From left to right, Lifetimes of Achievement honorees Jane Shaw, Peter Carpenter, Anne Warner Cribbs, Loretta Green, Karen Ross and Roger Smith, in Palo Alto on Feb. 6, 2023. Photo by Magali Gauthier, Palo Alto Weekly. Honoree bios appear below the ticket section.
Palo Alto,CA 94301
A Celebration of a Lifetime!
Thank you for making this year’s Lifetimes of Achievement celebration a smashing success! Over 250 guests attended, and your generosity raised over $150,000 for critical programs that support frail seniors!
The food was delicious, the setting was beautiful, and, as they say, a good time was had by all. It’s always a privilege to celebrate the honorees and this year’s group was extra special. We appreciate all the hard work from staff, board members, committees, and volunteers that went into planning and hosting this year’s event.
We offer deep gratitude to everyone who attended and donated in honor of the award winners.
Save the date for our next Lifetimes of Achievement celebration on May 19, 2024!
Event Photos
Meet the 2023 Lifetimes Honorees
An award-winning athlete, Anne Cribbs brings a unique focus to her many significant contributions to our community. Among her many honors, she was a Gold Medalist at the 1959 Pan American Games and swam in the gold medal-winning US 4x400m relay team at the Rome Olympics in 1960. She retired at the age of 15.
Anne received her Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. Her professional career has been dedicated to serving sports and the community. After years of teaching and coaching swimming, Anne Cribbs served as the Superintendent of the City of Palo Alto Recreation Department, creating, and managing city special events and programs designed to provide community experiences.
Locally, Anne translated her athletic talents into contributions that have enriched lives in our community. Here are some of them: She created the Rich May Sports Field in East Palo Alto, lead the Bay Area’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, and brought the Senior Games to Palo Alto. In 1995 she co-founded the American Basketball League, the first women’s professional basketball league in the US. Through her many efforts, she is promoting gender awareness in amateur and professional sports.
Her efforts are not just related to sports, however. Anne was instrumental in creating Palo Alto’s annual Chili Cook Off and the Black and White Ball. She is currently the Board President of the Friends of the Recreation Wellness Center of Palo Alto, which has a vision to build a center for the PA community and is involved in many sports and community related foundations.
Anne was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame, the Northern California Jewish Hall of Fame, and the San Mateo County Hall of Fame. She is a Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Tall Tree Award winner, the 2013 Athena Award Winner, the 2012 America SCORES –2012 Legacy Award and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Torch Award, their highest honor.
Peter Carpenter graduated from Harvard in chemistry with a BS and went on to the University of Chicago for further study. His career has focused on a broad range of scientific issues including in the pharmaceutical industry, scientific knowledge and information, AIDS research, technological innovation for public hearth and entrepreneurship to combat poverty.
His professional career has encompassed opportunities in private industry, academia, and government. Some of his many roles included serving as a Air Force aide at the White House, as Executive Director at Stanford Medical Center and at ALZA, where he was employed for 16 years in various positions including EVP and President of ALZA Development Corporation. While at ALZA he took the lead on a unique patient consent model for ALZA’s intrauterine device, the only lUD available on the US market at the time.
Peter has served our community in many ways but one of his most notable contributions are his eighteen years of service as a Menlo Park Fire District Director, which had impacts, locally and regionally in saving and improving the lives.
Peter has also had leadership roles with various non-profit, cultural and research organizations. In 1991, he founded the Mission and Values Institute. He was on the BOD of the CA AIDS Leadership Committee, Leadership Palo Alto Board, National Academy of Science and Institute of Medicine – Presidents’ Circle, and on the board of the Village Enterprise Fund, to name a few.
In closing, some fun facts: Peter is proud to have earned his Eagle Scout award early on and is delighted that son, Jonathan, is also an Eagle Scout. And he is an Air Force veteran who served in the Vietnam War, where he was trained as a master parachutist and smokejumper.
Loretta Green’s name will be familiar to many as she is the longtime journalist, first for the PA Times and Peninsula Times Tribune and, for the past 21 years at the San Jose Mercury News, where she recently wrote her last piece. Joe Simitian has called her “the voice of our community” for her human-interest column.
Her work has won her recognition by the Associated Press, the Peninsula Press Club, California Newspaper Editors, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Throughout her career she has always valued community. She volunteered for many years at the Girls Club of the Mid-Peninsula and served on their board. She also served on the boards of the American Heritage Museum and the Stanford Hospital Board and has held several roles as a longtime member of the University African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She has worked for the nonprofit The Links Inc., and as Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum of Silicon Valley.
Among her many honors, Loretta was awarded the Palo Alto Tall Tree for outstanding professional and the Athena award and is a senior fellow in the American Leadership Forum. She was inducted into the Silicon Valley Black Legends Hall of Fame, where its annual News and Documentary Award is co-named in her honor. In 2004, Assemblyman Joe Simitian named her the 21st Assembly District’s Woman of the Year.
Other honors include the Mid-Peninsula YWCA’s outstanding Black Woman Award and, the one for which she is most proud, the East Palo Alto Teen Home Positive Image Award.
Raised in England, Jane Shaw holds BS and PhD degrees in Physiology from Birmingham University. Her many professional achievements focused on pharmaceutical research and product development. She led the charge at ALZA in the development of a new class of products, drug delivery systems and is widely recognized as an expert in this field, for which she holds seven patents.
She was President and COO of Alza from 1987 to 1994 and has also served on many other boards, including lntel, McKesson, Yahoo. In all these roles, she brought significant experience strategic, financial, and operational requirements of large organizations dealing with research and development and technological innovations.
Jane has received many awards during her distinguished career, including induction into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame, ODX Outstanding Director Award, Outstanding Woman of Silicon Valley, the Entrepreneurial Achievement Award and the Athena Award from the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce.
Jane and her husband, Peter Carpenter, are longtime residents of our community and have served it in different ways. Jane has served as a trustee on the board of Lucille Salter Packard Children’s Hospital, a trustee of Grace Cathedral, and on the board of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She and Peter are also supporters and patrons of the San Francisco Opera.
Karen Ross grew up in South Bend, Indiana. She attended Purdue University where she earned a BS and met her future husband Steve, who was from the mid-peninsula. After an administrative dietetic internship at the University of Washington, they moved to the Bay Area, where she has a MA from San Jose State in Foods and Nutrition.
She has had a rich career as a nutrition and dietetics health professional at local hospitals and at HeartFit for Life, where she made an impact on our local hospital patients and care givers through education on heart healthy eating. She was also the national chair of Sports and Cardiovascular Nutritionists.
Equally important, through Karen’s leadership and stewardship of numerous nonprofit organizations in the community, many organizations have benefitted from her time and talents. Her dedication to service and to guiding teams of volunteer board members has been an inspiration. She currently serves on the nonprofit board for East Palo Alto Kids Foundation, and has previously served on the boards of the Palo Alto Community Fund, Hidden Villa, the Jr League, and the Century Club of CA. She has also had a global impact by opening her home to 15 international Stanford students through the homestay program.
And finally, a fun fact: Karen was Vice Chair and Board member of the Senior Coordinating Council and one of the driving forces behind the idea and implementation of the first Lifetimes of Achievement! So how appropriate is it that she is being honored in this, Lifetime’s 35th year?!
Roger Smith is a native of Kansas. He earned a BA from the University of Colorado and moved to the Bay Area in 1964. His career was spent in the banking industry, starting at Wells Fargo Bank. Among other roles, Roger served as branch manager at the Stanford Barn location. Along the way, he earned an MBA from Santa Clara University. In 1984 he left Wells Fargo to found Silicon Valley Bank to focus on the banking needs of the emerging tech industry. SVB is now the largest bank in SV and the 20th largest bank in the
U.S. Its spectacular success enabled Roger to leave the bank in 1994 to launch Smith Venture Group. It has also given him the opportunity to support many worthy causes in the community. When he sees an unfilled need he takes the initiative to fill it.
Roger founded Friends of PA Parks, which is dedicated to facilitating the development and enhancement of parks in Palo Alto. In particular, Lytton Plaza, Heritage Park and the Magical Bridge playground. He also founded Mothers Against Murder, an advocacy organization for families of murder victims.
He was an early board member of PA Community Fund and is now one of five Directors Emeritus. He is a trustee at Menlo College and a supporter and contributor to PA Rotary Club, especially the club’s support of the PA Jr Museum, St. Eliz Seton Catholic School, La Comida de California, and Roger has served on the boards of the YMCA, Boy Scouts, Forum Health Care Center and the Tech Museum. He is also an avid local sports fan and served for 10 years on the Stanford University Athletic Board.
Roger received the Tall Tree award 2022 as outstanding citizen volunteer and we are pleased to be able to honor him this year with Avenidas’ Lifetimes of Achievement recognition.
About the Award
Each year, Avenidas honors a group of changemakers for their contributions they make to the community—this is what Lifetimes of Achievement is all about. Honorees are announced at a private media reception in January and then celebrated at the Lifetimes Garden Party in May.