Santa Fe Future Committee
Catherine Zacher, New Mexico State Coordinator
Make Mine a Million $ Business
Cathie grew up in Lake Forest, IL, earning a B.A. from Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest. She started her career as a school teacher, teaching in Lake Forest and on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation before coming to Santa Fe to teach at Gonzales Elementary.
After leaving the teaching profession, Cathie founded and owned Enchanting Land Children's Bookstore in Santa Fe, became active in the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, serving on it's Board of Directors and eventually served as President of the Chamber of Commerce for 13-1/2 years. While with the Chamber, she conducted Board and Organization Training Seminars for other New Mexico communities, and served as a radio and TV host for business talk shows. Cathie was President of SFEDI from 1998-2008, and was the founder of Santa Fe Future in 2005. Currently, she is New Mexico State Coordinator for Make Mine a Million $ Business.
Cathie has served as a board member for many organizations in Santa Fe, including Santa Fe Fiesta Council, Southwest Association of Indian Artists, Catholic Social Services, New Mexico First and the New Mexico Children's Foundation. She served as a founding member of the Santa Fe Business Incubator Board of Directors where she has been designated a Lifetime Board Member.
Rick Sanders, CEO
Santa Fe Natural Tobacco
A native of Minneapolis, Rick is President & Chief Executive Officer of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company. Prior to moving to his current position in Santa Fe in January 2002, Rick was President of Sports Marketing Enterprises and Senior Vice President of Marketing of RJR Tobacco Company. Mr. Sanders Joined RJR in marketing in 1977 and has held several other positions during his career, including VP of Advertising and Brand Management, Area VP of Sales, VP of Marketing and Sales Operations, and VP of Strategic Development. As a board member of SFEDI, Rick chaired the Santa Fe Future program from 2005-2007.
Rick serves as Chairman of the board of directors of the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Foundation and Chairman of the board of Minnesota Resources. His wife of 23 years, Karen, is retired from the R&D field. They are both avid sailors/boaters.
Julia Susemihl
info to come
Ray Gulick, Principal
Evolution Web Development
Ray grew up on a farm in Michigan, where he acquired a midwestern sense of modesty, tolerance for people from different backgrounds, and other things that didn't serve him very well when he moved to Texas, where he lived and worked for 18 years before arriving in New Mexico in 1999. He holds a B.S. in Education from Central Michigan University and has toiled as a high school teacher/coach, art director/graphic designer, director of marketing communications, and is currently co-owner and founder of Evolution Web Development, a web development and design firm in Santa Fe.
Ray has two daughters at home, ages 12 and 13, and one who lives in Jersey City and is a painter and illustrator. His wife, Angela, is one of the best people in the history of people and a professional translator (German-English). He is a painter, whitewater boater, and motorcycle commuter (he does not have fun riding his motorcycle; it's strictly a fuel conservation measure).
Samsunshine Levy, President
NET MAN, Inc.
Samsunshine Levy is president of NET MAN, Inc. Business Websites That Work, a full service website development and internet integration & consulting company. He is a past Chairman of the Board of Directors and current vice-chair/chair-elect of the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association (NMIPA). Sam has been a Santa Fe Community College teacher and workshop presenter for a series of "Doing Business On The Internet" workshops. He regularly publishes an Internet Business advice column in the NMIPA Internet Informer, distributed to over 10,000 New Mexico business owners and southwest US Chamber of Commerce members. He also is Chairman of New Media Industries, Inc. and the New Media Gallery, a collaborative industry and community marketing, awareness, training and economic development group working on the branding and identity of New Mexico as a center for New Media and Design.
Sam was born in Kankakee, Illinois and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He arrived in New Mexico in 1982, and Santa Fe in 1986, graduating from Santa Fe High School in 1988 and then New Mexico State University studying Mechanical Engineering. After early training in the kitchens of the best restaurants in Santa Fe, Sam spent nearly five years cooking his way up to one, two and three starred Michelin restaurants in Italy and France, and returned to work with Chez Panisse alumnus David Tanis and author Deborah Madison both in Santa Fe and building/opening a restaurant in Berkeley, CA.
Sam contributes time and energy as co-chair of CARNAVAL SANTA FE, an annual winter community celebration, and enjoys Skiing, Skydiving, Rockets, Kids, Swimming Pools, Soccer, Storybooks, Opera, Jazz, Piano, Tenor Sax, Tartufi Bianchi, Green Chile, Aranci Tarocchi, Extreme Cooking, internet strategy, legacy integration consulting and creative programming project development—whatever THOSE things mean! Sam is also a board advisor and webmaster to the Coalition for Quality Children's Media and the KIDS FIRST! Program, an organization founded by his mother, Ranny Levy. Sam and his wife, Kristin, have two sons, Sadel, 12, and Adensunset, 7.
Stephen Guerin, President
RedfishGroup
Stephen's work centers on visualization, modeling and the design of self-organizing systems. He recently worked as a Senior Software Developer at BiosGroup and participated as a member of Stuart Kauffman's research group. There, he created Complexity Science-based applications for Fortune 100 and Government clients.
Stephen Guerin started researching chaotic systems as they applied to economic systems and business cycles in 1989. He founded RedfishGroup in 1991 to provide computer solutions for desktop publishing and video editing. In 1993, RedfishGroup delivered several award-winning multimedia and computer animation projects. Operations were shifted to Beijing in 1994 to develop a series of Chinese language translation tools. RedfishGroup went on to provide Internet programming and consulting to multinational and Chinese firms with presences in Beijing and Shanghai. After returning from China in 1997, Stephen spent a few years of research in Cognitive Science looking for applications to distributed software systems.
RedfishGroup is based in Santa Fe, with a long term goal of creating living software systems.
Belinda Wong-Swanson, Owner
Innov8, LLC
Belinda Wong-Swanson was born in Hong Kong, spent the last two years of high school in Menlo Park, California, then attended the University of Arizona in Tucson. Belinda received an Executive MBA from UNM in 2000, and a Ph.D. in Nuclear & Energy Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1991.
She came to Santa Fe in 1992 to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She now has a technical consulting company, Innov8 LLC. Belinda's professional goal is to help communities grow while having minimal negative impact on the environment, and help business reduce operational costs by reducing raw materials use, energy use, and waste generation. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, swimming and traveling to far-away places.