Our Team
Our team embodies a commitment to creating positive change in our communities and across California, starting with ourselves and shaping our relationships with one another and our partners. We bring a mix of life experiences, skills and talents but a shared desire to create homes and neighborhoods where we can all thrive.
Our Board of Directors
Tyler Pew
Director
Founding Principal, LMNOP Design
We don’t have any open roles at the moment.
Alex Coba
Communication Associate
As a proud California native from Stockton, Alex brings a wealth of experience and a versatile skill set. He has a solid communication background with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Public Relations from California State University, Chico. Alex is adept at strategic communications and media relations, with experience gathering and sharing stories from his local communities that uplift the unique spirit and values of those places. He is excited to join Build It Green, where he can apply his talents to further BIG’s mission to help communities across California thrive
Alahas Gumataotao
Adminstrative Assistant
Alahas Gumataotao is a softhearted individual with passions that align with Build It Green’s mission. She is a graduate of California State University: East Bay with a Bachelors in Health Sciences, concentration in Public Health. As the Administrative Assistant, she brings extensive experience with administrative processing, data entry, and project coordination skills to the team. She is dedicated to making a positive impact in the community and creating access to all by working with Build It Green. She enjoys exploring her creativity through fashion, beauty, and wellness during her free time and is always ready for wherever her next adventure takes her.
Kurt Kniel
Director of Operations
A lifelong native of California, Kurt has a strong fondness for California’s abundant outdoor activities, and its distinguished weather makes it hard for him to imagine living anywhere else. Kurt holds a bachelor’s in Earth Systems Science and a hybrid master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management.
Before joining Build It Green, he contributed to the development of Climate Action Plans for the cities of Gilroy, El Cerrito, and Piedmont to help meet State GHG emission-reduction goals. He is extremely excited to expand on his work with Build It Green as it evolves from going beyond sustainable aspects of a building to further emphasizing societal health and well-being.
Jeremy Madsen
Executive Director
Jeremy cherishes great cities and awe-inspiring natural landscapes. The San Francisco Bay Area, his home of the past 20+ years, gives him incredible access to both. A day can literally start with a hike in redwoods, followed by lunch at a sidewalk café serving local specialties, and end with an afternoon at a world class museum. For him, that’s a perfect day. Jeremy was born and raised in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah by a father who owned a company that built HVAC ductwork, and a mother who was a proud environmentalist. His upbringing and lifelong interest in the intersection between the built and natural environments—and their relationships to social equity, community vitality, and, to say it simply, happiness—led him to spend 10 years as CEO of Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area’s leading land conservation and land use advocacy NGO. Jeremy joined Build It Green in 2021. It was the perfect fit for him. Jeremy was charged with leading BIG into a new era where the organization leans into the complexity of the interwoven affordability, climate and other environmental, health, and social and racial justice issues that present themselves in the housing realm and in California communities. Today, BIG is at the leading edge of addressing these issues holistically, rather than accepting tradeoffs, by bringing together passionate, intersectional changemakers to innovate and carry out programs that will fundamentally transform housing, and how communities develop, for the benefit of human and ecological vitality. In his free time, Jeremy can usually be found on a soccer field or listening to loud music ranging through all genres of rock (punk, Celtic, classic, grunge).
Two of Jeremy’s most beloved things are great cities and awe-inspiring natural landscapes, and, living in the Bay Area over the past 20+ years, he has had no shortage of these. A day can literally start with a hike in redwoods, followed by lunch at a sidewalk café serving local specialties, and end with an afternoon at a world class museum. What could be better than that?
Jeremy was born and raised in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah by a father who owned a company that built HVAC ductwork, and a mother who was a proud environmentalist. His upbringing and lifelong interest in the intersection between the built and natural environments—and their relationships to social equity, community vitality, and, to say it simply, happiness—led him to spend 10 years as CEO of Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area’s leading land conservation and land use advocacy NGO.
Build It Green was a natural step for Jeremy. As it becomes an organization that doesn’t accept that there have to be trade offs between housing affordability, climate protection and other environmental issues, and social equity and justice, he looks forward to bridging and serving all of the different constituencies in the housing ecosystem to fundamentally change what this state will be like for decades to come and, in doing so, can make California a model for the nation.
In his free time, Jeremy can usually be found on a soccer field or listening to loud music ranging through all genres of rock (punk, Celtic, classic, grunge).
Devani Santos
Sr. Manager – Programs
Born and bred in Oakland (unceded Lisjan/Ohlone land), Devani is a Filipina visionary whose work is guided by a belief in collective care, restorative justice, and the power of community to heal itself. Shaped by years of living and learning alongside communities around the world, she is inspired to imagine collaborative solutions to housing, food, and environmental injustices at home in California.
Through her work with BIG, Devani helps convene diverse voices to reimagine how housing can be developed with dignity, equity, and belonging at its core. Her mission is to help spark a cultural shift—one that centers BIPOC and historically oppressed communities while embedding regeneration as a living, breathing practice rather than an afterthought. Outside of work, Devani is happiest guiding people on international and outdoor trips, chasing waterfalls, soaking up warm weather, connecting with family, and singing her heart out at live shows.
Keisha Shields
Senior Director, Programs
(Neighborhoods and Network)
Keisha is inspired by expansiveness. Open water, city skylines, and wide horizons are where her vision feels alive. She is especially drawn to sunsets that seem to paint the sky and invite creativity, intuition, and imagination. Views of the water are, quite simply, the cure to just about anything. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, with its proximity to water, bridges, and views, offers an environment that invites dreaming, visioning, and perspective.
Keisha has designed, shaped, and implemented high-impact programs at scale across local, regional, and national contexts. Her work spans workforce development, criminal justice and reentry, policy and legislation, and broader racial, social, and economic justice efforts, bringing a systems lens to how programs and organizations translate vision into measurable, real-world impact.
Born and raised in Georgia, Keisha grew up seeing how history, disinvestment, and neglect affect once-thriving neighborhoods. This shaped Keisha’s interest in becoming a housing developer focused on neighborhood revitalization and supporting distressed and abandoned communities in reclaiming identity, investment, and possibility.
At Build It Green, Keisha leads the Regenerative Neighborhoods Initiative and the California Housing System Innovators Network. Through this work, she partners with neighborhood stakeholders, community-based organizations, and policymakers to explore how housing can serve as an anchor for regenerative outcomes that strengthen people, places, and the natural environment across California’s housing ecosystem.
Outside of work, Keisha enjoys traveling the world, concerts, singing loudly to her favorite songs, and unwinding with documentaries, good shows, or board games with family and friends.
Kate Voshell
Senior Director of Programs (Builders and Developers)
Kate originally came to San Francisco to work in theatrical set and lighting design, but the amazing urban fabric of the city inspired her to become an architect. Working at Gelfand Partners Architects, Kate mainly focused on affordable multifamily housing design and construction. She is most proud of her work on Veterans Commons, 75 units of permanent supportive housing for veterans, and the comprehensive rehabilitation of the Marcus Garvey/Martin Luther King cooperative apartments, both in San Francisco.
Interested in impacting the housing ecosystem at a higher level, she pursued her Master of Public Administration in Sustainable Management at Presidio Graduate School, where her interest in the intersection of environmental and racial justice in urban development blossomed.
She spent several years in affordable housing real estate development at Chinatown Community Development Center, where she managed the early stages of the Transbay 2 project, 151 units of affordable housing for seniors in downtown San Francisco.
Most recently, Kate managed all aspects of a national four year program for experienced affordable housing developers of color, including designing curriculum, planning online sessions and regional events, identifying and securing mentors, building a climate working group, managing funder relationships, and tracking and reporting program impact.
Outside of working hours, she enjoys spending time in her sculpture studio, snowboarding, and watching comedies with her husband and 2 sons.
Kate is thrilled to join the Build It Green team, and looks forward to contributing to the organization’s regenerative journey!
