Resources

Board Members

Kurt Chun

(Term 2022-2026)

Kurt has served on the Board since 1991. He is a native of San Francisco Bay Area, raised in Mill Valley. He currently resides in the Homestead Valley area of unincorporated Mill Valley. Kurt Attended San Francisco State University, and the University of California Berkeley with a major in Education and Vocational Studies. He recently retired as a Fire Captain from the City of Berkeley Fire Department with greater than thirty years in the fire service.

Email: kchun@smfd.org

Training:

Cathryn Hilliard

(Term 2025-2029)

Cathryn has served on the Board since 2009 and is a resident of the Tamalpais Valley area of unincorporated Mill Valley. She is currently the Executive Director of the Construction Industry Force Account Council (CIFAC). Before joining CIFAC in 1997, Hilliard was Director of Government and Public Affairs for the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) for 10 years. She was also a government and public affairs consultant whose clients included; the City and the County of Los Angeles, Chevron Corporation, McDonald’s, Wahl Instruments, and the National Education Media Network. Hilliard set up a one-stop location filming permit center in Hollywood to help keep the motion picture business in California. She also worked in both houses of Congress as staff for Indiana Senators Vance Hartke and Birch Bayh and for Congressman Winfield Denton of Evansville.

Cathryn's professional and charitable affiliations included being president of the Bay Area Public Affairs Council, American Society for Public Administration, Bay Area Chapter, and the UCSF Auxiliary. She is also a current member of AAUW, LWV, Marin Women's PAC and the Tam Valley Improvement Club. Hilliard received her undergraduate degree in Political Science and Public Administration from Cal State University East Bay. She also has a management certificate from UC Berkeley.

Email: chilliard@smfd.org

Training:

Tom Perazzo

(Term 2022-2026)

Tom Perazzo is a Sausalito resident who has served on the SMFD Board of Directors since 2012. He is a retired safety and risk management consultant with almost 50-years in the insurance industry. Tom’s scope of practice included: fire protection engineering, safety engineering (public and worker safety), ergonomics, and emergency management. While continuing to serve the Sausalito community as a member of the Sausalito Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee, Tom has also served on the FASIS Board of Directors since elected in 2016. He is a member of Sausalito Volunteers, in Public Safety, has been a member of the National Fire Protection Association and American Society of Safety Engineers for over 50-years, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Native Sons of the Golden West, and the Native Sons Charitable Foundation.

Email: tperazzo@smfd.org

Training:

Peter Fleming

Peter Fleming (Term 2022-2026)

Pete Fleming is currently a Director of UX Research at Google. Previously, Pete led Instagram's UX Research team, and has also led teams at Facebook with a focus on topics related to safety, security, support, and well-being. Before taking a leap into the world of technology, he worked as an ethnographer and demographer in the areas of social networks, health, mobile banking, and entrepreneurship throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, India, South & Latin America, and Antarctica.

Pete holds an MBA from Babson College, a Masters in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Health & Society from the University of Rochester. Pete has been a proud resident in Marin for 8 years, where he enjoys spending quality time with his two beautiful daughters.

Email: pfleming@smfd.org

Training:

Cristine Soto DeBerry

Cristine DeBerry (Term 2022-2026)

Cristine Soto DeBerry, an immigrant from Guatemala, is a two term Chief of Staff for San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón. She is a public safety expert, bringing to this role over twenty years of legal and policy experience, including work as a public defender and policy advisor. She previously served as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Deputy Chief of Staff, overseeing all of his policy teams and initiatives. Cristine has a distinguished career shaping and advancing policies to bring economic and social justice to the communities she serves. Her successful large-scale policy reforms working for the Mayor and District Attorney, range from closing San Francisco’s last fossil fuel power plant, and forging a pathway to expunge marijuana convictions proactively for all San Francisco cases.

She has extensive press and public speaking experience, having presented at the White House Convening on Prosecution under the Obama Administration, the Center for American Progress, the Brookings Institute and before the California State Legislature. She served as President of the Association of Latino Marin Attorneys in 2018 and received the San Francisco La Raza Lawyer’s Award for Community Leadership in 2016. She serves as a board member for the Center for Employment Opportunities and was appointed to the Southern Marin Fire District in 2019. She received her Bachelor of Art’s degree in Political Science and Chicana/o Studies from UCLA and her Law Degree from the UC Berkeley’s School of Law. She is a mother of two girls, and a wife to a fellow Bruin.

Email: cdeberry@smfd.org

Training:

Ashley Raveche

Ashley Raveche (Term 2025-2029)

Ashley Raveche participates in collaborative policy-making for local and state groups with a focus on public safety, open government, and human rights issues.

As a Commissioner of the Mill Valley Emergency Preparedness Commission, she helped to launch the Neighborhood Response Group (NRG) and serves as co-Chair of Alto Sutton NRG and the Mill Valley NRG Advisory Committee. Ashley continues to engage Southern Marin community members as a trainer for the NRG Block Captain program. The primary role of this program is to grow a more resilient community through emergency preparedness education, vegetation management, leadership training, and expanded access to resources.

Ashley is the Deputy Director of Social Policy for the League of Women Voters of California, a non-partisan organization dedicated to voting rights, voter education and public policy advocacy. She advocates for more equitable, just, and bias-free policies in every space she engages in. Under her tenure as President of the San Francisco League of Women Voters, the organization was recognized for their contributions to civic engagement by the Mayor and Human Rights Commission’s HERO Award.

Ashley was recently awarded the Emerging Public Leader for the United Nations Agenda 2030 Award for her advocacy in human rights and racial justice. Ashley believes that interagency collaboration that fosters community stakeholders is the means to critically thinking about what capabilities, structures, and competencies are needed for future challenges.

Ashley is a graduate of Boston University with concentrated studies in Biomedical Engineering and Political Science. She is a Bay Area native and enjoys raising her two young girls in Marin County.

Email: araveche@smfd.org

Training:

Clifford Waldeck

Clifford Waldeck (Term 2025-2029)

Clifford Waldeck was appointed to the Southern Marin Fire District’s Board in July 2023 following the resignation of Stephen Willis.

Clifford, a City of Mill Valley resident, became eligible to serve on the Board of Directors following the consolidation of the Mill Valley Fire Department and the Southern Marin Fire Protection District.

Clifford served eight years on the Mill Valley City Council and one term as Mayor. He was appointed by the Governor to serve on the SF Bay Regional Water Board and as a representative on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Clifford also chaired the Regional Airport Planning Committee.

After Clifford’s father, Carl Waldeck, emigrated from Berlin via Manila, Carl founded Waldeck’s Office Supplies in downtown San Francisco and Clifford joined the business following his graduation from UC Berkeley. They worked together until Carl’s retirement and later Waldeck’s closed after 55 years in business.

Today, Clifford serves as the head of Bay Area Business Development for Indoff Inc. and as a substitute teacher in our local schools.

Clifford enjoys Southern Marin life with his wife, daughter and two dogs.

Email: cwaldeck@smfd.org

Training: