Activities: Conferences Events
Avenidas Lifetimes of Achievement 2009
Honorees for 2009
Ray Bacchetti- Ray Bacchetti is a thinker.
"In my three careers—in management in higher education, in philanthropy, and in research and scholarship-I've always had a sense that the work I and those around me did was important, that in a variety of ways it made for a better world and made the people going the work richer in what they learned and who they came to know," says Ray. "The obligation to think, to reason, to justify action based on principle and evidence is a great privilege. I'm very fortunate to have been steered in that direction."
For 40 years, the Mid-Peninsula community has reaped the benefits of that obligation, which Ray has largely directed toward furthering education in various capacities, whether it be teaching, managing, board service, or grantmaking.
"Education is irreversible. Once you've tasted the pleasure and hard work of learning, the joy of knowledge, you cannot thereafter imagine yourself without it," wrote Ray in Perspectives, a monthly forum posted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning, where Ray was a Scholar in Residence from 2001 to 2007. During this period he co-directed, with Senior Scholar Tom Ehrlich, the Foundation’s Centennial project. The two co-edited a book, Reconnecting Education and Foundations: Turning Good Intentions into Educational Capital, published in 2006.
This most recent of Ray’s stints in the field of education had a lifetime of learning behind it. Armed with a BS in Business Administration and EdM in Philosophy of Education from Rutgers, Ray, a New Jersey native, made his way across the country to California in the 1960s. In 1968, he earned his PhD in Philosophy of Education and Higher Education from Stanford.
Ray started out as an administrator at Rutgers in the 1950s. He taught fourth grade in New Jersey and fifth grade in Palo Alto. He worked for Stanford as vice provost for 30 years and vice president for three, over the period of 1960 to 1993. He then moved into the field of philanthropy as a program officer for Education at the Hewlett Foundation, where he stayed until 2001. Over the years, Ray has taught workshops on management in higher education in Australia, England, New Zealand, Singapore, and the US and consulted for K-12, collegiate institutions, and philanthropic foundations on a variety of topics.
Ray retired in 2007 from the Carnegie Foundation, but continues to keep extremely active. He is currently on the boards of Channing House, Developmental Studies Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Palo Alto Human Relations Commission, and PAGE. In addition, Ray has chaired Palo Alto Unified School District’s Citizens Oversight Committee since 2008. He is a member of Palo Alto Human Relations Commission and volunteer at Palo Alto Police Department, where he gets to “live a little boy’s fantasy and drive patrol cars, if only to the car wash with no lights or sirens.”
It comes as no surprise that much of Ray’s previous volunteer work was education-centric. He was a member of both the Alameda County Office of Education’s Task Force on Charter School Policy and the Senior College Commission of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. He served on the boards of EdSource, Grantmakers for Education, Springboard Schools, and Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, as well as the advisory board of Stanford Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. He was a member of the Board of Education for Palo Alto Unified School District from 1978 to 1983, and on the Board of Trustees for Foothill-DeAnza Community College District from 1983 to 1991.
Ray’s extraordinary lifetime of scholarly efforts has not gone unnoticed by his fellow educators. He was recognized in the 1980s with the Kenneth Cuthbertson Award from Stanford and a Sally Siegel Award from the Palo Alto Educators Association. His most recent honor was the 2005 Bixby Lecture Award from the Spencer Foundation.
Ray and his wife, Carol, live in Palo Alto. They have three children and three grandchildren.
- John and Jill Freidenrich
- Jill and John Freidenrich were both born in San Francisco, but they had very different academic interests at Stanford during the 1950s; she majored in Modern European Literature, he in Economics. John went on to earn his law degree from the university in 1963, while Jill focused on more aesthetic diversions such as contemporary art appreciation (her college minor was Art History). Somewhere along the way, however, the pair obviously found some common ground, since they went on to have two children and six grandchildren, and celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary in 2008!
In the years since they first met as undergraduates, Jill and John, who now live in Atherton, have remained very involved with the university—and made it a focal point for their considerable generosity. The pair has contributed to the Cantor Art Center, university scholarships, the President's Fund, Stanford Hospital, the School of Law, athletics, and the Program in Jewish Studies. In 2006, they donated $25 million to the School of Medicine to boost its work in translational research in cancer and other diseases.
"Jill and John…have played [an] important role in fostering innovation and stimulating translational research and medicine at Stanford," Stanford Medical School Dean Philip Pizzo, MD commented upon the Freidenrichs being selected to receive the Dean’s Medal in 2008. "From their advocacy and support for patients with cancer to their dedicated efforts on the university and hospital boards, Jill and John have worked tirelessly to improve the lives of children and adults facing the challenge of disease."
Jill has served on the board of Stanford’s Committee for Art and the community panel of Stanford’s Residential Panel on Outdoor Art. She has been on the director’s advisory council at Cantor Arts Center since 2005 and on the art panels at both Stanford and Packard Hospitals since the mid-1980’s. She was a member of the Stanford Cancer Council from 2007 to 2009.
A cancer survivor, Jill co-founded the Community Breast Health Project (CBHP), now called Breast Cancer Connections, in1993. Since then, she has been a member of its executive committee, fund development committee, and board. She also founded the Breast Health Center at Stanford. In 2004, she received the Universal Care Strike Out Breast Cancer Award of Courage and the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Fammy Award. She was also a recipient of Stanford Associates’ 2008-2009 Governors’ Award.
With all of these honors and accomplishments under her belt, Jill names her proudest achievement as “observing our children as they have grown into loving and decent human beings who now are raising our magnificent six grandchildren!”
John co-founded Ware & Freidenrich law firm, where he was a partner from 1968 to 1988. He next founded Bay Partners and was managing partner from 1988 to 2000. He founded Regis Management Company in 2000 and has been a managing partner there ever since.
John’s was previously on the boards at Stanford, where he spent time as chair, and Children’s Health Council. He is currently on the boards at Stanford Hospital (20 years), Packard Children’s Hospital (10 years, five as chair), Washington’s Center for National Policy (since 1998); and Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life (since 2005). He has been a member of the director’s council at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC since 2006 and of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund since 2000. Besides the Dean’s Medal from Stanford’s School of Medicine, John has received Stanford’s Gold Spike Award.
Norma Hesterman- Many people love children, but very few are as dedicated to them as Norma Hesterman.
This Los Altos Hills resident has made children the focus of not only her personal life but her education, profession, and volunteer endeavors. Most remarkably, she and her husband of 50 years, Vic, have not only raised four children; they’ve taken in 21 foster children over the years! Thus far, the couple has 12 grandchildren and 6 foster grandchildren.
Born in South Dakota, Norma eventually earned her BS in Home Economics Education with emphases on Child Development and English from Iowa State University, where she and Vic first met. She has also taken many graduate courses from area universities that are appropriate for work with children.
The Hestermans became interested in serving as a foster family after a year of caring for a friend’s child. After their first placement, they were asked to become a “therapeutic” foster home, serving emotionally distressed children. They fostered children who were not available for adoption, but could not live with their parents. They took in elementary-aged children and, later, teen-agers, eventually becoming a “specialized adolescent care” foster home. Several foster children lived with the Hestermans through high school graduation and still consider them their parents.
Norma has been Gunn High School’s coordinator of volunteer services since 1987. According to Principal Noreen Likins, “Somewhere in the region of twenty thousand volunteer hours are logged at Gunn annually. Without Norma’s dedicated service, this would not happen.” Principal Likins commends Norma’s many wonderful qualities including her gracious response to every request for assistance, her meticulous attention to detail, and her kindness to everyone.
Unsurprisingly, Norma has always been a very involved community parent. She spent many years as an officer on executive boards at elementary and middle school PTAs and was an officer at Palo Alto PTA Council, including president for one term. At Gunn, she was co-president of the PTA during sensitive time of the Cubberley High School closure and was an officer for 12 years. She served on the School Attendance Review Board for Palo Alto Unified School District, co-founded Palo Alto Parents and Professionals for Art, and was a catalyst for starting the Palo Alto Foundation for Education.
In addition to coordinating the volunteer efforts of others, Norma has herself
volunteered in several capacities at Gunn; she helped design and launch
the Academic Center, spent many hours improving the volunteer program, and
served on Green Team, to name a few. Norma co-founded Adolescent Counseling
Services in 1975, served on its board for several terms, and is currently
on board of advisors. She was also a leader and assistant leader for Girl
Scouts for four years.
Norma is very active at Trinity Lutheran Church, and has taught Christian education for 40+ years. She was a teacher trainer for many years, mostly as a volunteer. She has served on various boards and coordinated service activities such as blood drives, Christmas caroling, senior outings, and fundraisers for world disaster relief. She also taught art at Bethany Lutheran School in Menlo Park and at the YWCA during the mid 1960s and ‘70s.
“We are eternally grateful to God for the blessings of our four biological children (and, now, their children), who were so wonderfully helpful and involved with the foster children,” writes Norma. Unsurprisingly, she is dedicated to her grandchildren; each year, Norma and a friend host a week that they call “Camp Grandma,” which includes crafts, singing, adventures, ice cream, and time to be together.
Norma’s past honors include her receiving the most prestigious PTA award in California, the Golden Oak Award, from Gunn High School PTSA, as well as their Honorary Service Award. She has been named Honoree of the Year by Adolescent Counseling Services. She received a Continuing Service Award from Palo Alto Council of PTAs, a Gunn Foundation Award, and was named Foster Parent of the Year from Adolescent Counseling Services.
- Sharon Hofstedt
- I can’t serve on a board – I could never ask people for money!” —Sharon Hofstedt, approximately 1987.
At some point, Sharon clearly changed her mind; since then, she has been on no less than eight boards! Now, when asked about building and developing nonprofit boards, she remarks, “I like bringing people together to serve the community.”
Sharon’s board service has included Stanford University Hospital, Peninsula Stroke Association, American Heart Association, and Palo Alto Community Child Care. She’s chaired the boards of Avenidas and Women’s Recovery Association, and is currently on the boards of Samaritan House and Shadhika Foundation.
The oldest of seven children in a working-class family, Sharon was born and raised in Minnesota. She eventually married Tom Hofstedt, her high-school sweetheart. The pair had two children and lived in New York and Texas before coming to the Peninsula in 1987. They now live in Menlo Park.
In 1962, Sharon earned her RN from St. Barnabas Hospital School of Nursing at Macalester College. She has 20 years of hospital-based nursing experience, in positions ranging from staff RN through several levels of nursing management. Her expertise is broad, and spans four states; she has worked in pediatrics, emergency, and psychiatry at several hospitals. Locally, she worked at Stanford Hospital, Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Sequoia, and El Camino hospitals. She is now a volunteer RN at Avenidas, providing free blood pressure readings to participants.
Sharon has had extensive involvement in human service programs at universities, hospitals, and county agencies, specializing in substance abuse programs, international women, homeless, and assorted other commitments. Several times, she played a startup role. “My most interesting and rewarding professional experience was assisting in the formation of a psychosomatic unit for children and adolescents at Children’s Hospital at Stanford,” says Sharon. “We developed an idea of combining mind and body in treatment, a very innovative concept in 1977, and it worked! I was the nurse manager and was able to hire the staff, work with the insurance companies, educate about treatment, and help develop and implement a new way of thinking and treating.”
Sharon was involved with several committees at Stanford Hospital. She chaired the board’s Community Outreach Committee and was on the board’s Development and Public Affairs Committee as well as the Advisory Committee for the Community Health Education Project; the Medical Ethics Committee; and the Chaplaincy Advisory Committee. She also chaired the Patient Relations Associate Program.
Apparently, a rolling Sharon gathers no moss; she’s been active in San Mateo County homeless programs, the Redwood City Free Medical Clinic, and Peninsula Habitat for Humanity. In addition, she was on the executive board for Palo Alto SAFE (Substance Abuse Free Environment); was a founding member of the Peninsula Stroke Association; served on the development committee for Lytton Gardens; and was on the advisory board for The Health Library at Stanford.
According to Sharon, her most gratifying volunteer experience (of many) took place while she lived in Texas, where she co-founded and co-chaired the Southern Methodist University International Women’s Club, a community-wide organization of internationally-oriented women to provide support systems for foreign student wives. “It was truly an amazing group of women,” says Sharon. “We taught English and had craft groups and outings and did a lot of cross-cultural education. One woman stated that she thought she’d learn something about the US while their family was here, but didn’t realize she’d learn about the world.” While in Texas, she was also involved with many other organizations including Circles of Concern, Richardson Crisis Center, and several substance abuse programs.
Other than raising her children and spending lots of time with her grandchildren, Sharon’s favorite personal experience has been to “house” 35 young people over the past 30 years. Her family took in several foreign exchange students as well as individuals in transition. They lived with them like family, and almost all of them are still in their lives.
Not surprisingly, other organizations besides Avenidas have recognized Sharon’s dedication. She has been honored by Junior League of Palo Alto, San Mateo County, and Samaritan House of San Mateo as an Outstanding Volunteer Advocate; received the 1998 Koshland Award from the Peninsula Community Foundation; and is a Graduate of Leadership Palo Alto. In 1996, Sharon was inducted into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame.
Tom Jordan - Doing the right thing can be controversial, especially when it involves stalling, and sometimes thwarting, the efforts of developers, universities, or city governments. However, the prospect of stirring up a bit of controversy has never deterred retired land-use attorney and passionate environmentalist Tom Jordan, who has spent 40 years trying to ensure that those in power on the Mid-Peninsula don’t overstep their bounds.
A resident of Palo Alto, Tom’s endeavors have included being a vocal critic of several local projects such as Stanford’s 10-year expansion plan and, more recently, plans for a 157,000-square-foot building at 195 Page Mill Road. However, the advocacy effort that Tom is most proud of was when he played an important part of Save San Francisco Bay Association’s successful efforts to stop the filling of the Bay in the late 1960s, culminating in the passage in 1969 of the state law creating the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. He was involved with the organization as a board member, VP, and general counsel.
Tom’s additional board experience has a definite, although not exclusively, environmental bent. His work on the founding board of the Peninsula Conservation Center, which provides office space and coordination among the local environmental groups, was very important to him. He is a past and present board member of the Committee for Green Foothills, serving his first stint in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, he was a board member and general counsel for Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation; he has also served as general counsel and board president for both the San Jose Symphony Association and the San Jose Symphony Foundation. He has been on the board of the Gamble Garden Center since 2005 and on the Peninsula Conservation Center Management Council since 2007.
Tom has been a member of California Bar since 1962. He started his career in the early 1960s as an associate attorney at McCutchen, Doyle, et al. He was next an associate at Hopkins & Carley, soon becoming a partner and remaining with the firm until1994. For four years, Tom was also an adjunct professor of environmental law at San Jose State. From 1995 to 1996, he was a project officer at American Land Conservancy, a San Francisco nonprofit, and for three years after that he served as of counsel for Enterprise Law Group in Menlo Park.
Tom has been largely an unsung hero in the community, although he modestly remarks, “I was appointed by the Governor in 1993 to his Blue Ribbon Commission on a Unified Environmental Law, consisting of 25 environmental law attorneys from throughout the state and chaired by William Reilley, former head of the EPA. We met monthly in San Francisco over one year and produced a very good report, which was not acted on.”
Tom continues, “My most interesting experience was chairing the 1967 Campaign Committee Against the Recall of the Entire Palo Alto City Council…it was very eye-opening. We ran an honest campaign and slowly regained council seats until in 1971 the residentialists, as we were called, were a majority of the council. Since then, all council candidates have run as environmentalists, whether or not they later vote that way.”
Tom was born in Panama City, FL. He is a cum laude graduate of Princeton and earned his JD from Harvard Law. He has four children with his wife, Madge, plus three stepchildren and four grandchildren.
- Donald Seiler
- The late Rabbi Sidney Akselrad, a 1994 Avenidas Lifetimes of Achievement honoree, was the first to recommend Donald Seiler for this award. He wrote, “Donald Seiler believes very deeply in giving back to the community. More importantly, he has educated so many others to be philanthropic…as a Rabbi, I am more than familiar with how he has matched his love and purposefulness in the community with a love that fosters an ideal family.”
These benevolent qualities clearly extend into Don’s business practices. On the home page of Seiler, LLP, the accounting firm he founded in 1957, Don is quoted as saying, “We serve people, not numbers.”
For many years, Don, a San Francisco native, has been an active and dedicated volunteer in the Jewish community. During the 1960s, Don served on the North Peninsula Jewish Community Center’s board. He was on the board of Congregation Beth Am from 1966 to 1972, including time as president. At the Jewish Community Federation, Don, a board member since 1974, has been both president and campaign chair. Since 2003, he has been on the board of Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life. From 1986 to 1992, Don was on the board and executive committee of the Council of Jewish Federation; from 1984 to 1990, he was on the board of the Jewish Home for Aged. He chaired the Jewish Community Endowment Fund from 1986 to 1989. He has also been on the boards of Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and United Jewish Community Centers.
Don’s volunteerism extends to education, medicine, and environmental causes. He was the public accounting chair at UC Berkeley HAAS School of Business in 1995, and has been on their board since 2006. From 1995 to 2005, he was on Peninsula Community Foundation’s board. At Stanford Medical Center, he served on the board from 1985 to 1995; he also founded and chaired the hospital’s Friends of Cardiovascular Medicine from 1983 to 1988.
Don earned his BS in Accounting and MBA from UC Berkeley. H e spent time as an accountant at Golden and Nemer in the 1950s before founding Seiler and Company (now Seiler, LLP) in Redwood City. His professional board service includes Ross Stores, Inc., since 1982 and Greater Bay Bancorp, from 1985 to 2006.
In 1989, Don was honored by the California Society of CPAs with the Public Service Award for California. He received the Robert Sinton Distinguished Leadership Award from the Jewish Community Federation in 2006 and was named 2004 Professional of the year by the Jewish Community Endowment Fund.
Don and his wife, Ruth, reside in Atherton. They have two children and four grandchildren.
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