Meet the Steering Committee
Designing a Program by and for Facility Professionals
The Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Steering Committee is composed of award-winning facility managers from schools and universities across the country. These on-the-ground leaders have helped create healthier and safer educational facilities for their communities and demonstrated a commitment to leading their peers and galvanizing the healthy-schools movement.
The members of the Steering Committee are thought leaders, using their practical knowledge and experience to advise Healthy Green Schools & Colleges to best serve the education facilities sector. In addition, committee members help influence industry suppliers and manufacturers to provide greener, healthier innovations for schools and universities.
Tony Almeida
Manager, Custodial Services, Elk Grove Unified School District, Elk Grove, California
Tony has over 30 years of experience in the custodial trades. He spent six years in the private sector and the last 24 years as part of the Elk Grove Unified School District, where he currently serves as manager for the Custodial Services Department. Tony oversees 75 buildings with more than 6.2 million square feet and 287 staff members. Tony and the EGUSD Maintenance & Operations Department were the first district in California to use on-site generation of electrochemically activated solutions. His department won the Green Cleaning Award for Schools and Universities 2017 Silver Award.
Mervin Brewer
Former Assistant Custodial Supervisor, Salt Lake City School District
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mervin (“Merv”) is the retired Assistant Custodial Supervisor for the Salt Lake City School District, where he worked in the custodial department for 42 years. While there, Merv helped to supervise SLSD’s internationally recognized Integrated Pest Management program and holds a current state-certified Pesticide Applicator license. Under his leadership, Salt Lake City School District earned an Honorable Mention for the Green Cleaning Award for Schools & Universities in 2011. Mervin is a past President of the Utah School Custodial Managers Association (USCMA), which is a coalition of custodial supervisors throughout the state of Utah collaborating and refining healthy cleaning methods in public schools. Mervin continues to serve on the Healthy Green schools & Colleges Steering Committee, as national liaison chairman of USCMA and hosts a YouTube channel dedicated to green cleaning in schools.
Mike Jones
Director of Custodial Services, Columbia Public Schools
Columbia, Missouri
Mike Jones has 30 years of experience in operations management. Today he oversees Columbia Public Schools’ custodial department, which is made up of 38 buildings with over 3.4 million square feet. He launched a district-wide “Green Initiative” in January 2009, based on the Missouri Green Cleaning Guidelines and Specifications for Schools. Under Mike’s leadership, the program has won two Green Cleaning Awards: 2010 Best New Program and 2011 Grand Award for School Districts.
Jodi KrauseAssistant Director Housekeeping, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Jodi has worked in the custodial and maintenance fields for more than 20 years. She has worked with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Housing since 1999. Within Housing, Jodi has managed both night shift staff and day shift staff, overseeing custodial and maintenance operations in 29 buildings. Jodi currently manages the custodial staff and supervisors in an area that includes nine residence halls and one independent dining hall. As an assistant director, Jodi manages the housekeeping budgets for housing and multiple areas of purchasing for the division. She has also served on various campus committees for purchasing. Jodi directs the UW-Madison Division of Housing Products, Equipment & Testing Committee, where she and her team research and test products and equipment for staff to use in the Halls. She has also been involved with her department’s sustainability programs for over 10 years. As a result of her vision and leadership, UW-Madison’s Division of Housing won the Green Cleaning Award for Schools and Universities 2013 Silver Award. As a UW-Madison graduate, Jodi is proud to give back to her alma mater.
Christopher K Raines
Director of Administrative Services, Cosumnes River Community College, Sacramento, California
Christopher Raines has spent the last 20 years in custodial/facilities maintenance, 16 of those in a leadership role. For the last four years, Chris has been at Cosumnes River Community College as the Director of Administrative Services. Chris oversees 23 buildings covering over 1 million square feet. In 2016, while at Folsom Lake Community College, Chris launched a department-wide reorder of cleaning methods with green cleaning as the main focus. Folsom Lake College received an honorable mention for best new program in 2017 Green Cleaning Award for Schools and Universities. Chris is currently putting in place a similar program at Cosumnes River College with the goal of helping the other two colleges in-side Los Rios Community College District to adopt sustainable cleaning practices.
Kimberly Thomas
Senior Director of Services, Facilities Management, University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Kimberly Thomas, Senior Director of Services, at the University of Georgia Facilities Management Division is responsible for Building Services, Fleet & Grounds, Sustainability, Warehouse Operations, and the Work Request Center. Prior to that, she spent six years as the Executive Director of Plant Operations at Clarke County School District (2011-2017) in charge of custodial operations, grounds, sustainability/recycling, the warehouse, and physical plant operations, winner of the Green Cleaning Award of Schools and Universities’ in 2015 and winner of an Honorable Mention Award in 2014. Her department also received recognition for its commitment to green cleaning and sustainability from the Healthy Schools Network, Environmental Protective Agency- Georgia state office, and US Green Building Council-Georgia division. Prior to her role at Clarke County, she was the Assistant Director of Services for the University of Georgia – Facilities Management Division, which won the Green Cleaning Award’s Grand Award in 2010 and numerous green cleaning and sustainability & recycling accolades from 2011-2007.
Aaron Uresti
Assistant Director of Custodial & Housekeeping Services, Facilities Services, University of California, Riverside, California
Aaron has 20 years of experience in the commercial cleaning industry and has worked in education facilities for the past 14 years. In his current role at UC Riverside, he is responsible for leading a department of over 150 employees that clean approximately 6 million square feet of building space daily using sustainable products and methods. Prior to his role at UC Riverside, Aaron was the senior superintendent of custodial services at the University of California, Irvine where his department won two Green Cleaning Awards for Schools and Universities: Best New Program in 2013 and Honorable Mention in 2015.
Keith Webb
Former Executive Director of Plant Services, Newport News Public Schools
Newport News, Virginia
In his role at Newport News Public Schools, Keith oversaw construction, renovation and operations of Newport News Public Schools’ 72 buildings. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he joined NNPS as Assistant Maintenance Supervisor, eventually rising to the position of Executive Director.
In 2011 his department earned the prestigious Facility Masters Award at the Platinum level from the National School Plant Managers Association in conjunction with the Virginia School Plant Managers Association. In 2012 Keith earned his Educational Facility Professional designation from APPA. In 2013 NNPS received the Green Cleaning Award for Schools and Universities’ Grand Award.
Gene Woodard
Director of the Building Services Department, University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
Gene Woodard has been part of the University of Washington in Seattle since 1985. He serves as UW Director of the Building Services Department (BSD), which oversees Custodial Services and UW Recycling. The UW was one of the first higher education institutions to use Integrated Cleaning and Measurement (ICM) to validate cleaning procedures within its facility. BSD was recognized by American School & University magazine and Healthy Schools Campaign for the Grand Green Cleaning Award in 2007 and 2014, as well as the Co-Grand award in 2010. Gene is a Master Registered Executive Housekeeper (MREH) and member of International Executive Housekeepers Association (IEHA), International Sanitary Supply Association (ISSA), and APPA: Leadership in Educational Facilities. He serves on the Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Steering Committee and is a speaker on custodial and leadership topics. Gene serves on the Advisory Board for Facility Cleaning Decisions magazine and is also a contributing writer for Executive Housekeeping Today and Facility Cleaning Decisions. He received the University of Washington David B. Thorud Leadership Award in 2020 and a University of Washington Husky Green Award in 2017. Gene served as IEHA President from 2000–2002 and received the William D. Joyner Achievement Award from IEHA in 2012.
Mark Bishop
Special Advisor to the Steering Committee
Mark Bishop has more than a decade of experience in advocating for healthy school environments. As vice-president of policy with Healthy Schools Campaign he developed training programs and tools for school stakeholders to advance health school environments. He was instrumental in the development of greencleanschools.org and has run professional development programs for school facility directors and school nurses. He has also successfully advocated for state-level policies around green cleaning, school health and chronic absenteeism.