County Champions are volunteers who represent Special Operations in their local communities. To contact a specific individual, please email
WE WANT A SOCIETY WHERE ALL CHILDREN ARE SAFE.
WE WANT A SOCIETY WHERE THE COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IS ERADICTED BECAUSE
Founder and Executive Director of the Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition (BAATC.org) and Airport Initiative bringing human trafficking identification training to thousands, Betty Ann has been a prominent leader and speaker in community-based strategies to fight human trafficking for over 18 years. Starting her career as a Director at International Justice Mission after earning a Masters degree from Stanford University in International Policy Studies/Conflict Resolution, she has focused her career on being an anti-trafficking thought leader, and is known for her collaborative work with over 100 anti-trafficking organizations and government agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world.
Susan oversees Finance, Human Resources and Technology for Special Operations. She has over thirty years experience in Corporate Accounting and Finance, including twelve years at Northern Trust Company of CT as Vice President of Finance and Administration and seven years at a Silicon Valley start-up as Controller and Finance Director
Scott Vermeer is an experienced law enforcement officer and public safety executive. His investigative expertise includes crimes against children including recognition for cases including juvenile victims of homicides, kidnapping for ransom and sexual assault and exploitation.
He served as the Police Chief in Menlo Park, CA and later as the Police Chief and Assistant City Manager for Public Safety for the City of Mountain View, CA. The Director of the FBI has recognized him for his work in combatting international terrorism and Scott is also the recipient of the United States Secret Service Director’s Honor Award. He has been deeply committed to issues related to children at risk for many years.
He was the President of the Mountain View Police Activities League. He was awarded the John W. Gardner Building Community award by the Los Altos Community Foundation and the Champion for Youth award by the Mountain View/Los Altos Challenge Team. He and his wife served as an emergency foster care family for the County of Santa Clara. He holds both a bachelors and masters degree from Saint Mary’s College of California and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
Isabelle is passionate about protecting children and providing opportunities to victims of abuse to transform their lives. In 2011, Isabelle pivoted from her business career to work more closely with organizations focused on protecting the most vulnerable in society. She has served as the Director of Strategic Partnerships for International Justice Mission, as Philanthropy Advisor with Geneva Global, and VP of Philanthropy for Opportunity International where she still serves as Senior Advisor. Isabelle has been on the Board of a local pregnancy resource center and has volunteered with foster children as a court-appointed social advocate (CASA).
Isabelle’s twenty-year corporate career began in Africa in 1992 and has spanned three continents and multiple industries including Unilever, Credit Suisse and DHL Worldwide Express. Named in the “Top 10 most High Potential in DHL Management”, Isabelle was the youngest person to be named as Vice President of the company. Isabelle is a Chartered Management Accountant with degrees in Business and Finance from the University of Natal, Durban. She has earned certificates in Executive Leadership from INSEAD in Singapore, and in Philanthropy from the Harvard Business School Executive Education program.
Katie founded a technology company which she sold to a publicly traded company in 2000. Prior to that, she was part of a start-up team that developed software for the NeXT Computer and has also worked as a consultant to Netscape. Katie has over 25 years experience in building organizations, marketing, consumer products, and technology. She graduated cum laude with honors in economics from Vanderbilt University and has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Ms. Rick is a Partner in the Palo Alto law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation, where her practice focuses on corporate and securities transactions with particular emphasis on technology companies. In addition, Ms. Rick advices pro bono clients on corporate governance matters and compliance.
She holds a J.D. from Boston University and a B.A. degree in Political Science and Psychology from Calvin College. Ms. Rick helps SOS with its corporate filings, contract negotiation and governance matters on a pro bono basis. As a Board member, Ms. Rick is involved in fundraising and communications efforts for SOS.
Sharmin Bock is a 30 year veteran prosecutor, and a nationally recognized expert in human trafficking, with a long and successful track record for rescuing commercially sexually exploited children and holding traffickers accountable.
In 2005, Bock helped create the first of its kind in the country Human Exploitation and Trafficking (HEAT) Unit, dedicated to prosecuting traffickers and rescuing victims.
Bock currently serves as HEAT Unit Team Leader, and oversees the HEAT Response for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. Bock was recognized for her achievement as the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Fay Stender Award, given by the California Women Lawyers, to the woman attorney in the State of California “who has demonstrated her commitment to under-represented or disadvantaged people…serves as a role model for women attorneys and has demonstrated the ability to affect change, using her zest, humanity, personal courage, and forceful presence to serve others.” In March 2010, the California State Legislature honored Bock as Woman of the Year.
Bock has educated and influenced state and federal law enforcement, advocates, policy makers, and funders, across the country, about the crime and impact of child sex trafficking. Legislators in Georgia and Hawaii, as well as in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, have invited Bock to testify to help improve laws nationwide. Most recently, and with far reaching consequence, Bock co-authored Proposition 35, an initiative on California’s November 2012 Ballot, which passed by a landslide margin and gave California the toughest anti-human trafficking law in the country.
Steve Wagstaffe grew up in Menlo Park and is a lifelong resident of San Mateo County. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana in 1974 and his Law Degree at the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977.
Steve was hired as a Deputy District Attorney in 1977 and has been with the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office for over 40 years. He was promoted to Assistant District Attorney in 1986. In 1991, he was appointed Chief Deputy District Attorney and served in this role for 19 years. In 2010, he was elected San Mateo County District Attorney and took office in January, 2011. Steve is the immediate past president of the California District Attorneys Association and continues to serve on its Board of Directors.
Lyn first became aware of modern-day slavery and sex trafficking in the early 2000’s through IJM’s work in developing countries.
After learning of the prevalence in her own backyard in California, Lyn also became aware of the lack of attention on boys. Even though the resources to rescue and care for girls is much too little, the attention on boys is almost non-existent. Lyn has been working for a decade to draw attention to the plight of sex-trafficked boys, and has been met with one obstacle after another, including efforts to open a safe house for boys, and a film on the topic, ‘Boys Documentary’ (https://vimeo.com/227317058) which abruptly got canceled just before its debut.
Lyn is excited to partner with Special Operations who are equally committed to finding trafficked boys as well as girls and to help them recapture their childhoods. Lyn has degrees from the University of Colorado and is a property developer.
Blair Maus is a Special Operations’ Board Member and works as a volunteer on the team, coordinating our aftercare efforts and serving as the co-program manager for our County Champion program. Blair earned her MBA from Kellogg in 1998. In 2021, she graduated from the Colson Fellowship program – an intensive training in Biblical Worldview and became a Colson Fellow. Blair has been involved with foster care for two decades which is where she first learned about sex trafficking in America. She is especially passionate about raising awareness of the sex trafficking of boys and mobilizing the Church to join the front lines of this battle.
Tony Brass has practiced criminal law in the San Francisco Bay Area for 19 years. He was an Assistant District Attorney in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office for 10 years, most of which he spent prosecuting gang violence and homicide. He was also an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California, prosecuting organized crime. Today he runs his own criminal defense law practice, representing clients all over the bay area.
John Hallman has worked in law enforcement for over twenty-seven years and has extensive experience investigating gang activity, child exploitation and human trafficking in Northern California. John has over one thousand hours of training in digital forensics and is a certified examiner. He was a member of the Northern California Computer Crime Taskforce (NC3TF) investigating cases throughout Northern California. John has been a field training officer, a special weapons and tactics member, and a supervisor for the “Active Shooter” training program.
John received the “Officer of the Year” award from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the “Outstanding Public Safety Person” award from the Napa Valley Community. John received a US Congressional Special Recognition and a California State Legislative Resolution for outstanding work in law enforcement. John is passionate about helping first responders serve their community at their best. He created a peer support program for his agency that is still active today. John and his wife offer pre-marital counseling in their spare time and are active in various ministries supporting veterans, vulnerable children, and the local homeless population.
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Vic Lacey serves as an Advisor and Special Projects Program Manager for Special Operations. He has extensive law enforcement experience investigating and solving crimes and managing teams of investigators. Over the years he has become a specialist in solving trafficking crimes against children. Vic spent six years with the United State Marine Corps and twenty-two years in law enforcement in California, where he also served as a Special Agent Supervisor with the California Department of Justice leading teams of local, state and federal drug task forces investigating drug trafficking along the border. Vic has also been sworn into the FBI where he conducted police corruption investigations.
In 2008, Vic joined International Justice Mission as the Director of Investigations based in Kolkata, India, where his team led the rescue of 163 trafficked children. During his ten years with IJM, Vic personally assisted with investigations in dozens of countries around the world, including Ghana, El Salvador, Romania and the Dominican Republic. In 2017, Vic and his wife returned to California to be closer to their grandchildren, and to serve once again with state law enforcement. As a detective, he was responsible for conducting domestic human trafficking investigations within the state of California. Vic joined Special Operations in 2021.
Shyla Hendrickson recently joined the Advisory Board of Special Operations. Additionally, Shyla is on the private equity real estate team of Hillspire, LLC. Shyla has over twenty-five years of professional experience in finance, accounting, legal, investments, start-up companies, boards of directors, and management. Prior to joining Hillspire, Shyla spent over fifteen years at Pelican Advisors, LLC a San Francisco based family office where she was the chief investment officer and general counsel. Prior to Pelican Advisors, Shyla was general counsel of Partner Fund Management, LP a long-short public equities hedge fund. Shyla has also held positions with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP and Ernst & Young LLP. Shyla is admitted to the Bar of the State of California and was licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California. Shyla received her bachelor’s of business administration from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Shyla is on the Board of Directors of the Plumpjack Foundation and regularly volunteers at her kids’ schools and in the community.
Marlene serves as Special Operations’ Marin County Champion, and Special Projects Program Manager.
Marlene also serves on the Board of the Marin County Coalition to End Human Trafficking and is a member of their Law Enforcement Committee. She has served on the Education and Public Awareness Committee, presenting educational programs to local colleges, local transit personnel, hotels and community groups, churches, and other groups on the signs of trafficking.
Marlene is also the Founder and Executive Director of SpeakSAFE: Save Adolescents from Exploitation that aims to fund and implement a collaborative approach to provide preventative education on human trafficking and exploitation of youth in the Bay Area.
As the Marin County PROTECT Liaison and Trained Licensee, Marlene, in partnership with the Marin County Office of Education, trains teachers and all school staff on Human Trafficking and Exploitation prevention education so that they may educate their students on this vital topic.
Marlene’s background as a Court Reporter in San Francisco Superior Court, Criminal Division, working in extremely high-profile cases, is a foundational component of her focus on the rights of victims as well as the prevention of victimization.
Michelle Guymon is the Director of the Child Trafficking Unit with the Los Angeles County Probation Department. She is the project manager for Los Angeles County’s Law Enforcement First Responder Protocol for Commercially Sexually Exploited Children which was launched in August 2014, and which places a priority on treating children that are trafficked as victims rather than criminals.
Ms. Guymon is a frequent presenter and trainer regarding child abuse issues, and child sex trafficking. Ms. Guymon is the Chair of the Los Angeles County CSEC Integrated Leadership Team working with various county/community agencies to create a multi-system response model for CSEC in Los Angeles County. Ms. Guymon graduated from California State University, San Bernardino where she received her master’s degree in social work.
Cari Guittard has served in global cyber security, counterterrorism, and political military roles for the US Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Post 9/11, Guittard worked for advertising legend and Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Charlotte Beers, and then Secretary of State Colin Powell.
After leaving the Department of State, Guittard served as Executive Director of Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA), where Guittard built and directed a global initiative to help businesses drive their social impact. Ms Guittard currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for purposewerx, a management consultancy focused on scaling social impact, where she leads Corporate Diplomacy, Crisis Management and Tri-Sector Engagement for one of their consultancies, ChangeX.
Guittard currently also serves as a Professor of Practice with Hult International Business School teaching graduate courses in Leadership, Corporate Diplomacy, Crisis Management, and Gender Intelligence. Ms Guittard has appeared in numerous media outlets including the BBC, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and Fox News. She has a degree in Government & Political Science and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Susanne leads the Program Management effort for Special Operations. Her background in engineering and architecture gives her a keen perspective on how to develop processes and people to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. She is passionate about instilling continuous learning and innovative thinking among teams. At her most recent employer Roche, the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company, she led a number of complex strategic programs from initiation through execution, building highly effective global teams and developing processes, governances and tools for increased effectiveness and efficiency. Susanne is the founder of the consulting firm, Program Realization.
Investigations Assistant – Nicole supports the Director of Investigations for Special Operations. Passionate about protecting the most vulnerable, Nicole began her career as a Sexual Assaults Advocate at Day League Crisis Center in Georgia. Nicole has both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice with a specialty in Law Enforcement from Albany State University, GA. She is pursuing her PhD in Forensic Psychology.
Mona Wilson serves as Special Operations’ Director of Development. Mona has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early ‘90s, working mostly in real estate. Prior to that, Mona spent 20 years based in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, where she served as the Development Director and Corporate Secretary for the Hong Kong Philharmonic. During that time, Mona also owned and operated Sumi Arts, an art gallery with locations in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Mona has been an active member and volunteer with the Connoisseurs Council, Asian Art Museum; the Children’s Theatre Association; San Francisco Symphony Ladies Auxiliary; San Francisco Ballet Ladies Auxiliary; San Francisco Auxiliary of the Fine Arts Museums and the Society for Asian Art.
Mona earned her Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College and her Masters in International Management from George Washington University.
Tom Rawlings has over 30 years of legal and leadership experience in juvenile justice, child protection, government relations, and capacity-building. As a member of the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department at Taylor English Duma LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, Mr. Rawlings concentrates his practice on advising and defending youth-serving organizations. Previously, Mr. Rawlings served as the director of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, and as Director of the Office of the Child Advocate. Mr. Rawlings was the first full-time juvenile court judge in the Middle Judicial Circuit and oversaw juvenile justice cases in five counties. In addition to his work in the US, Mr. Rawlings has also served as the Guatemala country director for International Justice Mission, where he built and led a team of Guatemalan professionals who worked with government prosecutors and courts to protect and treat child sexual abuse victims, prosecute offenders, and train child abuse professionals. He has trained child welfare, justice, and human rights professionals across the US as well as in Armenia, Romania, and Thailand. Mr. Rawlings earned a Masters’ degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University (UK), and is certified by the National Association of Counsel for Children as Child Welfare Law Specialist.
Katherine James holds an MFA from Columbia University, where she received the Felipe P. De Alba fellowship. Her novel Can You See Anything Now? was longlisted for the Doris Bakwin prize and won Christianity Today’s award for best fiction of 2018. Her work has been published in various journals and anthologies and one of her short stories was a finalist for a Narrative Spring Prize.
She’s taught fiction at Columbia University, Festival of Faith and Writing, and elsewhere. Her memoir, A Prayer for Orion, was released in January of 2020.
