TEDxHumboldtBay: “OUTLAWS”
People, places, and events off the straight and narrow.

7351 Tompkins Hill Road
Eureka, California, 95501
United States

Brian Smith with Julie Hayes

I choose to communicate, connect, engage, and touch people in a safe environment such as partner dancing. These social dances have an expected behavior that one might not find at a night club or bar. My goal as a speaker is to inform men and woman of these behaviors and how to recognize them amongst their own social scenes.

Ron Samuels & Eriko Damio

Ron Samuels is the founder of Marimba One, an Arcata California based business that custom builds concert level marimbas. In over 50 countries, his marimbas continue to define the acoustics and engineering of the modern day marimba. Eriko Daimo is a new rising marimba soloist, known for her dazzling virtuosity and captivating charisma. Born in Kagoshima, Japan. Eriko began her musical studies at age six on the piano. She started studying the marimba in high school in 1997, and went on to study at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, and the Boston Conservatory.

Ali Freedlund

Ali Freedlund has lived on the North Coast for more than 30 years. Many of her stories are a celebration of this beautiful area and the many creatures that live here.

Amy Bohner

Amy Bohner is a California native who migrated to Humboldt County in 1992 to live “where the forest meets the ocean.” After attending Humboldt State University and a decade in Social Work, Amy met her future husband Steve and joined his company, Alchemy Construction. Amy’s life follows the Confucius’ saying “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.” Amy is a proud “woman in business” and a strong participant in her community.

Betty Chin

Betty Kwan Chinn is a philanthropist who lives in Eureka, California. She has helped the homeless— including the mentally ill, disabled veterans, runaways, and drug abusers—for the past 20 years. She won the 2008 Minerva Award, and used the $25,000 grant as seed money and worked with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul to establish the homeless a bathroom and kitchen. U.S. President Barack Obama awarded her and 12 others the Presidential Citizens Medal on August 4, 2010 at the White House.

Dante DiGenova

Dante DiGenova is the owner of Northtown Books in Arcata. His favorite writer is a dead white male and his favorite movie is "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" because it always makes him laugh. He lives in an undisclosed location in northern California with his husband and two dogs. Dante has lived and breathed independent bookstore ownership for the second half of his life.

Dean Schubert

Dean Schubert has been tattooing in Humboldt County since 1995. He and his Wife own and operate Humboldt’s longest running tattoo studio, Visual Tattoo , in Arcata. He is an enthusiastic collector of tattoos, having a body suit consisting of the work of over 35 artists. He began tattooing in San Francisco in 1993. A native of Milwaukee Wisconsin, he has spent most of his adult life in Northern California. Dean’s work can be seen on humans around the world.

Diana Totten

Diana Totten has deep roots in the mountains of Humboldt County, California. She was born in Garberville in 1955 with a heritage of local Native American and strong American pioneers; she has lived all of her life in the beautiful area they called home for over a hundred years. She was born with a male body and did the best she could given the fact that she had no idea anyone else experienced this.

Elayna Kuster

Elayna Kuster is a 13 year old student at South Bay Middle School, and is originally from Humboldt County. In her spare time, she enjoys writing and playing roller derby. She wrote this talk because she feels very strongly about gender rights, and believes that everyone, no matter what, should have the same rights as everyone. When she grows up, she hopes to go to medical school.

Jasmine Allard

Jasmine Allard is a teenager turning 18 in January. She’s currently attending McKinleyville High School as a senior, and stressing about future college plans. Right now she’s hesitantly optimistic about studying directing and screenwriting for film in college. This interest has been sparked due to being heavily involved in theatre since 4th grade, and even more so in high school, where she became accustomed to not just performing, but also writing said performances.

Jennifer Savage

A longtime advocate of ocean protection, Jennifer formalized her passion for clean beaches and waves by reinvigorating Surfrider Foundation’s Humboldt Chapter in 2008, helping to raise thousands of dollars and doubling the chapter’s membership in her first year as chapter chair.

Kintay Johnson

Kintay Johnson has dedicated his educational career to helping those from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed academically and in life. After eight years of military service, he began college at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, CA. He is a Student Mentor in Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS). This program provides services to meet the unique educational needs of “English language learners as well as students with social, and economic disadvantages.” As a student, Johnson saw the life changing effects personally and devoted himself to continue the tradition of helping students succeed and achieve their highest potential.

Linda Stansberry

Linda Stansberry is a writer and freelance journalist. She grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Honeydew, CA. She was fortunate enough to absorb the values of both her hard-working rancher parents and the community to which they belonged: a community largely off the grid, where emergency calls and gossip were made using CB radios, indoor plumbing was often a luxury and every local worth their title carried a chainsaw to clear the roads in the middle of winter.

Lisa Rossbacher

Lisa A. Rossbacher became the president of Humboldt State University, in Arcata, California, in July 2014. She previously served as president of Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia, for 16 years. Dr. Rossbacher was the first woman geologist to become a University president in North America. Her research interests focus on the role of water and water ice on the planet Mars, environmental risks, and higher education leadership.

Mary Gelinas

Mary V. Gelinas, Ed.D. is the managing director of Gelinas-James, Inc. a consultancy that specializes in helping people collaborate in meaningful and inclusive ways. She is also the co-director of the Cascadia Center for Leadership. She believes that, given the issues we face, the need to bridge differences and talk better together has never been greater. She writes, “It seems we are creating a future no one wants. All of us must learn to interact constructively in diverse groups so we can have meaningful conversations about things that matter.

Mike Dronkers

Mike Dronkers is the program director, music director, and mid-day host at KHUM-FM. Dronkers’ popular radio program has a devout following locally and nationally, and his behind-the-scenes work has earned him several national prizes, including an Edward R. Murrow award for radio documentary. Through his eclectic radio show he’s interviewed hundreds of people, including Grammy™ winners, Emmy™ winners, monks, authors, snipers, chemists, composers, lawyers, speed freaks, hobos and toddlers. He claims that they’re all equally interesting.

Paul Gallegos

Paul Gallegos was born in Arlington, Virginia the ninth of eleven children. He moved to California to study economics at USC; after graduation he was hired by IBM to do finance. A few years later he went to law school at the University of LaVerne in L.A. Upon graduation he and his wife, Joan, started a private practice law firm in Claremont, CA. In 2002, Paul ran for and was elected as Humboldt County’s District Attorney. In 2003, he defeated a corporate financed recall attempt. In 2006, Paul was reelected to a second term.

Rebecca Kimbel

I have been an independent film producer for three years. I currently have my own show on Access Humboldt, a large Youtube channel with 300 videos and appear and speak in other media formatts. I belong to an organization called Safe Kids Now, and the Sound Choices Coalition which provides legal resarcfh for the education about human trafficking.

Ryann Citro-Hough

Ryann Citro-Hough is a upbeat student at South Bay middle school in Eureka. She has always enjoyed expressing her personal opinions with her friends and family. Hanging out and joking around with her friends is something that she most enjoys. In school she is a well focused student and tries her best. With her spare time she loves to play with her siblings, read, or watch classic comedies.

Sherae O’Shaunessy

Sherae O’Shaughnessy has been in Humboldt County for a decade. She’s a host on the local alternative radio station 93.1/ 94.5 KSLG and was an integral part of the local standup scene during Humboldt County’s comedy resurgence of the past few years. Founding the comedy troupe BA-DUM-CHH Comedy Presents she was voted Best Comedian 2012 by readers of the North Coast Journal. Currently she writes a weekly humor column for the Times-Standard titled, ‘Shut up, Sherae’. She is mother to a seven year old daughter, an advocate for tattooed people and still hopelessly disappointed that ‘Arrested Development’ was canceled.

Spencer Ruelos

Having left his hometown of Marysville, California in 2009, Spencer Ruelos moved to Humboldt County to figure out the meaning in his life. He graduated from HSU in 2013 with Bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. A huge gamer, Spencer believes that exploring various roles, characters, environments, and worlds through gaming has the potential to be quite a transformative process.

Stephen Cunha

Steve has made a career out of inspiring others to pursue geography, but where did that initial spark come from for him? “It was the professors, especially the geography professors, all over UC Berkeley’s campus. The way they were so familiar with exotic parts of the world and talked about them so comfortably, as if you might encounter them on the way back from class. That sort of nonchalant comfort really intrigued me and I wanted in on it.”

Tamarah Gehlen

Tamarah Gehlen LMFT, LADC is the Program Director of WINGS Treatment Center in Litchfield, MN and is an author, national speaker, therapist, and teaches at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels in Addictions and Mental Health in Minnesota. Her works can be found on youtube and Amazon. She provides humor and honesty when looking at issues and is passionate in speaking about women and children/adolescents as they pertain to addiction, mental health and societal issues.

Travis Woo

My TEDx talk is about playing games. It is the story of me, the card game kid, now adult traveling game blogger. Us humans, we often question our purpose in life, and many of us draw a line between “work” and “play”. So where does playing games fit into this? Is playing games a productive use of time? Can it be a worthwhile life pursuit? Is it a fulfilling option for adults? I think so. Specifically I want to share the idea of the game Magic: the Gathering with you. This is a card game I started playing as a 5 year old for fun, and a game I play as a 24 year old for fun… and work.