Meet the Team

Robyn van Ekelenburg & Teresa Martinez Gonzales

CEO’s

Robyn has worked in real estate development for twenty-five years and has dedicated the last 18 years to affordable housing program development. She has partnered with developers across the state to help create successful affordable housing programs with an emphasis on project management, layered financing, risk analysis, homebuyer education, underwriting, and home sales. Robyn currently serves on the Board of Directors for Housing Trust Placer, where she works to carry out its mission to support affordable housing in the greater Sacramento region.

Teresa brings over 15 years of experience in community building, focusing on connecting neighborhoods and communities to each other, technology, jobs, and housing. She specializes in administering municipal workforce development and housing programs with non-profit partners. Her work includes project/contract design, operations, evaluation, and audit activities. Teresa is a housing and climate change warrior. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and serves on the board of their Chicanx Latinx Alumni Association.

Dave Cook, Board Chair

Cook Development Consulting Services, LLC

Dave has enjoyed a successful 40-year career in the residential real estate development industry. After receiving a BA at the University of California, Davis, Mr. Cook focused his career on real estate sales, management, and development. Throughout his career, he held numerous positions including, Project Manager, Director of Land Acquisition, Director of Sales and Marketing, Division President, and Principal. In 2006 he co-founded the RCH Group, a land development consulting firm, and in 2017 formed Cook Development Consulting Services, providing a variety of entitlement and land development services including project management, land and infrastructure planning, project approvals, advocacy, and community outreach for projects located primarily within Placer County. Mr. Cook has dedicated many years of community service as a member of the North State Building Industry Association, and as Board member and Chair for Sutter Roseville Medical Center Foundation, and President of the Blue Line Arts board of directors. Housing Trust Placer has become his primary focus and
commitment as he approaches retirement.

Jim Bayless, Vice Chair

Owner, Inspire Homes

Jim has over 30 years of production homebuilding management experience. Jim earned an MBA from UC Berkeley, then focused his career on new home construction and development for communities throughout Northern California. After serving as a division manager for two large homebuilders, he established a local production homebuilding company and served as its President for 12 years. Jim joined Summit Development as the Sr. VP of Land Development and Acquisitions, after serving as the Land Acquisition Manager for Woodside Homes for 10 years.

He has served as Chair of the North State Building Industry Association, as a board member and Treasurer of Valley Vision, and was a founding director of HomeAid Sacramento.

Gabe Brown, Treasurer

Umqua Bank, Vice President/Senior Affordable Housing Relationship Manager

Gabe has more than 15 years of experience in affordable housing and financing. Mr. Brown’s role has been critical to overseeing the bank’s affordable construction financing loans, as well as its tax credit equity investments in opportunity zones. Additionally, he is responsible for the administration of Bank of the West’s FHLB SF AHP program and the disbursement of grant funds for various affordable housing developments. Mr. Brown serves on the loan committee for California Community Reinvestment Corporation, where the organization approves permanent financing for affordable housing projects throughout California.

Bruce Inman, Board Member

Inman Law Group, LLP

Bruce is a founding partner of the Inman Law Group, LLP, based in Sacramento, California. Mr. Inman's law practice focuses on creating common interest developments and advising community associations. He has assisted clients in creating hundreds of developments, including master planned communities, attached, detached, mixed-use, and commercial planned development and has extensive experience creating a variety of residential and commercial condominium projects. Mr. Inman is the past chair of the California Building Industry Association/Department of Real Estate Council, and a former board member of a regional chapter of the Community Associations Institute. Mr. Inman is a regular featured speaker for the California North Chapter of the Community Associations Institute regarding community association legal issues. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Mary's College of California, Teaching Credential from California State University Stanislaus, and Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

Patrick McHone, Board Member

River City Bank, EVP, Chief Credit Officer

Patrick McHone has more than 35 years of experience in commercial banking and holds a BS in Business Administration from Menlo College. In 2007, Mr. McHone joined the team at River City Bank and since 2008 has been its Chief Credit Officer. River City Bank is headquartered in Sacramento, and serves customers in Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. Mr. McHone has helped to shape River City Bank into a premier business bank, with assets of $3.2 Billion. Prior to his role at River City Bank, Mr. McHone held a senior management position with Mechanics Bank for 17 years and was responsible for establishing Mechanic’s commercial and retail banking presence in the Sacramento region.

Joe Pitzner, Secretary

BSB Design, Associate Director of Single Family Housing

Joe has more than 20 years of housing design experience, and his work with for-profit builders around the country, including numerous projects in California, Nevada, and Utah, he has developed an intimate working knowledge of how effective, collaborative design processes result in construction efficiencies that impact the entire project cycle, through to the end user.

Mr. Pitzner believes applying those same strategies to the non-profit sector offers an incredible opportunity. As a firm, BSB Design encourages leaders to develop an innovation mindset, and Joe continuously seeks new, interesting design solutions that push the envelope for residential housing across the spectrum of his project work.

Jim Ray, Board Member

MacKay and Somps, President (retired)

Jim recently retired as President of MacKay and Somps Civil Engineers, starting with the firm when he began his career in their San Jose office in 1976. Mr. Ray graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Civil Engineering and is a registered Civil Engineer in California and Nevada. In 1984, he was appointed Operations Manager for the Sacramento region. He grew the office from a staff of six to over 60 people and in 2006, was elected President of the corporation. He has received recognition from North State Building Industry Association for his contributions, including Associate of the Year in 1998, Volunteer of the Millennium in 2000, and recipient of the 2020 Chairman’s Award for his years of dedication to our industry, including involvement in many of the largest residential developments in the areas, as well as his leadership on various land use and policy issues. Mr. Ray has also served on the Board of Directors and as local chapter president for the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California.

Dan Heldridge

Board Member

Dan has led a career in community development that includes micro-finance, business finance, affordable housing, and development work in emerging markets.

At Morgan Stanley, Dan was Executive Director in Community Development Finance, where the motto was "Let’s use the power of the capital markets to do good." He worked on transaction structuring and management of a $3 billion portfolio of community development loans and investments, including affordable housing construction and preservation, SBA lending, CDFI lending, tax equity, and private equity investing. Partnering with Ford Foundation, he established the Impact Developers Fund to make equity investments in minority-owned affordable housing developers.

Dan also worked at the San Francisco-based nonprofit Low Income Investment Fund as Director of Lending Operations, where focus was on affordable housing, charter school, and childcare finance. He is a former board and loan committee member of Community Housing Capital, a former credit committee member of Neighborhood Trust, and former board member of International Cinema Education. Dan graduated from San Francisco State, he holds an MBA from the University of Hull (UK), and he studied in Columbia University’s MS in Sustainability Management program. Dan speaks Spanish.

Deana Ellis

Board Member

Deana is Vice President of Land Resources at Cresleigh Homes. She is responsible for all site acquisition, project entitlements and land development for Cresleigh Homes in Northern California. A key member of the land development team, Deana has extensive experience in mixed use development, master plan communities, project entitlements at the Federal, State and local level, as well as experience in often challenging infill projects.

Prior to joining Cresleigh, Deana worked in commercial real estate development for Albertsons, developing new store locations, remodels and acquisitions in California, the Pacific Northwest and the southern United States. Deana has significant experience in development of mixed projects in California including involvement in a number of complicated projects while at Albertsons, such as the 32nd and Clement and Fulton and Masonic projects in San Francisco, which are large urban mixed-use projects with full grocery stores and accompanying residential uses.

Deana is devoted to, and has a strong advocacy and track record for, urban and infill development that revitalizes communities with a focus on pedestrian, transit and bike centered communities. Deana, a graduate of Boise State University, serves on the Policy and Planning board of the Sacramento chapter of the Urban Land Institute and is a board member of the North State Building Industry Association where she utilizes her experience and enthusiasm to press for thoughtful discussion and policy adoption that promotes the principle of mixed use, compact development to revitalize the Sacramento region.

Holly Tiche, Board Member

Placer Ranch, Inc., President

Holly serves as President of Placer Ranch, Inc. in Rocklin, California, and oversees a 2,220-acre mixed use development in Placer County owned by philanthropist Eli Broad. A graduate of Sacramento State in Business Administration, Ms. Tiche began her employment with Broad in 1988 with Stanford Ranch, a successful master-planned community, and served as their Vice President/Controller. Ms. Tiche has overseen Broad’s real estate holdings in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area since 1996. Ms. Tiche currently serves on the boards of The Foundation at Sacramento State, the Sierra College Foundation and Housing Trust Placer. She has previously served on the Board of Trustees for William Jessup University, Blue Line Arts, Lighthouse Resource Center, and is the Past President of the Sierra College Foundation. She has chaired numerous capital campaigns and fundraising events in the region for local non-profit causes and higher education.

Lina Vo

Board Member

Lina has more than 10 years of experience in affordable housing and construction lending. She is currently Vice President in the Community Development Finance group at Morgan Stanley. In her role, she is responsible for the underwriting of prospective loans and management of a $600 million portfolio of existing affordable housing construction loans. She also worked at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, performing analysis, underwriting, and providing technical assistance for the Affordable Housing Program (AHP). Lina holds a BA in Finance from Temple University and an MBA from Boston University.