Tour Planners & Guides

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ALISA KNAPP

• Alisa Knapp grew up at Green Gulch Farm Zen Buddhist Meditation Center in Northern California and lives in San Rafael with her husband and toddler. Alisa has dedicated her career to building a more resilient food system.
• From global food service to CPG innovation and fine dining to food truck operations, Alisa is a seasoned professional who believes the food industry is poised for a paradigm shift where the focus can now be restoration and regeneration. She is passionate about increasing biodiversity in the soil, lifting up growers and producers, and creating delicious foods that are widely appealing. Alisa is excited to join the Bay Area Green Tours team to build partnerships and relationships with ecological organizations in the North Bay, West Marin and East Bay.
• In addition to her work with BAGT, Alisa Knapp runs Grows Together Consulting with the mission of supporting organizations to cultivate regenerative outcomes through food design and innovation. Built from the ancestral wisdom that “What Grows Together, Goes Together,” Alisa Knapp’s consulting takes a systems approach to food design and innovation. Alisa supports clients to scale with her unique blend of customer- centric philosophy mixed with structured and analytical problem solving, creative flair and imagination.

ANITA RAO

• ​Anita Rao is a multicultural ambassador with a particular interest in the realms of social justice and equity. 
• She grew up in India and the US. She has consistently been involved in communicating with diverse audiences to really get to know a place and its people. 
• While in the military she attended the Defense Language Institute, and was the Valedictorian in the German Language Program. She was the Cultural Coordinator in Worms, Germany, for the KONTAKT Deutsche-Amerikanische Freundschaftsklub. 
• Anita also: was a volunteer Programs Coordinator for the San Francisco Tour Guide Guild (SFTGG), from 2008-2013, earned a certificate at Cornell in Diversity & Inclusion in HR Practices, speaks Hindi, Telugu, Spanish, French, German, and Italian (Spitaliano) and has lived in India, Peru, Germany, France, and Hong Kong.​

ANNE FREIWALD

• Anne has a passion for work that brings individuals and communities together to creatively address issues of social justice, personal and community health, and regenerative life practices. She has 30 years combined experience in the non-profit realm working as a program manager, researcher, and educator creating experiential learning opportunities and programs for youth and adults across disciplines from all aspects of personal health, to permaculture and food justice.
• She co-founded and facilitates Vital Cycles: Creating Personal and Planetary Resilience, which offers a year-long dual certificate in Permaculture Design and Personal Ecology and permaculture design consulting
• Anne holds a Master of Public Health as well as certifications in Permaculture Design, Mental Health First Aid, Diversity and Inclusivity, and Digital Education
• Anne has moderated Bay Area Green Tours “Solutionaries Speak” virtual programming during the pandemic.

BONNIE MCKINNEY

• Bonnie is the owner and director of Peninsula Forest and Beach School - a nature based program for kids in the Bay Area. She is a certified Permaculture Educator for Children and loves bringing children outdoors in nature to experience and cultivate a real connection with the natural world.
• Bonnie studied Child Development and Early Child Education at both West Valley College and San Jose State University. 
• She worked as the Children's Program Director at the Natura Institute of Ecology and Medicine at Commonweal Garden in Bolinas and created two new initiatives: the Permaculture for Kids Program and the After-school Nature Program. 
• She led nature classes with Kairos Learning Community and Visionary Villages Homeschooling Program in Santa Cruz and has spent over a thousand hours leading outdoor nature camps for kids. 
• She participated in 4 rounds of the Ecology of Leadership program at Commonweal Garden and is currently in a 2-year training program led by Thomas Hubl - exploring individual, ancestral and collective trauma and hopes to be weaving in more trauma-informed care into her nature programs.
• She enjoys working on her own professional development which includes completing the training workshop for outdoor educators offered by the Institute of Permaculture Education for Children in Portland, completing a 3-week forest school mentorship with Forest Friends of Earthwise Education in San Rafael and completing The Nature Led Approach Certification, a comprehensive workshop and nine-month mentorship offered by Kathleen Lockyer of RxOutside.

ASPEN MADRONE

• Aspen is a water ecologist, farmer, chef, entrepreneur, homesteader and health enthusiast who shares permaculture principles, explains watershed health, and facilitates an understanding of the full spectrum of agro ecology. 
• Her food-as-medicine tour shows how what we eat can also help heal our bodies. Aspen’s farm-to-orchard tour gives people a chance to experience an apple cider pressing. 
• Aspen also: co-created Conscious Dancer magazine and organizes Sebastopol Ecstatic Dance, is exploring new paths to utilize waste to create fuel or other products in Sonoma county and beyond. 
• She holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Evergreen State College.

​CONSTANCE WASHBURN

• Constance has more than 35 years of experience designing and directing educational outreach programs and is a graduate of the Ecology of Leadership and Permaculture Design programs at the Regenerative Design Institute.
•  For 18 years, she served as Education Director at the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) and Marin Organic which reached more than 5,000 people a year. These programs included farm tours, talks, art shows, volunteer and teacher trainings, as well as the Farm Field Studies program, which brought more than 2,000 students out to farms. 
• Constance also: co-founded, and is currently the chairperson of, the Marin Agriculture and Education Alliance, and is a member of the Northern California Slow Money Steering Committee, she is a facilitator of Joanna Macy’s “Work that Reconnects", and was a member of the Marin Food Policy Council and the Marin Food Systems Project, as well as agricultural representative for the Marin Economic Commission​. ​

ELENA VELEZ

• Elena’s mission has always been to become a tool for access to wellness within her community. She knew the power and wealth in health that can come from self-care and regular medical appointments. 
• Through language, personal experience, mindfulness and compassion towards communities of color, Elena decided to become a tool for access to wellness within her community first. 
• Through her personal education and research she became well-versed in the variety of illnesses that can stem from disproportionate systematic marginalization. 
• Through education and by working alongside and within the community, Elena envisions a brighter and healthier future for the POC. 
• She has over 15 years of experience as a medical interpreter and 5 years of being an environmental educator for the Latino community across the San Francisco Bay Area.

MANDI UJIIE​

• Mandi Ujiie started at BAGT as an administrative assistant and tour planner. She joined BAGT after getting her bachelors degree at UC Berkeley with a focus on Sustainable Design and Food Systems.
• Mandi is passionate about creating a positive impact on local food systems, through both an ecological and social impact lens, tackling issues such as food access, food waste, and food quality.

MELISSA CARA RIGOLI

• Melissa Cara Rigoli is an artist, marketing advisor, graphic designer, and professional musician who is passionate about building bridges for a thriving future. 
• Her life and work has taken her around the world, from Zimbabwe to the Indian Ocean, to France where she lived for over seven years. 
• Melissa has a certificate in Horticulture sciences from Cabrillo College and she is focusing on climate resilient landscape design and ecosystem restoration through biodiversity. She has also joined the Amah Mutsun Land Trust’s native plant propagation project in Pescadero. 
• She holds two certificates in permaculture, and graduated from the University of Oregon with a BS in Music and Anthropology. 
• Melissa is CFO for Tererai Trent International Foundation (tererai.org) whose mission is to empower children and communities in rural Zimbabwe to have access to quality education, clean water and subsistence farming. 
• Currently she lives outside of Santa Cruz, CA just a few minutes walk from the Pacific Ocean. Living so intimately with the land and sea has ignited a new passion as well as a timeless remembering – a healthy life and environment is inherent to the health of an entire ecosystem.

NORI YATSUNAMI TONG

• Nori is a business management consultant with a focus on sustainability. Her clients include a range from biotech and fintech startups, to SF Environment and SFUSD. 
• She graduated from Presidio Graduate School's MBA program, where she explored biofuels, economics of organic farming, and local food systems, including projects with Joint BioEnergy Institute, People's Grocery, Organic Vintners and The Food Commons. 
• Prior to falling in love with and moving to the Bay Area, she worked in sales and business development at a fortune 100 tech company in Tokyo.
• Her passion hasn't changed since she started a Gardening Club while in grade school in the UK, and is working towards being a full-time farmer one day.
•  In her spare time, if she is not in the garden, she can be found seaweed foraging on the Sonoma Coast and Half Moon Bay. 
• Nori can be reached at [email protected].​

SACHA APONTE DE ROECK

• ​​Sacha Aponte is an international tour manager and travel consultant with a background in fine arts, geography and languages. 
• After graduating with a bachelor’s in Hospitality Management, she moved to the US and has been working with international tour groups ever since. 
• Sacha found her passion for green living in Central America, where she studied alternative building techniques, permaculture & seed conservation. 
• As a Rotarian, she started with water projects in Guatemala, working with Mayan leaders and NGOs. Nowadays she organizes and guides international volunteer groups.
•  Since her return to California, her focus is on sustainable travel, regenerative agriculture in Sonoma County, and intercultural competence.
• Even though she has always enjoyed the travel industry as a career, she has never abandoned the arts: she creates mosaic pieces and teaches the art form as well. Sacha is a certified trainer and translator. 
• After living on four continents, she is fluent in French, German, Dutch and Spanish, she is currently mastering Portuguese.

SUSAN SILBER

• Susan has worked as both a community organizer and environmental educator for the past 30 years. 
• She is proud to have introduced thousands of young people to the joys of nature with coordinated environmental education programs. 
• She is a fundraising consultant with Planting Seeds Consulting, including supporting fundraising with Bay Area Green Tours and helping to develop the Resilience Hubs Initiative with the City of San Leandro. 
• She lives in a tight-knit neighborhood in Berkeley with her daughter and husband, and enjoys hiking with her dog & friends in her spare time. 
• Additionally, Susan has: helped launch Transition USA in Berkeley, produced several Permaculture convergences, founded and served as director of the NorCal Resilience Network from 2015-2021, worked as a naturalist with various Bay Area outdoor science programs and wrote the Berkeley Unified School District’s Sustainability Plan.