Our Team

Jim Leach, Chairman

Jim provides strategic oversight and consultation to the firm, and facilitates the partnership between Wonderland Hill Development Company and CoHousing Partners. He is based in Boulder, Colorado and travels frequently to California.

A professional engineer with 30+ years in design, construction, and development of sustainable housing, Jim has led the charge for cohousing, planned neighborhoods and urban infill development.

Throughout his career, Jim has been at the forefront of the industry in creating Green building strategies and community-based housing that combine quality design with maximum value.

He serves on the board of the Affordable Housing Alliance.

Jim has been a spokesperson for the Solar Energy movement since the early 1980’s and was active in the writing and review of the Boulder Energy Code. In 1997 Jim was inducted into the “BUILT GREEN Hall of Fame” by the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Denver.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering and Bachelor of Business Management from CU and a Master of Construction Engineering from Stanford University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Colorado and New Mexico.

In November 2007, Jim and his wife moved into the newly completed Silver Sage Cohousing in Boulder, CO. He is enjoying the community he developed, and the daily oh-so-short-five-minute walk to the office.

Kathryn McCamant, President

Kathryn leads the CoHousing Partners team, oversees the firm's projects, and leads key training exercises for communities and staff. She also serves as liaison to the architecture and design consultants. She is based in Nevada City, California.

A licensed architect and co-author of the book Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves, Kathryn McCamant founded McCamant & Durrett Architects and The CoHousing Company with her husband, Charles Durrett in 1987. The firm, with offices in Berkeley and Nevada City, California, specializes in sustainable design, cohousing, affordable housing, urban planning, and childcare facilities.

Since researching cohousing in Denmark in the early 1980's, Kathryn has designed and developed dozens of cohousing communities. She played the role of lead project manager in six California communities seeing these from site search through move in. In addition to pioneering cohousing design and development in North America, Kathryn has designed a wide variety of building types including an innovative shared housing community for 24 single-parent households recovering from domestic violence situations, and a sustainability designed (LEED certified) Church.

Her work has received national recognition, including interviews on ABC, NBC, CNN and articles in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Architecture, among others.

Kathryn graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at UC Berkeley and did her graduate work at the Royal Academy of Art and Architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. She lived for 12 years in Doyle Street Cohousing in Emeryville, California. Kathryn now lives with her husband and teenage daughter in the Nevada City Cohousing Community, just blocks from the CoHousing Partners office.

Rick Mockler, Vice President

Rick coordinates acquisition of new sites, group formation activities and political entitlements. He also serves as a project manager for particular projects. He is based at the firm's Davis office.

Rick currently serves as President of the Cohousing Association of the United States and works with forming cohousing groups throughout California. As a developer, he began site search and land acquisition for new communities in 2002.

Rick has 20 years experience in organizational development, community organizing and project management.

He has managed local and state level projects promoting environmental justice, child care services and innovative housing. He has served local, state and national association boards of directors as a staff person, elected leader and as a consultant.

In the late 1980s, he created a nationally recognized victim-offender mediation program in the East Bay, training hundreds of volunteers and mediating high profile cases involving both non-violent and violent criminal offenses. He has also led a variety of neighborhood development initiatives.

Rick holds an MPA with an organizational development emphasis and has an MA focusing on liberation theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has a special interest in community empowerment, environmental sustainability and building healthy communities.

He lives with his wife and two daughters in Muir Commons, the nation's first cohousing community in Davis, CA.

Rhonda Herrin, Project Manager

Rhonda's project management responsibilities include oversight of building contractors, liaison to community members, budget management, and scheduling. Rhonda also serves as Marketing Manager for CoHousing Partners. She is based in the Nevada City, California office.

Rhonda has over 14 years of experience in issue advocacy and direct-action community organizing. She began her career in electoral politics working on successful campaigns in six states for town council, school board, state insurance commission, state supreme court, senate, congressional and gubernatorial races. She has worked under contract with 11 non-profit organizations servicing small, medium, and large memberships.

Rhonda received formal grassroots organizing training from the Midwest Academy, the education wing of the Citizen Action organization, and has worked on national issue campaigns. She has been under contract for several prestigious foundations such as Families USA (Washington, D.C.), Food and Water Foundation (New Jersey), and Hands Across America/USA for Africa (California).

She founded the political and public affairs consulting firm, the Herrin-McCain Group, in 1994, and worked as a lobbyist specializing in labor issues in Sacramento. Her corporate consulting includes strategic planning, branding and business transformation.

Rhonda holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from California State University, Sacramento. She finally put to rest the notion of going back to school to begin a master’s degree in social marketing, unless she can figure out a way to ride her horse to classes.

Michael DeSantis, Project Manager

Michael joined the staff in 2007. He has an interesting background of 25 years in conventional and alternative construction experience. He is passionate about creating sustainable community through healthy, effective partnerships. His responsibilities as a project manager include moving projects toward completion by facilitating planning and permits, coordinating consultants and contractors, managing timelines and budgets. He is based in our Davis, California office.

Michael's most recent experience includes directing the NeighborWoods program for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. He also served as a volunteer mediator at the Sacramento Mediation Center.

Before moving to Midtown Sacramento in 2005, Michael coordinated the design and construction of the Highlands Center for Natural History, a community supported nature center in Prescott, Arizona. Michael also taught ecological design and directed independent studies at the college.

His understanding of construction is based on years of direct experience in the building trades, project management, and contracting business management. He earned ICBO building inspector certification and owned a contracting company for 20 years.

Michael loves to spend time with his extended family, tend his backyard garden, and explore the area on local hiking trails. He can occasionally be heard playing jazz guitar around town.

Chuck Belk, Project Manager

Chuck is the newest member of CoHousing Partners. He has worked during the past 15 years in property and asset management for both the conventional and affordable housing industry. His responsibilities include facilitating projects through local approval processes, managing construction budgets and timelines, contract management and guiding projects through completion.

Most recently he has managed 10 large, residential communities for a local affordable housing developer. His responsibilities ranged from financial management, budgeting and regulatory compliance to overall supervision of site-based staff. Bricks and mortar aside, Chuck’s primary responsibility was ensuring that residents enjoyed safe, attractive and affordable homes in which to enrich and build their lives.

He also worked closely with the organization’s development team. It was this involvement and his own personal commitment to environmental protection that first spurred his desire to help create sustainable communities and work with green building techniques.

Chuck holds a Master of Arts in Student Personnel Administration in Higher Education from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and a B.S. in Business Management / MIS from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

He is a voracious reader, politically active and enjoys hiking, biking, roller-blading and backpacking. Chuck is based in the Davis office, and enjoys the short commute from the home he shares with his wife and two children.

Tanya Toot, Finance and Legal Director

Tanya is responsible for the financial and legal matters, overseeing the accounting, bookkeeping, financial instruments and related documents. She is based with our sister firm, Wonderland Hill Development Company, in Boulder, Colorado.

Tanya has 14 years experience in financial analysis, financial administration, construction accounting, and has an interest in real estate development. She holds a BS in Accounting from University of Texas, Austin. Her local community involvement includes service on the advisory board to Erie Elementary School.

Annie Russell, Community Building

Annie is responsible for community building, supporting cohousing groups from start up through move in. She is based with our sister firm, Wonderland Hill Development Company. She conducts trainings periodically in California, collaborates with local community building resource people, and provides ongoing consultation to groups via conference call.

From creating a community vision and ground rules, to decision making processes and learning to talk about "the hard issues," Annie is with each community every step of the way. She holds a BA in Sociology and an MS in Organization Development. She has consulted with non profit and for profit organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad in team building, technical problem solving, and leadership development.

Annie lives in Silver Sage Cohousing, in Boulder, Colorado.

Eris Weaver, Community Building

Eris Weaver’s career as a professional facilitator and group process consultant has grown directly out of her nine years of experience living and working in cohousing. She enjoys working with communities to improve their interpersonal connections, communication skills, and decision-making processes.   Cohousing has fulfilled so many of her needs, desires, and dreams, that she now can’t imagine living any other way!

Eris holds Masters degrees in Public Health and Library & Information Studies, both from University of California at Berkeley. Her previous professional life included community organizing and coalition building in a number of local public health projects; managing health sciences libraries; teaching at the community college and adult school level; and serving on the board of several local nonprofits.

Her other passions include sea kayaking, surfing, yoga, dance, and sewing. She lives at FrogSong in Cotati, California, where she serves as Costume Mistress and Mistress of Ceremonies for innumerable talent shows and theme parties.