Meet Our Leaders

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Peggy Gibbs, Cofounder and CEO, Pacific Grove Cares   

Mrs. Gibbs' executive experience includes Cofounder for Camp BizSmart a “disruptive” education venture to train and equip students to survive and thrive in the competitive, “flat” 21st century. Before launching Camp BizSmart in 2008, as cofounder, she was Vice President, Business Development, for the award winning social-tech enterprise company, Benetech where she led the formation of strategic alliances to support literacy programs, like Bookshare and Route 66, environmental tracking programs like Miradi, and the Human Rights Program Martus, all technology solutions designed to aid humanity with social enterprise technology applications.

While at The Health Trust Peggy was part of the senior management team and oversaw business development and the Program Initiative Incubator. Peggy co-founded & directed several education and youth development ventures, including the Children’s Dental Initiative, and BrainWise Learning. In addition, she co-founded the Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness, a public private partnership. She also led an alliance that created the first high school Family Health and Community Services Center, and the first medical/dental and preschool facility at an elementary school in Santa Clara County and the first Mobile Dental Van and marketing campaign, "Watch Your Mouth", providing dental care to the underserved population in Santa Clara County.

At Stanford Packard Children’s Hospital Mrs. Gibbs funded cutting-edge medical procedures and services for children with serious medical challenges. In that role the first pain management services program and break-through cystic fibrosis genetic research initiative were begun and fully funded. In addition, Mrs. Gibbs designed and funded the Stanford Children’s Hospital’s Mobile Children’s Health Care Clinic which provided health care to underserved kids in Santa Clara County and would later serve as the model to help her design the Health Trust’s Mobile Dental Care Clinic.

In her early career, Peggy held management positions in the arts, with the Cincinnati Opera, and The Corporation for Public Television. She has more than 25 years in non-profit management, creating initiatives and developing strategic partnerships for education, arts, health programs and technology solutions to reach a diverse community. Ms. Gibbs is a graduate of the University of the Pacific, Conservatory of Music, with a B.A. in voice performance. Mrs. Gibbs has traveled extensively in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Spain, Germany, Austria, England, and France.

Public Service: Mrs. Gibbs served on the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce board for 5 years, and the University of Pacific School of International Studies board for 7 years. She volunteers with the I-Help program and is a member of the Pacific Grove Library Foundation and the Heritage Society of Pacific Grove. Growing up in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, she helped her with family’s Thompson seedless grape farm. It was there that she learned the importance of preparing the land, planting the seedlings, and then nurturing and caring for the crop during the various stages of the growing cycle in order to have a bountiful harvest. In addition, both of her grandparents had family vegetable gardens and fruit trees. You could say that the energy you put into caring for plants and trees warms you twice, as you work to accomplish it and as you enjoy what has been accomplished. Her paternal grandmother had a retail store in downtown Kingsburg, where Peggy learned the value of maintaining a beautiful store front as a part of the public landscape and welcoming everyone as they walked around town and shopped and dined. 

Peggy graduated from the University of Pacific with a Bachelor of Arts.  Peggy looks forward to drawing upon her education, work, and volunteer experience to apply it to help Keep Pacific Grove Beautiful now and for generations to come.

Director and Board Member of Pacific Grove Cares.    

Carmel Mayor, Carmel Cares Co-Founder, Past President, and Chief Caring Officer, Project Manager Forest Theater Project.    

 BS in Business and MBA from the University of Southern California. After working in sales and sales management roles in what is now called “cloud computing”, he started, managed, and sold successful international retail software companies including one with 250 associates in 12 offices worldwide and 3,000 customers. During this time, he personally consulted with over 250 large retail industry companies.   Dale started working as a clerk for Alpha Beta supermarkets when he was 15 and continued while a student at the University of Southern California, stocking shelves at night, taking a full load of classes and working a part-time campus job.  Over his career he started and sold technology-based companies.    Dale has an amazing energy and applies it to everything he does.

He co-founded Carmel Cares creating and managing creative Win/Win projects and programs and building and managing a passionate team of volunteers and donors who are dedicated to keeping Carmel beautiful, safe, and inviting.  Byrne has a five-page list of tasks completed as evidence – the more than 100 volunteers have done everything from restoring Forest Theater’s benches to re-landscaping street medians.  Carmel Cares took off during the pandemic, growing into a supercharged volunteer group of over 150!  We are grateful to has his expertise on our board during our important start-up formative years.  

Dale was named the Mayor of Carmel in the Nov. 2024 election.  He will continue to be one of our Board of Directors for Pacific Grove Cares and we will benefit from his boundless energy and generous spirit, experience and wisdom that has made Carmel Cares so successful.  Carmel is very fortunate to have him now as Mayor.

Steve Hahn, Board Member for Pacific Grove Cares.   

Mr. Hahn is a dedicated public servant with over 30 years of Federal government experience to include active-duty military service. With service domestically and abroad, he brings a diverse set of perspectives and proven leadership to meet any challenge.

Mr. Hahn graduated with a BS from the United States Air Force Academy. He received his commission as a United State Marine Corps officer leading infantry small units through deployments to the Middle East region. 

Mr. Hahn then took on the challenging life of a Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of State. While posted to many US Embassies throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, he advanced bilateral and multi-lateral foreign policy objectives while managing large teams of officers and budgets in the millions of dollars.

As a recent transplant to the area, Mr. Hahn quickly sought out ways to give back to the community by undertaking various volunteer efforts. Mr. Hahn also has a passion for physical fitness which he has developed over a lifetime of activity. More recently, his focus has been on the informal study of health and longevity issues. 

We are looking for can do people who are willing to roll up their sleeves to pitch in and make a difference in our town of Pacific Grove.  If that sounds like you, we would like to talk with you.  

Join us on this journey, together, we can                                        Keep Pacific Grove Beautiful!