Board of Directors and Leadership
Riley Russell
Office Managing Partner of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
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Ocean Institute
Vipe Desai

Business Strategist & Philanthropist and Board Chairman

Vipe Desai is an award-winning executive and thought-leader who is known for having a sharp eye on the ever-changing consumer dynamics, trends, challenges, and opportunities that help make informed decisions in the boardroom.

With more than 30 years of marketing, branding, and leadership experience along with 20 years of governance serving on more than a dozen boards, Vipe has a proven track record for leading successful brand launches, organizational change, brand re-positioning, and strategic planning within the boardroom and a passion for inspiring, mobilizing, and empowering support for underserved communities.

Vipe is a dedicated and experienced leader in a host of sectors that spans retail, action sports, commercial real estate, food & beverage, and media.

Today, Vipe is focusing on ensuring that future generations are met with a healthy and thriving ocean and is involved with several ventures focused on innovations and solutions that will reduce plastic waste and minimize business’s impact on the planet.

Jeannine Smith, CFP®

Certified Financial Planner, Financial Advisor and Senior Vice President at Morgan Stanley in Irvine, California.

For more than 30 years she has dedicated her career to helping clients navigate their many concerns and ultimately simplify their financial lives so they can feel more confident about their future.

In 2004, she co-founded the MacArthur Group at Morgan Stanley with her business partner Jeff Main. Collaborating with their team of seasoned professionals they provide tailored solutions to help clients tackle their financial challenges. Jeannine finds deep satisfaction knowing that her care and efforts can make a positive difference in the lives and legacies of the families she serves. In 2022 she was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors: Best-In-State.

In addition to her dedication to Ocean Institute, Jeannine also serves on the Board of RxBallroom Dance, a non-profit organization whose mission is to use ballroom dance to enhance the quality of life for people confronting neurodegenerative conditions. Her favorite hobby is amateur ballroom dancing and despite a history of knee injuries that makes it more challenging, she loves it. She resides in Laguna Niguel, CA with her two grown sons living nearby.

Ken Petersen

Senior Vice President and Business Development Officer, First American Trust, FSB

An attorney by trade, Ken has been with First American Trust for the past twenty-three years, where he specializes in advising high-net-worth individuals and families on estate planning matters and crafting customized plans in the areas of investment management and wealth advisory/trust planning. Ken is part of the team that collaborates with families to help preserve, protect and grow their wealth with an emphasis on family, business and philanthropic priorities. He started his career as a business and real estate litigation associate attorney with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, LLP in Newport Beach, California. He subsequently served as legal counsel and as a real estate asset manager for Koll Management Services, a subsidiary of the Koll Company. Ken graduated Phi Beta Kappa/Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UCLA and earned his Juris Doctorate from UCLA’s School of Law. In 1989, he was admitted to the California State Bar, where he remains a member in good standing. Ken is involved as a member of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Section of the American Bar Association; The Elder Law and Trusts and Estates Sections of the Orange County Bar Association; The Orange County Estate Planning Council; The UCLA Planned Giving Forum; the Oceanic Friends of the of the Wrigley Institute / USC Marine Research Facility on Catalina Island and the Noble Vikings of Orange County. He is a past Chairman twice over of the Orange County Bar Association’s Trusts and Estates Section. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the World Affairs Council of Orange County; the Endowment Committee for the Surfrider Foundation; the Endowment Council for Chapman University; and Development Committee for the Ocean Institute, where he heads up its Professional Advisory Council, comprised of 175 local estate planning attorneys and fiduciary CPAs dedicated to supporting the organization’s mission of ocean research, education and conservation. Mr. Petersen has also served as a civilian volunteer for the Orange County Sheriff Department’s Professional Services Reserve Division – Search and Rescue Unit. In his free time, he enjoys surfing and stand-up paddling with his wife and walking Greta, their beloved Great Dane, around the Dana Point Harbor.

Brian Skelton

VP Relationship Manager, Citizens Business Bank

Brian is a Vice President Relationship Manager at Citizens Business Bank in the Newport Beach Office. He has over 30 years of experience providing banking services to middle market companies and high net worth individuals. His most recent experiences prior to joining Citizens Business Bank in 2022 include 5 years at Farmers & Merchants Bank as a Senior Vice President Regional Sales Manager for South Orange County and 12 Years at Union Bank starting as an Assistant Vice President Business Development Officer eventually promoted to Senior Vice President Region Manager for South Orange County.

Brian is currently serving on the board of the Orange County Risk Management Association and has previously served on the board for The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation OC and The Mardan School in Irvine, California.

Brian was born and raised in Orange County California, graduated from California State University Fullerton with a bachelor’s degree in 2000 and Graduated from Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington with a Masters in Banking in 2014. He grew up in Irvine, California and currently resides in Aliso Viejo, California.

Jill A Tracy

Director of Emergency Services; Southern California Gas Company

As the Director of Emergency Services for SoCalGas, the nation’s largest natural gas distribution company, Jill is responsible for leading emergency planning, training and response efforts for SoCalGas’ natural gas transmission, storage and distribution operations throughout Southern California. Jill has over 20 years of experience in various disciplines in the energy industry.

Prior to joining Sempra Energy in 2007, Jill was senior environmental counsel at Chevron and led the nationwide environmental litigation and enforcement program at Unocal following a career in private practice in California, New York and New Jersey as an environmental compliance, enforcement and litigation attorney.

Jill has a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Independent Studies from Vassar College and a Juris Doctorate from the University of New Hampshire School Of Law.

In her spare time, Jill enjoys cooking, trail running and spending time with her three sons.

Mel Chambers

Chambers Group Inc

Mr. Chambers received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University in 1972. Prior to forming Chambers Group, Inc. in 1978, he specialized as a Principal and co-Principal investigator at the Utah State Water Research Laboratory, Utah State University. He participated in the development and application of mathematical models for the water resource systems, planning, evaluation, and decision making. He has authored and co-authored several articles and reports on subjects including water resource system analysis, planning, evaluation, and decision making with an emphasis on comprehensive environmental management. In addition, he worked on the development of a conceptual and operational framework for the assessment of environmental impacts studies within the province of Alberta, Canada. He coordinated the development of a multi-disciplinary program of environmental research for the Alberta Oil Sand, developed Oil Spill Contingency Planning in the Beaufort Sea, and other environmental studies for energy and transportation projects.

He founded Chambers Group Inc. (CGI) in 1978. CGI is an environmental solution firm specializing in environmental, planning, impacts reports/statements, biological and cultural resources, marine biology, compliance, and construction monitoring and restoration. CGI is a solutions-oriented environmental consulting firm serving private businesses, industry, and government agencies throughout the western United States. The firm was formed to address environmental protection requirements set forth by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 (CEQA). For four decades, Chambers Group has been providing its clients with services in environmental compliance as well as natural and cultural resources management to keep projects moving forward through the environmental review process. In 2014 Chambers Group joined the growing contingent of Employee Stock Owned companies in the United States. Mr. Chambers remains Chairman of the Board.

In 1984 Mr. Chambers purchased City Concrete Products Inc, a small Southern California Ready Mix concrete company. He grew the company and sold it in 1995. He was Chairman of the Board for Southern California Rock Products and Ready-Mix Association and the National Ready-Mix Concrete Association. Mr. Chambers was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine’s special report as one of the 50 hottest Small Businesses in America for his implementation of W. Edwards Deming 14 Management Points. And has given presentations on how to accomplish transformation to a Deming-managed company.

Mr. Chambers has been involved with the Ocean Institute since 1989, has been a board member since 1991 and Chairman for 6 years in the early ’90s. He currently is Chair of the Facilities Committee.

He has stayed active with the Institute because he is excited about the unique hands-on immersion programming to teach children and feels few fields of study are more important to the future than science, technology, engineering, math, history, and the environment. Using the ocean, children are inspired to learn. He feels they have developed programs that get kids excited about science/history/environment and they take that excitement back to their families and schools.

Collie F. James IV

Office Managing Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Collie James is the Office Managing Partner of Morgan Lewis’ Orange County office and the Deputy Practice Group Leader of the firm’s Southern California litigation practice. He in an experienced trial attorney who focuses on complex business litigation matters, including mass tort, product liability, unfair business practices claims, and consumer class actions. Collie’s practice often involves high-profile crisis management matters, and he regularly counsels clients on a broad array of issues that significantly impact their businesses.

Collie is also committed to community and philanthropic interests. He is the co-founder and treasurer of the Maddie James Foundation, established in honor of the memory of his five-year-old daughter and which assisted in funding the building of the seaside learning center bearing her name at the Ocean Institute. He also previously served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jessie Rees Foundation, which supports children and their families around the world who are facing pediatric cancer, and on the Governance Committee of the local chapter of Make-A-Wish. He is a past president of the Orange County Bar Foundation and board member of the Federal Bar Association and directs a local legal aid clinic.

A native of Texas, Collie earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Dartmouth College and graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law before moving to California to begin his professional career. He lives near the Ocean Institute in Capistrano Beach with his wife Monica and their two sons, Collie V and Beckett.

Lynda Zadra-Symes

Partner, Knobbe Martens

Lynda is a litigation partner with the firm, where she has practiced for over 32 years. Lynda is co-chair of the firm’s trademark and copyright litigation practice groups. She represents clients through all stages of U.S. litigation, from pre-suits through trial and appeal, in federal courts throughout the country, the ITC and before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Her practice involves all types of intellectual property, including patents, trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, false advertising, unfair competition, and rights of publicity. She also advises on issues relating to customs and anti-counterfeiting, international trademarks and copyrights, advertising, social media, competition and passing off. Lynda works with clients in numerous industries, including food & beverage, fashion and beauty, medical device and healthcare, software and hardware, financial and professional services, sports and entertainment.

Lynda has received multiple awards and has been honored in both national and international forums for her legal accomplishments. For her work in IP litigation, she has been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® for six consecutive years (2017 – 2023), as well as being included in eight separate editions of Super Lawyersmagazine. In 2019, Lynda was named as one of the world’s leading patent lawyers in the “Who’s Who Legal: Patents” list by Law Business Research. She has been recognized by The Legal 500 “United States” for Trademarks: Litigation (2020 – 2021), by Legal Media Group’s (LMG) “Best of the Best USA” guide as one of the top 30 trademark practitioners in the U.S., and by the World Trademark Review (WTR) 1000 as a “Leading Trademark Lawyer,” describing her as a skilled litigator through all phases of litigation with the ability to take on any IP case – a “backbone of the litigation practice.” Lynda has repeatedly been named in Legal Media Group’s “Women in Business Law” guide, recognized as a Trademark Star in Managing IP’s “IP STARS” guide for her outstanding intellectual property legal work, and nominated by in-house counsel and her peers around the world to appear in Euromoney Legal Media Group’s Guide to the World’s Leading Trademark Law Practitioners. She has also been listed in the Expert Guides as one of the “World’s Leading Advisors Chosen by their Peers” for Trademarks and recognized in Lawyer Monthly magazine’s “2015 Women in Law Awards” for her outstanding achievements in the legal profession.

Lynda is also a Domain Name Dispute Panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and a founding Board Member of RX Ballroom Dance, which provides free dance classes to persons suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions. She is also a Board Member of the Ocean Institute, Dana Point.