Kathleen Barr relocated from Denver, CO, to Rossmoor in December 2018.  She and her husband found the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center through the Rossmoor Club, Friends of the Peace Center. She is happy to have the opportunity to serve the Board as Treasurer.  

Kathleen was born and raised in Arizona.  Her education includes B.A and M.A degrees in Spanish from the University of Arizona.  She taught Spanish and Bilingual classes at secondary schools and community colleges. Upon arriving in CO, she chose a new career path, completing an MBA at University of Colorado. She became a CPA in 1985. Kathleen’s specialties are in taxation, estate planning, and consulting for small businesses and their owners. 

Now happily retired after 35 years in Public Accounting, she is enjoying a new life among the beautiful landscape and trees of Northern California.  Kathleen and her husband are pleased to be closer to their son and family in the east bay area.

Andrew Kodama became a member of the board in early 2023, after leading the Peace Center as its Executive Director for a period of nearly four years, most of which were during the challenging Covid-19 years. A graduate of Las Lomas High School, Diablo Valley College and UC Berkeley (where he earned a BA in Sociology), he is very familiar with our local community and its unique social-justice focused history.   His introduction to the Center began when he joined together with other young people in the community to organize Diablo For Peace, where he led discussions and seminars on social justice issues. Andrew looks forward to supporting the Center as an involved and active board member and has many creative ideas to share.

Bob Spies is a web developer living in the East Bay (Albany). He grew up in Southern California, moved to Northern California for college, and never left. He has an MBA from U.C. Berkeley, but has spent most of his career working in various technical and technical management roles. (Bob‘s first career after college was in social service managing public housing programs, but that ended with the drastic cuts to the public housing budget made by the Reagan Administration.) Bob lives with his wife Karen, and has two grown sons.

In the 1980’s Bob was involved in a variety of peace-related activities, including traveling with a group of Contra Dancers to the then Soviet Union as part of a cultural exchange effort. Since then, he and Karen have been members of Berkeley’s La Peña community, and have traveled with the La Peña Chorus on several trips through Latin America. He has continued to provide volunteer support to citizen diplomacy efforts with Russia, including a “mind-blowing” trip to Russia and Crimea in 2016 (where, incidentally, he met MDPJC Board Chairperson Rick Sterling, which led to Bob first becoming involved with the Center). He is currently active in various peace-related activities mostly focused on de-escalating the Ukrainian conflict and stopping the drift toward a military conflict with China.

Thomas Brom (“Tom”) was born in Marquette, Michigan, raised in New Jersey, and arrived in California in the mid-1960s. He graduated from Stanford University in 1967 and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 1969.

Tom was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, counseled other draft resisters, and distributed anti-war films to student, church, and community groups.

In the 1970s Tom was active in Berkeley Citizen’s Action, a municipal reform movement that promoted rent control, community control of police, public ownership of PG&E, and progressive candidates for city council. He was employed as a researcher, writer, and editor by a number of Bay Area nonprofits, including American Documentary Films, Community Economics Inc., Pacific News Service, and In These Times.

In 1983 Tom began his career in legal journalism as senior editor of California Lawyer, a monthly magazine published by the State Bar. For more than 30 years he assigned and edited feature stories on law and politics, and wrote an award-winning column on topics ranging from union organizing to corporate governance and municipal bankruptcy. The publication closed in September 2015.

Currently, Tom is a member of the Center’s Advocacy Committee. He and his wife are active in the Lafayette community, where they raised their two daughters.

Amneh Ma’bad Ahmed is a Palestinian born in Jerusalem. She earned a Law degree from Al Quds University and Masters in International Studies from Birzeit University. Amneh worked at Al Haq, the pre-eminent Palestinian human rights organization and as a delegate to the Palestinian Legislative Council. She was trained in international humanitarian law and worked at integrating international conventions in Palestinian legislation. She has written numerous reports and articles for Palestinian publications and was editor / coordinator at Al Gesher (The Bridge). She moved to the US in 2006 with her late husband, Prof. Hisham Ahmed of St Marys College. Amneh now works as a teacher while raising two teenage children.  She maintains very  strong connections with her family in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine. 

Rick Sterling grew up in Vancouver Canada. After working 25 years in the electronics and aerospace industry, primarily at UC Berkeley, he has worked full time for various political causes. He has been a member of Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center since moving to Walnut Creek in the 1990’s. In addition to working around Latin American and Middle East issues, he does research and writing for various national and international publications. He has served on the MDPJC board since 2013 and is head of the Advocacy Committee and current board chair. 

Karen Perkins is a retired bilingual Spanish elementary teacher who taught in the Oakland Public Schools for 17 years and was a Union Representative for the Oakland Education Association. A political activist from an early age, Karen participated in the Anti-Viet-Nam War, Civil Rights, Women’s and LGBTQ Rights Movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Later, after retirement, she served 10 years on the Steering Committee of Parents for a Safer Environment, a group working to reduce and eliminate the use of toxic pesticides in Contra Costa County public schools, buildings, lands and waterways.

She is also a member of the Contra Costa Racial Justice Coalition based in Richmond, California which advocates for racial justice and immigrant rights.

She organized the Seniors for Sanders Club in Rossmoor, a Senior Community, for the 2020 election and is involved in environmental groups working for a livable environment. Currently, Karen is on the Center’s Advocacy Committee.

Bob Maxwell holds a BA in Philosophy from U.C. Berkeley and an MA in Philosophy and Religion from S.F. State.  After discovering that there were no jobs in Philosophy, Bob went back to school and got a California teaching credential from Cal State at Hayward. He has over 18 years’ experience working with special needs children.  Bob is a life-long conscientious objector and was Associate Director of the East Bay Draft Information and Counseling Center for two years until he was drafted and sent to work at the University Hospital in Oklahoma City, widely known as the “Vietnam” of the Compulsory Work Program. Bob currently serves on the communications committee and has a regular column, “Maxwell’s Musings” in the monthly Peace Gazette.  Serving on the board since 1996.

Margli Auclair walked into the Center office in 2009, initially to volunteer in whatever capacity was needed. She soon became a board member, bookkeeper and executive assistant to our previous director. Her close familiarity with our members, board, programs and goals provided a smooth transition when she accepted the position of Executive Director in 2012. She served as the E.D of the Peace Center until June of 2019. Margli holds a BA in Anthropology from the State University of New York – Albany and is a certified paralegal. She moved to the Bay Area from Davis in the 1990’s after a long career in family law and litigation. Margli, her husband, daughter, son-in-law and black lab “Bernie” live in Walnut Creek.

Dr. Hisham Ahmed, (1963-2019)

In June of 2019, our beloved colleague, friend, and longtime peace advocate, Dr. Hisham H. Ahmed, passed away due to cancer. Hisham was a professor of politics at St. Mary’s College and served numerous professional institutions and organizations for many years as an adviser & expert. A beloved colleague, friend, and activist for peace, Hisham will be missed dearly by all who were lucky enough to know him.