Board of Directors
Our Board consists of individuals from all walks of life, from landscaping consultants to Bay Area tech workers, to community organizers and retirees. We are deeply engaged with our community to administer educational workshops revolving around teaching permaculture skills. We are always in search of motivated individuals who have a passion for furthering our vision.
Interested in joining our Board? Please feel free to fill out this Board Application Form.
Bill Ribble
Co-Founder & Treasurer
Bill Ribble came to Silicon Valley in 1973 with an EE degree from Purdue University (1966) and an MBA from the Krannert School (1973), to work for Hewlett Packard. During the 7 years between degrees he served in the US Navy as a fighter pilot deployed to Southeast Asia.
Bill retired in 2014 but for 40 years he served as a manager, director, CEO, and entrepreneur starting and/or managing at high tech companies engaged in semiconductor design & manufacturing and test & measurement. He also consulted in management development and executive coaching.
In the world of non-profits, he was COB of the South Valley Family YMCA and President of the corporation of Stone Church. He is a founding member of Smart Yards Education. He and his wife, Claire, reside in Willow Glen.
Debbie Mytels
Environmental / Policy Educator & Grants Expert
Debbie Mytels is an environmental educator and community organizer who retired in 2019 as Associate Director at Acterra, a Palo Alto-based non-profit. She now devotes most of her time to community education and action about climate change. While at Acterra, Debbie initiated the Green@Home energy-saving program, founded the “Be the Change” leadership training program, and started Acterra’s Business Environmental Awards which recognized environmentally sound business practices for 30 years.
In her 33-year career with environmental groups, Debbie has filled leadership roles with various other organizations, including Foundation for Global Community, Canopy, Leadership Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, and the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. She also she served six years as Executive Director of the Peninsula Conservation Center, one of the precursors of today’s Acterra. During that time she worked with representatives of the local business community to start a commercial district recycling project which was later adopted as part of the City of Palo Alto’s comprehensive waste stream recycling efforts.
In addition to serving on the Smart Yards Education board, Debbie currently chairs Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action (PICA), a group with members from 18 local congregations working on solutions to the climate crisis. She also co-chairs the outreach Committee of Fossil Free Buildings for Silicon Valley, working to promote electrification with “clean, green” electricity that will reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are disrupting Earth’s climate.
Trained through Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, Debbie offers talks about climate change to community groups. She also serves of the legislative committee of 350 Silicon Valley, and volunteers as an Outdoor Activities Docent with the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.
Debbie earned a B.A. with honors in Social Psychology at UC Berkeley and studied journalism at Stanford. In her free time, she grows fruits and vegetables in her organic garden, sings in the choir of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City, and when she’s not bicycling, feels good about driving her electric vehicle. She lives in Palo Alto, with her husband Thomas Atwood and has three grown children and five grandchildren — and they are why she is so concerned about reducing the threat of climate change.
Elizabeth Sarmiento
Co-Founder, Permaculture Educator & Community Organizer
Elizabeth Sarmiento is a native Spanish-speaker with a commitment to social justice, community building, and resource conservation. Spending her formative years in Honduras provided her with a multi-layered understanding of the cultural roots of Latin Americans in the U.S., as well as an appreciation of diversity. As a child her experience of living close to the land, healthy streams and rivers, abundant wildlife, in the rich tropical forests of Honduras, and working in the land gave her a deep love for nature and its innate value in our lives. Her life has been an unbroken string of social justice and environmental activism ever since.
Elizabeth received a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from San José State University. She is trained and certified with Greywater Action to design and install greywater systems. She is also a certified Bay-Friendly Regional landscape designer, Santa Clara County Master Composter, Permaculture Designer, and Landscape Water Management Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) Specialist. She brings her knowledge and experience in the challenges of water supply, habitat loss, soil depletion, and energy demands resulting in climate change to design, install, and care for ecological gardens.
Elizabeth loves to teach, share and empower others with these skills while building community. Using permaculture principles, she and her team at Smart Yards Cooperative design and install gardens from the ground up: building healthy soil; working mainly with California native plants; planting food forests; utilizing reusable materials; building dry-stacked stone works; installing greywater, rainwater, drip irrigation water wise systems. Education in the cooperative business model completes the cycle of empowerment. Hence, Smart Yards Education emerged as the non-profit that teaches the mentioned principles while inspiring and getting the community excited about connecting with nature and living green in their own outdoor spaces.
Ahmed Alhafidh
Board Chair & Technology Consultant
Ahmed Alhafidh is a patent agent who works with solo inventors, startups, and tech companies to help them secure patent protection for unique and innovative concepts. He enjoys tackling multi-disciplinary challenges and empowering others with education. Ahmed is also an avid gardener and seeks to propagate aquaponics technology as a solution to monoculture farming practices and food deserts.
Lisa Villaseñor
Vice-Chair, Marketing and Strategic Planning
Lisa Villaseñor was born and raised in San Jose to parents who moved to The Valley of Heart’s Delight in 1950. A proud graduate of SJSU, Lisa intends to make a positive difference in her community. She is a marketing professional with a passion for protecting our precious ecosystems. Lisa’s gratitude for nature shows up under the majestic oak trees in our local parks, in our state’s redwood forests, and while birdwatching under the sycamore trees in Willow Glen. After learning of Smart Yards Education while attending the De Anza Community College program in Natural Resource Management and Pollution Prevention, Lisa was inspired to join the board. She brings along experience and education from volunteering with other non-profits and government programs including: Our City Forest, Grassroots Ecology’s habitat restoration program, Cupertino’s Public Works, Santa Clara Valley Water’s creek water testing volunteer program, and Santa Clara County’s CASA.