A first generation Taiwanese-American, Cheryl is a systems change wayfinder, finance innovator, and community weaver. She cultivates collaborations around making big bioregional ideas real. Together, she empowers people who are connected by ‘place’ to unite and self-determine what it means to thrive – and design strategies to make it happen. For the past six years she has worked to launch a series of ventures to build a bioregional movement across Salmon Nation - a place defined by wild Pacific salmon. Salmon show us how we are connected to the land, the waters and each other. She is a founding partner of the Salmon Nation Trust - a public benefit company whose purpose is to inspire, enable, and invest in regenerative development in our home. She is also a founding member of the Magic Canoe, a non profit dedicated to amplifying and uplifting stories of hope, connection, and ‘what works’ in Salmon Nation. Cheryl recently launched Salmon Nation CoLabs – a collaboration incubator designed to flow investments into local-led regenerative change. Previously, she served as Operations Director at Future of Fish - an NGO focused on ending overfishing by developing strategic and investable triple bottom line innovations in artisanal fisheries worldwide. She worked at Ecotrust in several capacities over 12+ years where she helped launch a technology company called Point 97, and collaborated with coastal communities on ecological and cultural data sovereignty and community-led seascape planning solutions. Cheryl received a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She grew up in the oak tree foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains in California and now lives in the lower Columbia River basin in Portland, Oregon with her wife Megan and daughter Juniper. You can find Cheryl hiking and paddling amongst the forests, lakes, and rivers of the bioregion - always looking for folks to get into good trouble with.