 initiative, Lisa was a Supervisor for the Fresno County DCFS Independent Living Program.
Lisa received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social Work from California State University of Fresno (CSUF) in 1998, and her Master's Degree in Social Work in 2003 at CSUF. She served as the Vice President for the CSUF Social Work Alumni Association from 2003 to 2005. Lisa has developed written curriculum and facilitated training for social workers, foster parents, and community partners.
Lisa serves as a board member on the Advisory Counsel for the Intervarsity Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership (FIFUL) and as a member on the Intimate Violence Partner Taskforce at CMRC. In June of 2008, the Delta Sigma Sorority recognized Lisa Nichols as "a trail blazer in the community" and for her dedication to community efforts.
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Hugo Morales is the Executive Director of Radio Bilingüe, Inc. In 1976, Hugo and an all volunteer staff of farm workers, former farm workers, and artists founded Radio Bilingüe. It began broadcasting July 4, 1980, over the entire San Joaquin Valley.
Radio Bilingüe is a national satellite community radio service with programming in Spanish, English and Mixteco (an indigenous Native American language in Mexico) that serves Latino radio audiences in the Northern Hemisphere. It serves over half a million listeners with its pioneering daily Spanish language national talk show, Línea Abierta, its independently produced news service, Noticiero Latino, and its rainbow of Spanish-language folk music.
Hugo is a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico. He was raised in Oaxaca and grew up in Sonoma County until he graduated in 1968 from Healdsburg High School. He then went on to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
In 1994, he became the first resident of the San Joaquin Valley to be a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In May 1999, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting honored Hugo with the Edward R. Murrow Award, public radio's highest distinction. Hugo's board memberships include the following: First 5 Fresno County Commission, The California Endowment, The San Francisco Foundation, The Rosenberg Foundation, The UC Merced Foundation, the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Central California Legal Services, California Tomorrow, and the PG&E/Greenlining Partnership.
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Marcia Sablan is a native of St. Louis, Missouri; she received her B.S. in Chemistry from St. Louis University and her M.D. from the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency in Family Practice at the University of Hawaii- Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Honolulu.
Dr. Sablan is Board Certified in Family Practice, and is an active member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the California Academy of Family Physicians, and was named California Family Physician of the Year in 1992. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF-Fresno Family Practice program as well as a Clinical Preceptor for the UC Davis Physician Assistant/Family Nurse Practitioner Program.
As a First 5 Fresno County Commissioner, Dr. Sablan enjoys giving back to the community. She has served on numerous Boards of Directors including the American Red Cross of Fresno County, and has been on the City Council of Firebaugh since 1983.
Before medical school, she spent two years in El Salvador as a Peace Corps volunteer. She has been in private practice with her husband, Dr. Oscar Sablan, for 24 years in Firebaugh and has four grown children and six grandchildren.
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Roseanne Lascano has roots in the valley. She grew up in Del Rey. As a child, she attended Sanger schools and has returned to the school district as its Chief Business Officer.
Through her work with First 5 Fresno County, she hopes to positively impact the lives of children. Roseanne believes early childhood programs are the key to improving the quality of life for valley residents. Seeing some of her siblings fall through the cracks has shown her the importance of investing in early childhood programs. She has a passion for education and that is what drives Roseanne's work.
She has been with the First 5 Fresno County since 1999.
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Dr. Ed Moreno is the Director and Health Officer for the Fresno County Department of Community Health. He provides administrative direction and public health guidance to the Department's divisions and agencies which include Environmental Health, County Office of Emergency Services, Public Health Laboratory, Central California Emergency Medical Services Agency, Communicable Disease Control, Child Health and Disability Prevention Program, Health Education and Disease Prevention Services, California Children's Services, and Maternal Child and Adolescent Health.
He participates on several local, regional and statewide boards and committees including the Fresno County Interagency Council for Children and Families, Central California Public Health Partnership, American Academy of Pediatrics Northern California chapter, and California Conference of Local Health Officers and Health Officers Association of California.
He earned his Bachelor degree from the University of Notre Dame, his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco and his Master’s in Public Health degree from California State University, Fresno. He trained in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics. He also teaches resident physicians at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Education Program in Fresno.
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