Committee Members

Mark represents the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce (SCACC) on the WSAC. He is president of Mesiti-Miller Engineering Inc., an award winning civil and structural design engineering firm serving the central coast community for more than 25 years. The firm designs buildings, bridges, coastal structures, solar support systems and public facilities such as parks. Besides the WSAC, he presently serves as chair of the City’s Planning Commission and is active with the SCACC, serving on their Board of Directors and Community Affairs Committee. As an engineer, Mark loves solving problems and the water supply problem is delightfully challenging and incredibly important. He is particularly concerned about the native fish populations in our North Coast streams and providing an adequate, sustainable and reliable water supply for now and the future. He is honored the City appointed him to this committee and will give this appointment his focused attention. He is also an amateur astronomer with a keen interest in astrophysics so you might find him checking out the night sky in one of our late evening meetings.

David Baskin represents and is chairperson of the SC Water Commission. He is founder of BaskinGrant law firm. Prior to retirement he represented clients in civil matters, both litigation and non-litigation. He was a continuing education panelist in the areas of Mediation, Arbitration, and the Use of Experts in Litigation. He has served as a private mediator, arbitrator and Judge Pro Tempore for the Santa Cruz County Superior Court. Mr. Baskin achieved Martindale Hubbell's highest peer rating, AV.

Mr. Baskin served five years on the SC City Parks and Recreation Commission, 2 as chairperson. He coached soccer for over 10 years and served on the Board of Directors of SC City Youth Soccer Club as sponsor coordinator. He is a member of the ACLU, Sierra Club, and a founding board member of MBOSC. Outside of the WSAC David’s interests include hockey, movies, media, politics, food, wine, travel, playing guitar, and enjoying his family that spans 3 generations.

Sue represents the unincorporated-area users of City water on the WSAC.  She came to Santa Cruz during the 1970s’ drought to teach environmental economics and statistics at UCSC.  She enjoyed teaching too much to get tenure, so she spent the next three decades teaching at Cabrillo until retirement.  One of her teaching interests was to showcase the varieties of collaboration that communities develop for natural resource protection.   Key factors in community-based resource protection include transparency, accountability, and a sense that everyone’s concerns are addressed.  She feels fortunate to collaborate with her 13 colleagues on the WSAC.  Sue also, occasionally, consults on residential water use to the Soquel Creek Water District.   Her outdoor adventures have included rowing the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon a couple times.  Sue had also made changes in her own home and thinks the best thing about switching her garden to natives (besides conserving water) is the amazing bird and butterfly show.

Dana is participating on the Committee as a city resident and is excited about the chance to shape our community’s future and at the same time bring his personal and professional interests closer together.  He was drawn to the Committee because he sees it as an opportunity to reexamine current paradigms in water supply planning and to contribute to a viable and realistic solution for Santa Cruz’s water supply challenge.  He has been working in the field of water resources management in various capacities for over 12 years and has experience in water supply and infrastructure planning, water supply contracts, water transfer and exchange agreements, water rights, water conservation, retail and wholesale water rates, groundwater regulatory enforcement, and State and federal water policy.  And while civic engagement is fun, Dana would rather be whitewater kayaking!

Doug acts as a Santa Cruz city resident and a citizen member of the WSAC. A fifth-generation native of the area, Doug raised his family in Santa Cruz. He gets outdoors as much as possible to swim, run, ski, backpack, snowshoe, or cycle; He also supports the arts (long-time board member of Shakespeare Santa Cruz), responsible local government, and stewardship of the Earth.

Doug is an entrepreneur from a family of entrepreneurs, with more than 25 years of executive leadership experience, focused on building productive organizations that expand their customers' top-line revenue. Most recently, Doug co-founded invivodata, serving as President, CEO, and Board Chair. invivodata permanently changed pharmaceutical clinical research by pioneering the direct collection of valid, reliable patient self-report data. Before that, he co-founded The Windward Group, a Los Gatos / Santa Cruz software development services firm. Notable Windward successes include the Palm® organizer, FedEx® Ship™ and Apple's QuickTime®.

Rick is the representative of Santa Cruz Desal Alternatives on the WSAC. He is a former electrical contractor who used to look for ways that my clients could reduce energy consumption. Now I'm looking for ways my city can avoid the big energy impact of desalination. I would like our city to resolve its water challenges in a way that doesn't negatively impact future generations. Rick currently works as a marriage and family therapist and teacher with Nonviolent Communication Santa Cruz.