About Us
About Us
Appropriate Technology offers us a way to acknowledge and integrate our values into the way we use our tools. It reflects a concern for enhancing our skills and self-reliance, in utilizing our local resources to create employment within our communities, and in using available resources in a conserving and sustainable manner.
Sam Sadler
Who We Are
Community Network
The work assembled and organized on this site was made possible by the Community Network for Appropriate Technologies (The Community Network) with funding provided by our funders and supporters. The Community Network is a 501(c )3 nonprofit tax-exempt educational and charitable organization serving the greater Sonoma County region since 1978. We work primarily as public interest planners, consumer advocates, and community educators with special emphasis on self-help. In the process of our work we routinely produce works in print, audio and video. Susan Keller, M.A., M.L.I.S, was a founding member of the Community Network and has served as Executive Director/Principal Planner since its founding.
Community Network Journey Project
Journey to Life’s End: A Traveler’s Guide is an example of work that we have produced and publish. The Journey Project launched by the Community Network in the early 1990s inspired and assisted with this work. The Journey Project was conceived in response to the absence of palliative care and community-based long-term care for the frail elderly and dying.
The Traveler’s Guide and related community workshops came about as the results of scores of volunteers doing work needed to bring all this to life. This tradition of volunteer support carries on as a diverse coalition of agencies and individuals help guide and support work we’ve been doing since the mid-1990s dedicated to improving end of life care.
Advisory Council and Work Groups
The Latino Program Development Team provides assistance working to develop educational materials and opportunities in Spanish language. Additionally, they advise us on issues concerning outreach and inclusion of other diverse cultures in our region.
A diverse coalition of professionals dedicated to improving end of life care helps guide and assist with all related work including the Sonoma County POLST Implementation Program operated by the Community Network. A Physician Education Work Group comprised of several palliative care and hospice physicians helps ongoing with physician education efforts. A Community Education Work Group is focused on strategies for reaching the elderly and their caregivers.
Staff and Volunteers
- Susan Keller provides professional staff support to all these endeavors as the Community Network Executive Director/Principal Planner and author of Journey to Life’s End: A Traveler’s Guide.
- Teresa Fernandez, Ortensia Angotti, and Sara Lavayen serve as Co-Directors for Latino Program Development.
- Gloria Potter, artist in residence with the Community Network since its founding, provides artwork for the Journey Project.
- Bo Laurent, Website Consultant, is a partner with Mathias Consulting and works with nonprofits to develop data-driven Web 2.0 websites and on-line fundraising efforts.
- Volunteers assist with all our work on an ongoing basis.
Board of Directors
All we do is made possible thanks to a wonderful supportive Board of Directors comprised of individuals helping each step of the way. Please visit the Community Network home page on this site for complete information about the Community Network for Appropriate Technologies Board and staff. The Community Network is the parent nonprofit for the Journey Project and the Sonoma County POLST Implementation Program.
