(As of November 2025)
President: Ann Harlow served as Berkeley Historical Society president from April 2017 to September 2019, Secretary September 2019 to April 2022, and then president again. She has also been the editor of the newsletter, publicist, and co-webmaster. Ann is a retired museum professional and independent scholar, now specializing in Bay Area art and culture from 1850 to 1950. She curated the BHSM exhibit on “real and imagined art museums and galleries in Berkeley” and coordinated Berkeley’s Fascination with Food and Eco-Berkeley. She has lived in Berkeley or Kensington since 1974.
First Vice President: Judith (Judy) Ziajka joined the board in 2024 and serves as editor of the newsletter, drawing upon her long career as a book editor. She came to Berkeley in 1982 to become editor-in-chief of Osborne/McGraw-Hill, a pioneering publisher of books about the then-new personal computer. She learned firsthand about Berkeley’s many resources for historical research by tracing the story of her house and its land from its Native inhabitants to the present. She is the current editor of the BHSM quarterly newsletter and serves on various committees.
Second Vice President: Charles (Chuck) Wollenberg joined the Board in 2019 and serves on the Program and Publications Committees and the planning teams for several exhibits. He is a former history instructor and social science chair at Berkeley City College and convener of the California Studies Seminar at UC Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. from UCB and has served as an exhibit consultant at the Oakland Museum. He’s the author of several works, including Berkeley: A City in History and Rebel Lawyer: Wayne Collins and the Defense of Japanese American Rights.
Secretary: Mitchell (Mitch) Fleischer joined the Board in 2024. He is on the Program Committee and works on the archives, as well as serving as a docent. Mitch moved to Berkeley in 2022 from Michigan, where he received a PhD in Urban History from Wayne State University in Detroit. He has also been an organizational psychologist doing research and consulting on the introduction of innovations in industry and government.
Membership Secretary: Candice Schott became our membership secretary in 2023 and has enhanced the database to include membership and donation history. She had managed FileMaker databases for the UC Botanical Garden, including membership, rentals, volunteers, etc. Candice retired in 2015 from an administrative position with the City of Berkeley. She has family roots dating back to the 1870s in San Francisco. She has lived in the Bay Area since 1973 and in Berkeley since 1988.
Treasurer: Patrick O’Leary joined the Board in 2024, enabling John Hammond to retire as treasurer. He has deep Berkeley roots: His father’s parents located here from County Cork, Ireland, in the 1920s. He attended St. Joseph Elementary School, St. Mary’s College High School, and UC Berkeley. He retired from a career as a senior finance and accounting executive for several nonprofit organizations.
John Aronovici is the History Center manager and has served on the Board since 2000. A fourth-generation Berkeleyan, John’s relatives arrived in Berkeley before 1900. A grandmother was the first woman dentist in Berkeley, a grandfather was the city-planning consultant to Berkeley in the 1920s, and a cousin played the Campanile bells for 39 years. John has held a number of positions on the Board including secretary, vice president and co-president. He lends his graphic design talents and technical know-how to exhibits, newsletters, and other publications.
Jeanine Castello-Lin served as co-president of Berkeley Historical Society from 2013 to 2017 and as a vice president until 2025. She co-chairs the Program Committee and the Oral History Committee. A third-generation Berkeleyan, she holds BAs in History and English from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley. With Tonya Staros, Jeanine co-authored an oral history of the International House after WWII and two other books. She co-curated the exhibit Early Days of Dance in the East Bay and has worked on several other exhibits.
Thomas (Tom) Edwards joined the Society in 1995 and the Board in 1999, was elected first vice president in 2001, and served as president from 2003 to 2005. He was chair of the Walking Tour Committee from 2000 until 2003, and continues to serve on that committee, as well as the House and Finance Committees. Tom is retired from a career in finance.
Edward (Ed) Herny is a founding board member, having been here at the beginning of the Society in 1978. He has been a partner in the creation of several exhibits, including Soundtrack to the 60s, and co-authored the Berkeley Bohemia book. He is an archivist, historian, and ephemerist. He enjoys uncovering unusual bits of Berkeley ephemera and donating them to the Berkeley Historical Society Archive. He serves on the Archives and Program Committees.
Linda Keilch arrived in Berkeley in 1969 to visit a friend attending Cal. She loved the town and graduated from UCB after meeting her future husband, the late Patrick Keilch, who as Berkeley’s deputy director of public works did many good deeds for the city including finding a home for Berkeley Historical Society. Linda taught school, worked at UCB, and was a real estate agent. She served as BHS president from 2001 to 2003, has docented for years, and rejoined the Board in 2023.
Arlene Makita-Acuña is a third-generation Berkeleyan, born after her parents returned from incarceration in Colorado during WWII. A credentialed K-8 teacher, she was a multicultural specialist for San Francisco public schools, an ESL teacher for East Bay refugees from Southeast Asia, and co-founder of East Bay Homeschoolers—followed by a 20-year career in real estate. She helped curate the 2024-2025 BHSM exhibit on Japanese Americans in Berkeley.
George O. Petty has served as a member of the Board since 2018, and in the past as secretary, membership secretary, and president. He has been a resident of Berkeley since 1947 and is a graduate solely from Berkeley public schools, from Thousand Oaks Grammar School through the University of California School of Law. He has retired from a career in corporate law.
Katherine (Kate) Pixley is a docent, an archives volunteer, and our A/V specialist. Originally from the Midwest, she moved to the East Bay in 2023 and quickly fell in love with the rich history and culture of Berkeley. She oversees communications activities for an economic justice-focused non-profit and is pursuing a master’s degree in library science from the University of Washington.
William (Bill) Roberts is a past BHS president and is currently our chief archivist, after a distinguished career as university archivist at UC Berkeley. He is on duty on Fridays and puts in many other hours working with acquisitions to our collection, training and supervising archives volunteers, and helping researchers find the information they need.
Michael Several joined the board in 2022. He graduated from UC Berkeley one year before the Free Speech Movement. After decades in Southern California, where he was very involved in local history, he returned to Berkeley in 2020. He is a member of the Walking Tour Committee, the Program Committee, and the Oral History Committee and helps curate exhibits. He developed the “Here Lived” database of incarcerated Japanese Americans featured in the Roots, Removal and Resistance exhibit.
Gary Tominaga joined the board in 2025 after serving on the curatorial team that developed the Japanese American exhibit. He is part of the Tominaga family that has lived in Berkeley for five generations, born after his parents returned from incarceration in Utah and Arizona during WWII. He attended Franklin Elementary School, Garfield Junior High, Berkeley High West Campus, Berkeley High and UC Berkeley. He has retired from a career in external/internal auditing and accounting.