MEET OUR TEAM
Jessica Carroll, Program Director
Jessica grew up in the Roseland community of Santa Rosa. After graduating from UC Davis she started her career in non-profits working with youth and young adults in the foster care system, suicide prevention programs, and mental health treatment. After 12 years away, Jessica returned to Sonoma County and immediately reached out to Positive Images knowing that she had the skills, knowledge, and experience to serve the unique needs of the local LGBTQ+ youth community. With positivity, warmth, and excitement Jessica hopes to create space at Positive Images (and the greater Sonoma County) where LGBTQ+ youth are accepted, respected, valued, and loved. Outside of PI, you can usually find Jessica (and Puppy Frank) on the rugby field!
Maxwell Anderson- Outreach Coordinator
Maxwell Anderson (they/them or he/him) is a Social Justice major at Santa Rosa Junior College. Their work with Positive Images’ Youth Leadership Development Program has allowed Max to support and guide other queer and trans youth through the mental health struggles the LGBTQ+ community so often faces. They strive to be the leader and advocate they wish they had when they were young. Their goal is to leave the world a safer and more just place for their community, and all other marginalized people, to exist in.
Chelsea Rose Kurnick- Chair
Chelsea Rose Kurnick (she/her) is a queer bisexual cis woman from southern California and has lived in Sonoma County since October 2017. She joined the board of Positive Images after volunteering with the organization for about a year. With Jessica Carroll, she co-founded and facilitates the weekly Friday evening 20s/30s LGBTQ+ peer support group. Chelsea knew Sonoma County well before moving, as she has worked in the wine industry for nearly 12 years. She spent more than three years doing public relations and digital marketing for a variety of Sonoma County tourism businesses and organizations. Chelsea is passionate about event planning. She has produced and hosted several events in Sonoma County that centered queer and trans Bay Area artists.
Christian Sullberg – Vice Chair
A long time resident of Sonoma County, born in Healdsburg, California, Christian opened his first pastry cafe Moustache Baked Goods at the age of twenty two in the historic Healdsburg, Plaza. Christian is Chief of Operations for Noble Folk Inc. & Co Founder Owner of Noble Folk Ice Cream & Pie.
Selected as one of the Bay Area’s Top 25 LGBTQ Businesses to work for in the Bay Area.
Fellow of the Victory Institute’s Next Gen Initiative with Coca Cola 2017.
Christian’s passions and skill sets include: youth leadership development, mentorship, community advocacy, fundraising, organizational planning, community partnerships.
He is deeply passionate about creating space & advocacy for those most vulnerable in our LGBTQ+ population specifically, those in our trans community of Sonoma County, California.
Javier Cabrera-Rosales – Treasurer
Javier is a native San Franciscan, born and raised in the Mission. He has over 8 years of experience working within the non-profit sector. Previously the Director of Positive Images. In 2015 he graduated from Sonoma State University with a BA in psychology. A few of his skills are program development, community/event organizing, and using love to balance the hate in our communities. Some of his passions are: social justice through dance and spoken word, connecting with and nurturing mother nature, and providing space for others to be who they truly are.
Orlando O’Shea – Board Member
Orlando Kai O’Shea is a transmasculine individual living in Sonoma County. A California native, he was born and raised in Los Angeles where he worked as a veterinary assistant and studied Marine Biology before he moved to Northern California twenty years ago. He has two teenagers on the autism spectrum, and has a history of activism in the homeless community as well as with individuals with autism and mental health issues. He is a long time volunteer at Trans Lifeline, a crisis line for the transgender community, where he supervises a team of operators, and takes crisis calls on the line. He also works as a volunteer coordinator for the TransLife conference, a yearly conference in Sonoma County for the transgender community. He runs and LGBT social group and a transgender support group, as well as an LGBT meditation group. He is interested in mindfulness, Non Violent Communication, Heart Math, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and attends a local Zen Buddhist center .
Alisse Cottle – Board Member
If you’re not familiar with Brew Coffee and Beer House, its an establishment in downtown Santa Rosa (on Healdsburg Ave, with the city-approved rainbow flag painted on the street out front), open every day from morning through night. There’s a breakfast rush, a lunch crowd, folks who use the outdoor seating, large meeting tables, and big comfy couches as a work space throughout the day, and in the evening the daily happy hour(s!), and special events (open mic nights, games tournaments, watch parties, Drag Bingo, local artist meet-ups, etc.) bring people together as well. Because they’re not a “bar” all ages are welcomed. Brew is also central to local LGBTQ+ advocacy, as well as being a meeting spot for folks to make signs for protest marches for other human rights/environmental movements, etc.
In June 2018, when Alisse was honored at The Schoolbox Project’s Community Role Model Fashion Show and Awards Dinner, the event brochure called Brew “…a sacred place for community to gather, connect and grow – a place that celebrates togetherness and a safe space that the LGBTQ community can meet, support and inspire one another. Alisse uses her love of coffee to teach, guide, and share, ultimately building the type of relationships that sustain a community.”
Lisa Consani – Board Member
Lisa, a technical writer by trade, brings her experience as a mother and staunch advocate for transgender children to the Board at Positive Images. Lisa’s advocacy work with the transgender community has included participating in the planning of the first and second TransLife Sonoma County conference in Santa Rosa, networking with other community activists, forming the first online local support group on Facebook for parents and caregivers of trans and non-binary kids, blogging her experience of raising a transgender child, and helping the world at large understand what true gifts our trans and non-binary children truly are.