2026 Santa Lucia Chapter Executive Committee Voting Instructions
All Sierra Club Santa Lucia Chapter Members, as of November 7, are eligible to vote for the Chapter Executive Committee (ExCom). This year there are four candidates for two positions. Voting closes at midnight on Monday, December 8.
To vote, you will need your 6 to 8-digit Member ID number. It is on the address label of the printed mini-newsletter you should have received in the mail, or on the label of your Sierra magazine. If you need help finding your Member ID, contact the Sierra Club membership office at member.care@sierraclub.org or 415-977-5653.
How to vote online (the preferred method)
You will need to access your Sierra Club MyAccount. If you haven’t set up MyAccount, go to myaccount.sierraclub.org. Once you set up MyAccount or if you already have MyAccount vote at sc.org/VoterPortal and log in to MyAccount from this page.
To vote by mail:
Use the ballot that was mailed to you in the mini-Santa Lucian and follow the instructions there.
If both mailed and online ballots are received with the same Member ID, only the online ballot will be counted.
The candidate photos and bios follow - they are presented in alphabetical order by last name.
Barb Babka
I was raised in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. Luckily for me, I spent an incredible amount of time outdoors either enjoying the Pacific Ocean or the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. I went on many long two-week backpacks at a formative age, 14–16. I met my husband Bill, who was from the Central Coast, surfing when I was 19 and a student at UCSB. I soon moved to the Central Coast and have considered it my home for 43 years.
I spent 37 years teaching at Judkins Middle School in Pismo Beach. There, as an English teacher, I tried to instill compassion and empathy in my students through reading and writing.
In 2020 I retired. The extra time has given me a chance to rededicate myself to helping the environment. The last five years have been very fulfilling, in part, because of the volunteer work I have chosen to do. Being part of the Santa Lucia Chapter as Secretary since 2020 and as an Executive Committee Member since 2023 has been a very positive experience. I have met a fantastic team of individuals who want to donate their talents to the greater good. Being part of this group enriches my life and gives me purpose.
I am running for ExCom because I want to continue to be a part of a group of people who want to make a difference and are committed to working together.
Judith Bernstein
My poetry, photography and essays (using the name Judith Amber) have been inspired by the natural world ever since the very first Earth Day in the 1970s. At that time, I joined the Sierra Club and was an active hiker and member of the East Bay Chapter. The Sierra Club has had a major impact on my life ever since. In the late 1980s, I won the Grand Prize in the national photography competition and after that took myself more seriously as a photographer. I then proposed a project to the national office that they accepted: offering framed, hand-printed photographs from the annual calendar for sale through the catalogue. And finally, in the early 2000s I was selected by the national Sierra Club to attend a conference in Washington, D.C on the challenges facing the world's ocean oceans and later wrote about it in several publications including our own newsletter.
When I moved from Oregon to Paso Robles in 2005, I joined the local Transition Towns group, part of an international movement where people come together to create local responses to the challenges of global warming, peak oil and economic instability, I was on the planning committee for our first local World Climate Action Day and wrote the press releases and PR material for the event that attracted over 175 people. I have been active on my Unitarian Universalist Church’s green team and climate action team. I was privileged to serve on the Club’s Executive Committee about ten years ago, having to leave because of a work conflict. I’d appreciate the chance to serve again.
I am running for the ExCom to stay active in the environmental community, especially as we face so many challenges locally (opposition to wind energy for example) and nationally.
Catuih Campos
My name is Catuih Campos, I grew up in SLO and had the privilege to have nature in my own backyard. After receiving my BA communications in social change, I made it my goal to advocate for our community members who are the most marginalized. My own lived experience has always been the driving force to why I continuously advocate and volunteer my time to the community of San Luis Obispo.
Having immigrant parents has really shaped the way I look at the world. It has made me understand how important public policy is to the most marginalized, like immigrants. It made me begin to care about our elected officials and is one of the reasons why I became an advocate.
Jack DePuy
I have a fair amount of professional experience in the field of environmentalism - I was the lead field office director for Environment California in Los Angeles & then Environment Oregon in Portland. I spent a year as a Sea Grant Fellow with the policy team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and worked on a now-published database & report ""California Environmental Justice Database"" (lead researcher Dr. Jessica Rudnick). I have a masters degree in marine biodiversity and conservation from Scripps Institution of Oceanography out of UC San Diego, and I am currently a co-chair for the DSA Ecosocialist working group in San Luis Obispo. I teach seaweed foraging classes, currently incorporated in the education component of the CHNMS implementation.
I also personally care deeply about the future and believe in building the future we want to see through our daily actions. I work at Cuesta College as the Interim Director of Student Engagement, overseeing Basic Needs, Student Life, and student government (ASCC). I have lived in San Luis Obispo for three years and just moved to Morro Bay to live on a boat.
I am running for the ExCom because I enjoy governance processes and think I'd be a valuable member of the team in supporting events, initiatives, and discussing chapter direction and future initiatives.