Courtesy photo.
CAMARILLO — The CSU Channel Islands Foundation is six members stronger, thanks to the addition of members who bring a wealth of experience and talent to the board.
Agricultural business woman Betsy Grether was voted onto the board in late 2016 and MannKind Corp. CEO Hakan Edstrom and Attorney Chuck Cohen were voted in last February.
Former Mandalay Berry Farm owner Linda Dullam, former Ojai Music Festival President Esther Wachtell, and Krause Bell Group founder Thomas Krause were voted in this summer.
The Development Committee Chairperson of the CSUCI Foundation Zohar Ziv is pleased with the increased diversity the new members bring to the board.
“You’re always trying to get people from different disciplines and backgrounds,” said Ziv, former Chief Operating Officer of the Deckers Outdoor Corporation. “Not just in terms of their business, but also gender and race.”
Ziv said the Foundation board benefits from geographic diversity, too, with members from Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.
Aside from her work as a trustee of Thomas Aquinas College, Esther Wachtell is a funder and advisor of the Center on Philanthropy for the University of Southern California and a director of the Ojai Community Bank.
“Cal State Channel Islands has a very important and unique mission that I hope to be able to enhance. Erika (President Erika Beck) is committed to bringing first generation families into the higher education process,” Wachtell said. “The opportunity to help newer Americans strengthen their learning capacities is so important to our future as a nation. It’s an honor to be granted that opportunity.”
After heading the biotech company MannKind, Hakan Edstrom was elected to head a leading cancer immunotherapy company’s board of directors, Vaccinogen, while also chairing the company’s Compensation Committee and serving on the Audit Committee.
Edstrom was educated in Sweden and holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Stockholm School of Economics. He says he credits his successes in life to a good education, so he wants to give others the same opportunities by supporting CSUCI.
“Having run a business whose success is based on access to well-educated employees, I want to support the mission of CSUCI and its students,” he said.
Linda Dullam served on the very first Foundation board when CSUCI was just becoming a reality in 2002.
“It has been a joy to watch the University grow,” she said, adding that she believes her experience in the agricultural community and with CSUCI has and will continue to be an asset as she rejoins the board.
“The agriculture community sees many local issues in a different light than most locals so that perspective is always valuable when discussing important issues affecting all of us in Ventura County,” she said. “I believe my long view is a valuable contribution to the Foundation board.”
Tom Krause, Ph.D., is a world-renowned expert on organizational leadership and culture, employee behavior and safety in a wide variety of academic, business, healthcare and environmental settings.
“I was moved to join the board after meeting and talking with President Erika Beck. Her vision for the University is compelling; it motivated me to get involved,” he said. “She had fresh thinking about the role of education to prepare students for both work and citizenship.”
Still active land use and real estate attorney Chuck Cohen, also the former mayor of Thousand Oaks and former President of the Ventura County Bar Association, joins the board with decades of experience in community service.
“Being an almost 60-year active citizen of Ventura County, having raised my family in Thousand Oaks, and cognizant of the significant benefits conferred by CSUCI on the quality of life and people of our county, it became time to turn my attention to this extraordinary university,” Cohen said. “I am honored to be afforded this opportunity to serve.”
The sixth new member is Betsy Grether, farmer and director of Grether Farming Company, Inc., an active member of Ventura County’s agriculture community as a grower of citrus and avocados. She graduated from the University of Southern California and went on to earn a degree in landscape architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Grether has served as a trustee of Thacher School in Ojai and is currently on its Architectural Review Committee. She was also a director on the St. John’s Healthcare Foundation and has worked with many non-profit agencies, including Children’s Home Society. She is a member of the Broome family, a friend and neighbor of the University for many generations.
About California State University Channel IslandsL CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CSUCI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CSUCI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more by visiting CSUCI’s Social Media.