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Board of Directors
Larry Harvey, Chairman of the Board
Larry Harvey founded the Burning Man event in 1986 and has overseen its operation ever since. His duties include the design of Burning Man and Black Rock City and the conception and production of the Project's themed art pageants. In May 1998 Larry was invited to Harvard's Second International Conference on the Internet and Society as a panelist for Charles Nesson's discussion "The Internet and Education." Larry has been a guest lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute, the School of the Chicago Art Institute, the Forum at Grace Cathedral and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Freddy Hahne, President of the Board
Freddy is known as Are We Really? around San Francisco, Cyberspace and Merry Prankster circles. Are We Really? and the Krewe of Art Police created large works of art over the past few decades for many Bill Graham Presents shows including the Grateful Dead's Mardi Gras, Chinese New Years and New Years extravaganzas. With a background in Industrial Design, Freddy represented Waller Press and currently Watermark Press/Consolidated Graphics in the San Francisco Bay Area for over twenty-five years producing advertising, design and marketing print collateral. He attended Burning Man at Baker Beach spraining his neck staring at the Man for a few hours! He has never been the same since. Freddy also serves as president of the board of the Rex Foundation, a philanthropic charity founded by the Grateful Dead. You will find him as Dr. Really? with the Mind Shaft Society on the Playa.
Harley K. Dubois, Vice President
A founding member of the Burning Man board and the Black Rock Arts Foundation, Harley has over 18 years in project management, art and city planning experience. In Black Rock City she is the City Manager, keeping it's citizens happy and safe. For the Black Rock Arts Foundation she is the liaison between both organizations and chairs the grants committee.
Rae Richman, Vice President
Rae has more than 15 years experience providing strategic consulting to organizations of all sizes, including family and corporate foundations, leading nonprofits and a wide range of Fortune 500 global corporations. Rae currently serves as the Director of the Bay Area office of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and manages grantmaking programs that impact communities in the US and globally. Prior to joining RPA, she had her own consultancy for values-based organizations specializing in corporate social responsibility, organizational development, and strategic planning. During that time, she served as the facilitator of the annual 6-day retreats of both the Black Rock City LLC Board and the Burning Man Senior Staff. She received her BA from the University of Virginia and her MBA from the UC Berkeley/Columbia University Executive MBA program.
Crimson Rose, Vice President
Crimson’s honor and love of fire happened long before she met the Burning Man. When she attended her first event in 1991, she set the man on fire and has been producing the release of the Man ever since.
The sculpture of the Burning Man brought her to the Black Rock Desert, but it is the limitless possibilities of facilitating art in the desert that brings her back year after year. Like a gift to a wide-eyed child, pushing the limits of creating art in one of the harshest, relentless environments produces amazing art and in turn facilitate interactive. She is fascinated with the way interactivity and art mesh at Burning Man, and feels it has changed the art arena. "When art provokes one to interact without thinking, art has taken a giant leap in evolution."
As one of the founding Directors of both Black Rock City LLC and the Black Rock Arts Foundation her focus is on art management. Art Curator, Performance Safety Director for Open Fire, Flame Effects and Pyrotechnics and Creative Director of the Fire Conclave, the largest gathering of fire performers in one place at one time in the world.
Prior to finding her way into this tailor-made position, Crimson has always been involved in the arts. In school, she majored in theater, and has worked as a fine art model, fire dancer and performance artist for 27 years.
Alix Rosenthal, Secretary
Alix's first burn was in 2004, when she jumped head first into the San Francisco Burning Man community. Alix became involved with BRAF in 2005 by throwing a fundraiser for the placement of Michael Christian's Flock in front of San Francisco City Hall, and joined BRAF's advisory board shortly thereafter. She is is a political junkie, and she's passionate about keeping San Francisco culture vibrant and diverse.
Alix is a Deputy City Attorney for the City of Oakland, specializing in public ethics and real estate law. She has lived in San Francisco since 1999,with her dog Martha and a hardy assortment of houseplants.
In 2006, at the urging of friends in the progressive movement, Alix ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in District 8. To the surprise of many (including herself), she garnered 30% of the vote against a formidable and well-liked incumbent. Alix is a registered Democrat, woman of action, Facebook addict, Twitterer and regular yoga practitioner. At the urging of no one, she has recently started a blog.
Joseph Olivier, P.E., Treasurer
Joe Olivier is the founder and principal of Facilatech, an engineering firm that specializes in energy conservation for large facilities. In joining the BRAF board, he is continuing his parents' tradition of actively supporting the arts. Joe attended his first Burning Man in 2000, and has been one of the builders of the Man since 2002. He credits Burning Man with giving him the impetus to start Facilatech so that he would have the ability to take time off of work to volunteer for the organization. Joe holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tulane University.
Christopher Bently, Director
Christopher Bently is an environmentalist, musician, and green businessman focusing on sustainable practices related to all forms of life. His early years were spent playing and producing music professionally in many arenas. In 2001 he founded Bently Holdings, an environmentally conscious real estate holding company focusing on architecturally significant and historic buildings in and around San Francisco. Among his other companies are Kamalaspa, an Indian Ayurvedic day spa focusing on holistic healing and pampering, and Bently Biofuels which produces bio diesel for consumer and agricultural use. It was his first voyage to Black Rock City that revolutionized his life. The Playa is where he learned of a community based solely on gifting and love which created the philanthropist he is today. He advises and sits on boards of several organizations and uses his company as a vehicle to support non-profits that are aligned with his own interests. Chris is a very proud member of the communities of San Francisco and Black Rock City working to improve and maintain the spirit and integrity of both. In his free time Chris enjoys riding motorcycles and flying helicopters.
Rachel Carpenter, Director
Rachel Carpenter is Co-Founder and CEO of Cinematrix Interactive Entertainment Systems™ utilizing patented technologies invented by her husband Loren Carpenter. As first anthropologist on the scene, Rachel wrote her Master of Arts thesis on the human experience of this new communications technology, Techno Tribe: The Collaborative Experience of an Interactive Audience Participation Technology, An Ethnography. This builds on her earlier work in education supporting a variety of learning methodologies, including her book, Visual Arts in Education for Teachers, a series of lesson plans integrated to support student learning objectives, commissioned by the State of Washington Superintendant of Public Instruction. As a Black Rock Arts Foundation Board Member, Rachel continues to pursue ways to encourage community projects with arts and education.
Dicky Davies, Director
Christian "Dicky" Davies joined the Black Rock Arts Foundation Advisory Board in 2005, and has since been involved with the Civic Arts and Programing Committees. He currently works with children at the De Young Museum as a Museum Artist/Educator, and strongly believes in the power of participation within the arts as a means of engagement and access.
As founding member of The Finch Mob Arts Collective, Dicky is routinely involved with transforming ordinary spaces into interactive art experiences. He helped with the development of the Panhandle Bandshell in 2007 and collaborated to design, build and present the interactive/performance installation The Dicky Box at Burning Man in 2005. Dicky studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute and is also a painter with an active studio practice.
Terry Gross, Director
Terry has engaged in significant complex litigation on behalf of private clients and civil liberties organizations for over 25 years. He has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer from that recognition’s inception. He has an extensive focus on the changing face of copyright, trademark and media law in the digital age and in matters of intellectual property. As General Counsel to Burning Man, the internationally known arts festival, he has negotiated, advised and litigated numerous trademark, copyright and privacy matters on its behalf, including a successful defense of a lawsuit challenging the event’s major trademarks. Terry also represents authors, artists, performers and their agents in negotiating contracts for publication, performance, and sale of motion picture and television rights.
Nick Morgan, Director
Nick is a community organizer, ecovisionary activist and a creator of synergistic connections. He began my career in the U.S. Navy, unloading toxic wastes from warships and looking for spills in the back lots of bases. Recognizing that our government was being less than forthcoming, he moved on to the EPA to work with the public, the Congress and other governmental agencies to create accountability for government pollution. Realizing that our planet was facing equally great threats, he then coordinated Greenpeace’s efforts to address global environmental justice issues. Lately, he’s been working on a local scale, include brownfield conversions with the cities of Berkeley and Emeryville and on ecosystem restoration/protection programs in Bali, Costa Rica, New Mexico and the Yucatan.
With the arrival of some children, it seemed time to get off the ships and airplanes (though not the streets!), and settle into the Bay Area. Thankfully, this meant a trip to the Black Rock desert, just in time to be blown away and inspired by all the creative forces on the playa, including his home base crew at the Otter Oasis. Invigorated by Burning Man, he’s translated his passion for organizing into a position as Director of Synergy for Peak Experience Productions which produces multi-day audience participatory events based on mythic themes. Realizing that he had more connections to make, he’s serving as an adviser and Board member of the Black Rocks Arts Foundation, Conscious Alliance, Our Future Now and The Rex Foundation. Through these great organizations, he’s been connecting artists, activists, musicians, and visionaries with each other in support of emerging culture and communities around the globe. Onward!
John Mueller, Director
John Mueller is an attorney who has been based in the Bay Area for over 30 years. He is a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bread & Roses and has supported the arts and entertainment and their healing powers for many, many years. John graduated from Occidental College and UCLA Law School. He is also a member of the local Board of Directors of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Will Roger Peterson, Director
Will Roger Peterson is from Rochester, New York, where he received a BFA and MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Will later taught photography at the same institution, and as a teacher he attracted a group of devoted students. The title of his course, "In Search Of the Mystical Image," expresses the character of his work. Will is working with Nevada Relations and Properties for Black Rock City LLC. He is currently the President of Friends of the Black Rock/High Rock, is an appointee to the Sierra Front/Western Great Basin Resource Advisory Council (RAC) representing dispersed recreation, and is the chairman of the RAC subcommittee for the Black Rock/High Rock/Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area.
Mark Sinclair, Director
Mark is the Principal for the Technology Group at Degenkolb Engineers here in San Francisco. Degenkolb is a structural engineering firm that specializes in all things earthquake - building design, retrofit, consulting, and risk assessment. The Technology Group is a small group of specialists charged with helping deploy innovative new seismic protection systems and analysis techniques on projects across the company.
Mark has been attending Burning Man since 1997, first as a wide-eyed young spectator, then as a participant, and in more recent years as a contributor to a variety of projects including the 2007 and 2008 Man Base, and Crude Awakening. He was sitting in a staff meeting one day when his boss announced that someone from the Black Rock somethingorother had called. They were looking for some help on a public art project in San Francisco - to do with a Temple of some sort….. That was 2005, and since then he has helped BRAF with structural design issues and obtaining permits for many projects, large and small, including the Hayes Green Temple, Passage, Flock, Monicacos, Stan - Submerging Man, Casa de la Imaginacion, Temple of the American Dream, and the Panhandle Bandshell.
He is originally from New Zealand and arrived in San Francisco intending to stay for a year or so before continuing on with the world tour. That was in 1993. And no, you can't tell him a sheep joke that he hasn't heard already.