Miyoko Schinner is an award-winning chef, author, entrepreneur and speaker. She is the founder of Miyoko’s Creamery, a leading plant-milk dairy company whose products are sold internationally, which she started at the “young” age of 57. At the same time, she founded Rancho Compasión, running it almost entirely by herself for the first two years.

Calling herself an epicurean activist, she has worked tirelessly for over thirty years to reimagine a food system built on sustainability, equity, and compassion for animals. Her popular cookbooks, products, and thought leadership have inspired people across the globe to reconsider their food choices and take personal joy and responsibility in helping to participate in a better food system. 

Photo by Joanne MacArthur.

Cathy's love of animals started as a child when she begged her parents to rescue a puppy and would not take no for an answer. She was a long time volunteer at the sanctuary, both with animal care and maintenance projects, before she joined the Board in 2023 to lend her financial expertise as the Treasurer. After many years in Chicago, she moved to the Bay area in 2011 and spends much of her free time enjoying the incredible cycling, hiking, swimming and kayaking the area has to offer.

Kimberly grew up on a small ranch in the foothills of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles with horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, a goat, and chickens next door. She chose to stop eating red meat at age 15. Now living in San Anselmo she has a rotation of foster cats in and out of her home. She and her then-teenage daughter adopted a fully-vegan lifestyle in 2015 after giving up all meat and most dairy over the years prior. They dreamed of one day owning a small pig sanctuary together when Kimberly learned about Rancho Compasión and started volunteering in 2019. She loves the challenge of getting all the residents dinner and putting them to bed by herself. She has arranged contributions of unsellable fruits and vegetables from local markets twice a week to help supplement the resident’s diets. Kimberly has a master’s degree in Health Education and experience as a grant writer. She spent some years flipping homes and looks forward to helping with construction projects around the ranch. She works full-time as a Real Estate Broker serving residential sellers and buyers across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Samantha grew up nearby in the hills of Fairfax. She has always loved animals, which led to a study of biology and a vegan lifestyle. She’s had a successful career as a biopharma entrepreneur, and now realizes that her ultimate calling is to help animals, especially ‘farmed animals’, and the planet, by working to convert the world away from using animals for food and other products. She sees animal sanctuaries playing an important role in helping people develop compassion for these beautiful creatures. She lives with her husband, son, and 2 dogs in Piedmont, and loves to experiment with whole food plant-based cooking.

Dave Osborn lives in Point Reyes, is a retired Contractor and currently performs mold and water damage investigations throughout the Bay Area. He became a vegan after being diagnosed with cancer over 11 years ago. Because of his plant-based diet he conquered the cancer but also became aware of the effects of animal-based diets on the environment and the terrible treatment of the animals raised for food.

Dave has written and published articles in the local newspaper to bring awareness to the local dairy and ranch based populace of the negative effects of animal agriculture. He was fortunate to meet Miyoko Schinner, the founder of Rancho Compasión, and they hatched a plan to hold a film festival focusing on the many harms that a meat-based diet does to our health, the environment and the animals with the help of the volunteers and Board members of Rancho Compasión. At that time Miyoko asked Dave to serve on the Board of Directors and he readily accepted.

Because of his construction background and ranching experience he helps oversee the maintenance and new improvement projects for Rancho Compasión.

Brad lives in Fairfax with his wife and dog and, when he's home from college, his son. Now that Brad has retired from teaching middle school math, he is able to dedicate more time to both vegan cooking and baking and helping out at Rancho. Brad has been volunteering at Rancho from the beginning, and has loved being a part of its growth. Brad has been vegan since 2002, and loves planning events, helping out in the kitchen, and being with the animals.

Camellia Schinner was previously the Sanctuary Director of Rancho Compasión, and has been involved since its inception when her family started the sanctuary in 2015.

She embodies an anti-oppression, total liberation philosophy in her vegan practice. She asks how farmed animal sanctuaries can be transformative spaces for reshaping and reimagining our relationship to the other-than-human world, while modeling interspecies community care. Camellia boasts no accolades nor credentials, but is a regular recipient of Goober’s “hot breath” (a gorilla grunt-like greeting pigs give to their friends), which is all that really matters to her.

My vegan journey stated at age 14 with one leaflet.  There was a group of PETA volunteers at my local shopping mall asking people to have a “Compassionate Christmas and Humane Hannukah”.  I was intrigued because I couldn’t imagine how I was being non-compassionate that holiday season.  Their plea was asking people to abstain from fur or leather.  I honestly had not considered how my choices affected other animals until then.  I read that leaflet carefully and eventually signed up for their mailing list.  A few months in, after reading about downed cows and an undercover operation at a Perdue chicken farm, I was well on my way.  That was over 35 years ago. 

Volunteering has always been an important part of my life.  As a teenager, I worked with children with learning differences at a local elementary school.  As a college and graduate student, I was able to work with local animal non-profits.  And as a mom, volunteering at our local elementary school, leading small groups in reading and math skills.  I have raised two amazing, empathetic, compassionate vegan boys whom I hope are having a positive influence on their community of friends.

My professional background revolves around my skills in Math and Statistics.  I enjoy working with data and finding the hidden stories in the numbers.  Either in marketing, customer satisfaction, or sales trends, data drives my desire to understand people’s behavior and leverage that behavior to provide a better experience for them and the people with whom they interact.  At Rancho, my goal is to share our mission of compassion, environmental stewardship,  and education to a broad and diverse group of people, as well as keep our existing donors updated on all of our events and opportunities.