Board and Staff

Mr. Trafecanty has over thirty years of business and financial experience including over twenty three years as the Chief Financial Officer for a broad range of companies, both public and private, with annual revenues ranging from $2 million to $460 million. He was previously licensed as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for the State of California. He graduated from Loyola/Marymount University (formerly Loyola University) in Los Angeles, California with a BA degree in Accounting.

Mr. Trafecanty has been a marathoner for the last 25 years and an ultra marathoner for the last 18 years. He has successfully completed over twelve 100 mile runs and over 125 organized runs of 26.2 miles or longer.

In addition to Mr. Pinto’s board memberships, he also serve as special advisor to a number of environmental and educational foundations, assisting them on a pro bono basis in fundraising and organizational development. He has served on the advisory board of the City University of New York Graduate Research Center for the Study of Philanthropy and currently serves as co-chair of the University of San Diego, School of Leadership and Education Science Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research.

Mr. Pinto receieved a bachelor of arts in Political Science from California State University at Long Beach in 1963, Masters studies in Political Theory at U.C.L.A. in 1964, and a Ph.D. in Integral Studies with a research concentration in nonprofit organizational theory at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, 1996.

Ms. Conklin holds a law degree and previously worked for the United Nations Volunteers in Geneva, Switzerland and Bonn, Germany, and helped monitor the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. She lived abroad for 7 years before locating to Ramona and has been working as a community volunteer since 1999.

Ms. Tisdale serves as the Chair of the Boulevard Planning Group and is an active member of County Supervisor Diane Jacob’s Backcountry Revitalization Committee and SD County’s Intergrated Waste Management Task Force. She was previously on the Board of Directors of the Boulevard Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department.

In 2005 she produced a documentary about the Sunrise Powerlink: “A Question of Power.” Ms. Tisdale is a retired rancher/farmer.

In February of 2009, Ms. Cyphert founded the East County Community Action Coalition (ECCAC) in response to the Sunrise Powerlink. Since then ECCAC has become a vital force in the fight against the powerlink, and in rallying East County residents to work together.

Ms. Cyphert was in the US Army Reserves from 1987-1995 as a Journalist and Psychological Operations Specialist. She received her degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting, from San Diego State University in 1994.

Mr. Powers has authored technical studies on a variety of energy-related topics, including: distributed generation-based strategic energy plan for the San Diego region, gas turbine air emission controls, power plant cooling systems, integrated strategic energy and environmental planning in the California – Baja California border region, and use of integrated gasification combined cycle power generation to facilitate carbon dioxide capture and sequestration in Midwestern coal-burning states. Mr. Powers is a voting member of San Diego Association of Governments Energy Working Group. He received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University and Masters of Public Health in Environmental Sciences from the University of North Carolina. Mr. Powers has been a registered professional engineer in California since 1986.

Since moving to Alpine in 1999, Ms. Rusczyk has been involved in a number of local grass-roots organizations. She has been on the planning committee for the Sage & Songbirds Festival and Garden Tour for 7 years and is the official artist of the event.

Ms. Rusczyk received her Bachelors Degree in Engineering from Princeton University in 1993, and a degree in Interior Design from the New York School of Interior Design in 1996. In her spare time she paints watercolors, focusing on the native plants of Southern California and the Desert Southwest. In 2007 she received a grant from the Friends of Balboa Park to paint a mural in the Zoro Garden in Balboa Park.