Staff & Founders | Partners | Board Members | Advisory Board Members

Staff & Founders

Cheri Sugal. Executive Director. Cheri Sugal has worked in more than 25 countries with indigenous people, governments and local landowners, helping to create more than 100 million acres of new protected areas world-wide. In 2001, she helped create the one-hundred-million dollar Global Conservation Fund with funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, for Conservation International in Washington, DC. In 2002, she became Executive Director of World Parks (www.worldparks.org), a non-profit brokering conservation deals with private landowners in areas identified as the last remaining habitats for the world's most critically endangered species (www.zeroextinction.org). In addition to serving as Executive Director of Rainforest2Reef, Cheri is also currently an advisor to the Natural World Museum (www.naturalworldmuseum.org), the first museum in the world dedicated to educating the public about conservation.

Alberto Szekely. Legal Counsel. Alberto is one of the most renowned experts in environmental law in Mexico. He ensures the legality and the long-term security of the land conservation easements negotiated with local community landowners. Dr. Szekely's outstanding record includes the implementation of several major reserves in Mexico including the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, the legal defense of the gray whale sanctuaries in the state of Baja California, and international agreements for the conservation of natural resources. He is an honorary member of the United Nations and represents Mexico on water use negotiations with the United States.

Heliot Zarza. Program Manager. Heliot studied Biology at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His research has focused on management and conservation of mammals; specifically in the application of GIS and spatial analyses to environmental problem solving in terrestrial research and wildlife management. He has conducted research in southern Mexico, mainly in the tropical forests of Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. For his Master’s thesis, Heliot worked on a Mexican jaguar project. His research determined the habitat use of jaguars in human-dominated landscape and modeled the suitability of habitat for this species in the Mayan forest in the southern Yucatan Peninsula. Currently, he is collaborating with Dr. Gerardo Ceballos in several research projects including a jaguar project in Calakmul.

Marisa Lopez. Development Director. Marisa has been working with environmental non-profits and resource management agencies for over ten years. She received her Masters Degree in Marine Education and Conservation from Prescott College in 2003. During graduate school she studied natural resource management throughout the Gulf of California, focusing her studies on marine conservation in Bahia de Kino, a small fishing town in Sonora, Mexico. She also researched the design, implementation, and success of the Alto Golfo (Upper Gulf) Biosphere Reserve while acting as a visiting researcher at the Center for Desert and Ocean Studies in Puerto Penasco, Senora, Mexico and made recommendations to the Channel Islands National Park, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and National Marine Protected Areas Center based on her thesis research. Recently she has consulted for a number of environmental groups, including The Natural World Museum, the Sierra Watershed Education Partnership, and the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association. Marisa has a passion for observing wildlife while experiencing adventures, and has led eco-tours in the Eastern Caribbean, the Amazon, the Galapagos Islands, and throughout California.

Dr. Gerardo Ceballos, Chief Biologist and Founder. Gerardo is one of the foremost ecologists and conservationists in Mexico. His outstanding career includes work in population and community ecology, biogeography, macroecology, and management, and conservation of vertebrates. He has published 80 scientific and popular papers and 15 books on endangered species, wildlife management, and reserve design. He is the Director of the Wildlife Department at the Institute of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a member of the National Council for Protected Areas.

David Leventhal. Founder and Board President. David is currently Principal of Playa Viva LLC. Playa Viva is a eco-resort located 30-minutes South of Zihuatanejo, Mexico (www.PlayaViva.com). Playa Viva is based on the success of David and his wife Sandra's eco-B&B, Casa Viva Troncones (www.CasaVivaTroncones.com), located 30-minutes North of Zihuatanejo. Previous to Playa Viva, David was co-founder of Dexterra, Inc. a venture funded mobile enterprise software company based in Seattle, WA. His background is in Sales and Marketing in both software and media companies having worked with such firms as Buzzsaw.com, Autodesk, Home Box Office and Whittle Communication. As a co-founder of Rainforest2Reef, David set up the organizational infrastructure and much of its innovative use of technology including its use of SalesForce.com as its ASP CRM solution to acquire and manage its members via a virtual and distributed organization. Additionally, he raised the initial funding and established its organizational structure. David lives in San Mateo, California with his wife Sandra and two children.

Dr. Sandra Kahn. Founder. Sandra was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico and graduated with honors from the Autonomous University of Mexico. In 1993 Dr. Kahn received her Masters Degree in Orthodontics from the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. David and Sandra provided instrumental seed funding to initiate the project and raise funds on a continual basis in order to sustain the long-term viability of the Calakmul land trust. Today Sandra is involved in the Rainforest2Reef partner, Women Planting Trees (www.womenplantingtrees.org). She runs two orthodontic practices in the Bay Area and is mother to two young kids. David and Sandra are also active in the oldest Jewish-Palestinian dialog group in the United States. Sandra’s main interest is in community development all over Mexico with her main focus being organic agriculture and reforestation work with
women and children.

Ximena de la Macorra. Associate. Ximena studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and has a very impressive résumé related to conservation: She has opened Sierra Madre stores (specializing in environmentally and socially-responsible products) in four beach resorts in Mexico; organized the First Unidos para la Conservación Photography of Mexico Contest along with World Wildlife Fund, Agrupación Sierra Madre and The Body Shop; founded and presently directs the National Association of Natural Private Reserves (of Mexico), ARENA; works as director of international cooperation of the Mexico-Guatemala-Belize Calakmul-Peten alliance; and collaborates with Dr. Gerardo Ceballos in several projects concerning the Calakmul rainforest.