The CivicWell Team

Haley Ausserer-Zelaya is a communications strategist with over 15 years of experience in the field. She has managed marketing and communications for nonprofits, arts organizations, ecommerce companies, social changemakers, and higher education.

Haley is passionate about community engagement and volunteering. As a commissioner with the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Establishment of a Sacramento County Women’s Commission, and the communications co-chair of Sacramento for Women and Girls, she successfully advocated for a permanent Sacramento County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. She has served on the Board of Slow Food Sacramento, the local chapter of an international organization committed to good, clean, and fair food for all, and volunteers for End of Life Choices California.

Haley holds an MBA from Mills College, and a BA from Hampshire College. She lives in the Sacramento area with her wife Emily and their diminutive shih tzu.

As Chief Executive Officer of CivicWell, Bernadette Austin supports leaders responding to the climate crisis and its impact on their communities. She leads a nonprofit organization with a 40-year track record of inspiring, equipping, connecting, and cultivating leaders working toward a more sustainable and resilient future.

Prior to her work at CivicWell, Bernadette co-led a university research center and managed the financing and development of affordable housing and infill development. Her portfolio of community-engaged research has supported affordable housing development, social equity in transportation policy, and carbon neutrality in state policy-making. Her community development projects include Sacramento’s first true transit-oriented development and the first project in the country to implement a program combining housing vouchers and health services for disabled adults.

Bernadette has served on city and county commissions for 15 years. She has served on Advisory Committees for the California Department of Housing and Community Development and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Office of Health Equity at the California Department of Public Health.  She is an active member of the Urban Land Institute and American Planning Association and serves on the Board of Directors for SAFE Credit Union, one of the top 100 credit unions in the country.

Bernadette holds a Master of Science in Community Development from UC Davis. She is a woman of color and second-generation descendant of immigrants. She grew up in a rural community in Silicon Valley and lives near California’s capital with her partner and two children.

Roger Dickinson serves as the Policy Director for CivicWell, providing direction and advocacy at the state and local levels for the policies, programs, and priorities of the organization. In addition, he works with the Housing Concepts Coalition which brings together diverse stakeholders to advocate for legislative and administrative steps to increase housing. 

Previously, Roger served as the Executive Director of Transportation California, a non-profit construction industry coalition which provides public education and advocacy to increase state funding for surface transportation infrastructure. During Roger’s tenure, the legislature passed and the governor signed SB 1, The Road Repair and Accountability Act, the largest transportation funding legislation in California history, and the voters passed Proposition 69 and defeated Proposition 6 in 2018. As a result, California now enjoys an additional more than $5 billion per year in funding for roads, bridges, public transportation, and active transportation.

Roger was elected to the State Assembly in November 2010, and reelected in November 2012, representing the 7th Assembly District including the Cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento. In his first year, he achieved a 100% bill signing success rate – seven bills were approved by the legislature and all seven were signed into law. In the second year of his term, nine more bills were signed by the Governor. In 2013, 11 Dickinson bills were signed into law by Governor Brown. In 2014, his most successful year, 15 bills were sent to the Governor and all 15 were signed in law – another 100% success rate. As a legislator, Dickinson focused on issues related to environmental quality, education, health and human services for children and families, economic development, and consumer protection.

Prior to his election to the Assembly, Dickinson served on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors from February 1994 through 2010. As a member of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, Dickinson played key roles on issues such as health care, welfare reform, economic development, clean air, improved transportation, and smart growth. 

Roger currently serves on the boards of the MS Society of Northern California, the Aerospace Museum of California, and the Sacramento Tree Foundation, and is a co-founder of SMART, Sacramento Metro Advocates for Rail and Transit. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley where he lettered in varsity basketball and afterward earned a law degree at UCLA in 1976. Dickinson lives with his wife, Marj, in the Woodlake neighborhood where they have owned a home for more than 40 years.

Heather Killion is the Operations Coordinator at CivicWell. She has been in the administrative field for over 15 years, and prides herself on not only keeping the office running smoothly, but doing it with a smile. In her role she handles administrative tasks, and also provides support for the organization’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

Heather is a Northern California native and lives in the Sacramento area. She grew up with an interest in design and architecture, and currently has the awesome privilege of living in a monolithic dome.

Beatrix Koev joined CivicWell as Chief Financial Officer in April 2024. With a decade of experience in financial executive roles, Ms. Koev brings substantial expertise in business consultancy, accounting, and financial controls.

Beatrix most recently served in an executive consulting role, servicing a diverse selection of clients who were interested in a root cause analytical approach to solve financial and other organizational challenges with a systems thinking holistic overview. Prior to this, Beatrix served as CFO for Sierra Health Foundation, a private philanthropy that forges new paths to promote health, racial equity, and racial justice in partnership with communities, organizations, and leaders. In that role, she was a catalyst for the foundation’s end-to-end operations, including accounting, technology, administrative, compliance, contracting, and financial reporting.

Previously, Ms. Koev was CFO for El Hogar Community Services—a nonprofit organization that provides mental health services to the diverse Sacramento community—where she streamlined the agency’s financial operations and created its strategic fiscal plan. She also served as CEO/CFO for Salt Lake City commercial construction company BEKO, growing the company to multimillion-dollar annual revenue and securing government commercial construction contracts as a certified WBE (Woman-owned and controlled Business Enterprise), and as Interim CFO for Big Texan, providing strategic leadership for its East Gateway construction development project and management of financial activities and departments.

Beatrix holds a Master in Business Administration from Louisiana Tech University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and Architecture from Prescott College of Arizona. In addition to English, she speaks Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Russian. 

Tony Leonard has worked at CivicWell since 1996 and currently serves as Project Manager in the Community Planning Program. During his time at CivicWell, Tony has worked on projects focusing on land use, transportation, waste management, and resource conservation issues. His experience includes the production and promotion of workshops and conferences and management of community planning projects.

Tony continues to manage public design charrettes and community image surveys—working in communities throughout California. His recent work focuses on developing community plans to address transportation, pedestrian safety, community design, bicycling and Safe Routes to School issues with outreach to lower income and minority communities. He has also managed various community design projects with tribal communities such as the Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, Pit River Tribe, Spokane Tribe of Indians, and Forest County Potawatomi Tribe.

Over the years, Tony has produced many successful workshops and conferences. From 2007-2016, Tony produced the annual Yosemite Conference for Local Elected Officials, which brought together local leaders from throughout California together with dynamic speakers to discuss cutting edge issues for building more livable communities.

In addition, Tony manages CivicWell’s information technology, developing various technical skills that have been employed in his other projects. These include website development, contact relationship management, and the use of online surveying, data gathering and engagement tools.

Mr. Leonard has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from the University of California, Davis.

Josh Meyer is Director of Community Design Programs at CivicWell. He joined the organization in 1997, following service as Yolo County Watershed Education Coordinator with AmeriCorps. Over the last decade he has directed numerous transportation corridor, downtown and rural community public design charrettes in California that included walkability assessments, focus meetings and collaborative workshops. He authored or co-authored many of the resulting plans. Josh has presented at national and state conferences, workshops and public hearings, taught at the UC Davis Extension program, and developed educational materials on form-based codes, pedestrian-friendly street design, compact development, green streets and infrastructure, and energy-efficient neighborhood design. He wrote a statewide guide for general plan energy policy, ran a program that worked with local governments and developers to redesign subdivision plans for increased energy, livability and land efficiency, and helped establish one of the first regional joint powers agencies in the state to spearhead energy efficiency, renewable resource development, and other sustainable energy efforts in the Ventura County region.

Mr. Meyer has a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from California State University, Long Beach. He received his Masters degree in American History from the University of California, Irvine, with a focus on politics and the history of urban development in California.

Michele Warren is the Chief Operating Officer and has been with CivicWell, formerly the Local Government Commission, since 1990. CivicWell is a nationally recognized nonprofit connecting local leaders, implementing innovative solutions, and advancing smart-growth policies.

In her tenure at CivicWell, Michele has been responsible for the management, planning,  and production of all major conferences, as well as the management of statewide and national projects that include conferences, workshops, seminars, and special events. Michele has been directly involved in the planning and production of over 140 regional, statewide and national conferences, workshops and trade shows, ranging in size from 25 to over 1,700 participants.

Michele has extensive experience in managing multi-year projects with substantial budgets, that include multiple funding sources, that have included the supervision of multiple staff, subcontractors, and vendors. Additionally, she has developed and implemented large-scale statewide and national outreach and promotional campaigns to support CivicWell projects and programs.

Michele is responsible for overseeing all organizational functions for a staff of over 45 and supports both the Executive Director and the Chief Financial Officer in overall organizational management.

Kelsey serves as Senior Project Manager for CivicWell’s Climate and Energy Team. In this role she manages the California Climate and Energy Collaborative (CCEC) as well as other climate and energy-related projects such as the California Adaptation Forum. Kelsey began work at
CivicWell as a Project Assistant in 2009 helping with the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference. She has a BA in Latin American Studies from CSU Chico. In her free time, Kelsey enjoys rafting, hiking, gardening, and spending time with her family.

Paul Zykofsky works as a Community Design Specialist for CivicWell. Mr. Zykofsky provides technical assistance to communities throughout the nation on issues related to Complete Streets, active transportation, pedestrian safety, Safe Routes to School, infill development, transit-oriented development, and public participation in the planning process.

Mr. Zykofsky is co-author of Building Livable Communities: A Policymaker’s Guide to Transit Oriented Development and Emergency Response: Traffic Calming and Traditional Neighborhood Streets. He has prepared over 20 Community Image Surveys that have been used to involve residents in visioning and planning efforts. In 2006, Mr. Zykofsky co-wrote (with Dan Burden of Walkable Communities) the section on “walkability” in the American Planning Association’s Planning and Urban Design Standards. He has also edited documents on infill development, street design, traffic calming, traffic safety, smart growth, form-based codes, smart economic develop­ment and community engagement in the planning process.

Mr. Zykofsky has extensive experience giving educational presentations to local elected officials, staff and community leaders. He was born and raised in Mexico, is fluent in Spanish and often gives presentations or facilitates workshops for Spanish-speaking residents. 

Mr. Zykofsky studied at Swarthmore College and obtained the degrees of Bachelor of Architecture, summa cum laude, and Master of Urban Planning (Urban Design) from the City College of New York.