KMVT-15 Elects New Board Members

Written by L.A. Chung; additional reporting by Claudia Cruz.

Several members of the Mountain View community have been elected as part of the six new board members of KMVT 15 Silicon Valley Community Media by its board of directors. 

The award-winning community television station announced the election of Los Altan Val Carpenter, Mountain View-based George Cohn III, Susan Davis and Heather Hurford, Chamber of Mountain View Board Member Young Han and Cathy Martin. 

They join Chairman David Joud, Artie Green and Cathy Smithwick on the board of directors for KMVT 15, a non-profit community access station, which provides services for the residents of Cupertino, Foster City, Mountain View, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale.  

“Each of them brings in-depth expertise in key areas that will directly benefit our organization as it transitions from focusing on operations to growth, collaboration and fundraising in this era of rapidly-evolving communications,” said Green, the immediate past board chairman.

For more than 30 years, KMVT 15 Silicon Valley Community Media has provided training in video production, media literacy, airing programs produced and directed by residents of the area it serves.

The recipient of many national and regional awards, KMVT 15’s mission is to provide media education, hands-on training, and civic engagement. It serves as a resource to provide the community with the tools to create media and utilize technology in a socially responsible manner, according to executive director Shelley Wolfe, who welcomed the new board members.   

The new board members arrive as KMVT 15’s Go Digital! Capital Campaign is revving up to raise a total of $500,000 to upgrade its studios and remote equipment from analog to digital over the next two years, Wolfe said. 

Below are descriptions of the new board members:

Valorie Cook Carpenter is in her second term on the Los Altos City Council and has served as the Mayor of Los Altos twice.  A senior marketing executive in Silicon Valley prior to her election, she holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Business from Indiana University.   Val is an instructor in the Business/Management/Marketing Department of Mission College and previously served on the Board of Directors of five nonprofit organizations.  She was a YWCA of Silicon Valley Tribute to Women and Industry (TWIN) honoree in 2000. 

George Cohn III is the Executive Producer at Creation Ground Media, a corporate video production company based in Mountain View.  After earning a BA and MS in Computer Science at Indiana University, he began his career in Silicon Valley, managing software development teams at UB Networks and Divicom Inc.  George's artistic appreciation for visual composition and music, combined with his technical and computer skills, led him to his present career in filmmaking and video production. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Peninsula Symphony. 

Susan M. Davis is the Founding Champion of The Co-Creation Community and a Conversation Radio Host on WeEarth Global Radio Network.  In 2012, she was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame, and has received national honors, awards, and publication for her work in the Sustainable Design/Green Building industry, as well as for her contributions to education and broadcasting.  Susan has followed the path of a ‘serial entrepreneur’ for the past forty years after earning her degree in Fine Art and Comparative Literature from California State University, Long Beach.  She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley National Association of Remodeling Industry and was on the original steering committee to found the Santa Clara County Green Building Professionals Guild. 

Young Han is the Founder & CEO of GoVoluntr, an online platform that connects volunteers, nonprofits, and businesses in an engaging community of Do Goodrs.  He has an extensive background in sales and management with Fortune 500 companies, including Starbucks and Apple.  Young is a graduate of the San Jose State University Business Marketing program and also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, Our House, and TransAccess. 

Heather Hurford is an Event Producer with Google, with over 15 years of production experience, primarily with Link TV, a non-commercial public interest television channel that broadcasts nationwide and also has a major online presence.  She holds a BA in Linguistics from UC Berkeley and is fluent in Spanish. 

M. Cathy Martin oversees finance for Humane Society Silicon Valley, and raised $16 million in nonprofit California tax-exempt bonds for a new facility in 2008 despite the financial industry meltdown.  She is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in California with an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.  In addition to Cathy’s experience with many rapidly-growing technology-based companies and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, her public accounting career culminated in partnership status at Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewaterhouse Coopers).  She served on the Board of Directors of the San Jose Symphony from 1987 to 1994 and has served on the Boards of several other nonprofit organizations. 

“I’m excited to work with our new Board members to achieve KMVT 15’s goal of becoming a fully-digital facility as well as one of the most accessible public media forums of our time, tailored to our community’s needs,” said Shelley Wolfe, Executive Director of KMVT 15.

With updated equipment, KMVT 15 can provide expanded industry-leading program opportunities and garner more partnerships within the community, Wolfe said. 

Some of the new programs will be designed to offer on-location multilingual training, afterschool programs around the community, and job skills training for veterans as well as the underemployed, unemployed and underserved populations. 

“We’re ready to take the organization to the next level.” 

KMVT 15 is available via Comcast Channel 15 in the communities it serves, AT &T U-Verse Channel 99 throughout the Bay Area, and on http://www.youtube.com/kmvt .  See www.kmvt15.org for more information.