In early June a poll was sent to membership to choose the Board Directors and Officers for the Board year which starts July 1, 2022 and runs through June 30, 2023.

Officers are re-elected each year. Directors serve terms of three years, and can be renewed by vote afterwards. A quorum of 31 members must vote by June 30. More details can be found in the SCVAS Bylaws.

Over 110 members responded to the poll, confirming all new Board candidates and the new slate of officers. Thank you all for participating!

New Board Candidates Confirmed:

  • Gary Campanella

  • Michael Hawk

  • Vivek Tiwari

Officers Elected

  • President: Bill Walker

  • Vice President: Sue Pelmulder

  • Secretary: Michael Hawk

  • Treasurer: Gary Campanella

Biographies of Candidates (in Alphabetical order)

Gary smiling with the ocean in the background

Gary Campanella
Vote to confirm as new Board Member; Candidate for Board Treasurer

Gary joined the Board of SCVAS partway through 2021. He has been a supporter of the annual Birdathon for many years. His primary interests in joining the Board are advocacy and education but with his finance background he will also support the Finance Committee and he is the candidate for Board Treasurer. Gary recently retired from full-time employment as Chief Financial Officer of On Lok, a healthcare nonprofit organization. Prior to that he has held senior finance positions in both healthcare and high tech organizations in Silicon Valley. He has served on other nonprofit boards in the area notably HomeFirst Services of Santa Clara Valley and Sacred Heart Community Service. Gary is an avid hiker around Almaden Valley and an avid student of the Italian language.

Michael in hat, glasses and hiking gear in the desert southwest

Michael Hawk
Vote to confirm as new Board Member; Candidate for Board Secretary

Michael has had an interest in birds and nature for years, but his 2006 move to Arizona and subsequent trips to Madera Canyon caused him to finally call himself a birder. This interest has continued to grow and expand into a general passion for the environment and the complex relationships therein. Michael is also a docent for Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, an avid bioblitz enthusiast, and an NAI Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG). Professionally, Michael works at Google in the field of data networking, but is transitioning to pursue environmental conservation as a full-time career. As part of this journey, Michael has created a podcast called Nature’s Archive, covering such diverse topics as bird migration, lichens, wildfire ecology, plant galls, oak trees, and more.

Sue smiling, wearing hat and jacket outdoors

Sue Pelmulder
Candidate for Board Vice President

Sue started backpacking in the Sierras at age 3 and has enjoyed the outdoors for a very long time. But she fell in love with birds when she moved to Mountain View and started taking walks at Charleston Slough. With the help of SCVAS, Sue is learning to identify smaller birds, but still appreciates any bird big enough to be seen. Sue joined the Board of Directors in July 2020 and helps out wherever needed. Sue trained as an engineer and conducted research in water resources planning and management, before following her passion for audio to be an engineer at a recording studio. Always looking to learn something new, she became an attorney and has helped clients with their insurance problems for the past 15 years. When class is in session, Sue can be found on Monday nights playing viola for local Scottish dance classes, and enjoys meeting up online with musicians from around the world.

Vivek with photography gear and baseball cap, in a forest in Peru

Vivek Tiwari
Vote to confirm as new Board member

Vivek’s interest in birds and nature started while he was in college at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Since then he’s lived and birded in North America – five years on the East coast during graduate school at Princeton University and the last twenty five years as a Santa Clara County resident. He has traveled to many remote corners of the world in pursuit of birds but the Neotropics, India and the lower 48 in the US are his favorite bird regions. While almost half this time was spent with just a pair of binoculars, bird photography has since allowed him to be able to share his passion with others in the hope that this inspires them to observe, appreciate and ultimately protect our avian biodiversity. In recent years a particular joy has been to bird with his son Vayun Tiwari, who has become a great bird photographer in his own right. An executive in the semiconductor industry, Vivek feels lucky to be living in Silicon Valley with its amazing diversity of habitats and birds. As a Board member he hopes to contribute to the continuing mission of SCVAS, an organization of which he has been a proud member for over a quarter of a century!

Bill with stocking hat and large camera, with cliffs in the background

Bill Walker
Candidate for Board President

Bill has been birding in California since 1996 and photographing wild birds and their environment since 2003. He teaches bird photography at Google, Point Reyes Birding Festival, and the Coastside Land Trust. His photos are published on Instagram and at birdwalker.com.

Since joining the SCVAS board in 2019, Bill has been active with the Field Trip committee and is helping create video content for SCVAS's YouTube channel. He credits the SCVAS 2012 trip to Costa Rica with opening a door to birding travel, which has been very rewarding. 

Bill has worked in software engineering at Apple, Cisco, Mozilla, and most recently, Google. Bill holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of Illinois, where he studied object-oriented software, jazz piano, and electronic music. Bill currently directs the choir at University Lutheran Church in Palo Alto.