Meet Our Leaders

Pacific Grove Cares was inspired by the successful work of Carmel Cares. Thank you for your mentorship and support.

Left to right: Peggy Gibbs, Founder and CEO of Pacific Grove Cares, with Dale Byrne, Founder of Carmel Cares and Chief Caring Officer, and Board of Director for Pacific Grove Cares, and Shirley Moon, Carmel Cares Project Manager.

Peggy Gibbs - Cofounder, Chief Executive Officer for Pacific Grove Cares

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.

Dale Byrne, Director, Board Member, Pacific Grove Cares

Carmel Cares Co-Founder, Past President, and Chief Caring Officer, and Project Manager Forest Theater Project. Director and Board Member of Pacific Grove Cares.

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 has just been named the Mayor of Carmel in the Nov. 2024 election. Congratulations Dale! Dale 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.

Michael Gibbs, Cofounder, Chief Financial Officer for Pacific Grove Cares

Michael Gibbs, Cofounder and CFO for Pacific Grove Cares

Michael E. Gibbs is an entrepreneur and internationally recognized speaker on international negotiation and process redesign. Dr. Gibbs has been an adjunct professor at Penn State and University of Texas. He delivered seminars on negotiation to executives in 22 countries for the Univ. of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business, International Executive Program.

Dr. Gibbs helped launch Silicon Valley technology start-ups E-Ployment & Success Factor Systems. He is also the CEO and Co-founder of education companies BizSmart Global and Camp BizSmart with over 10,000 graduates. With Gibbs and Associates, he has consulted with a variety of companies, and he completed a 24-month assignment in the Navy’s “Smart Carrier” initiative to streamline systems aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, John C. Stennis.

Under CEO Jack Welch, Gibbs led General Electric “Workout” manufacturing innovation initiatives and designed the General Electric Aircraft Engines “High Potential Leadership” and “Technical Leadership” Programs. In addition, Dr. Gibbs led team building for the CFM-56 engine joint venture between GE and French aerospace partner, SNECMA, and was project manager for the “China Program”. Prior to his time at GE, Dr. Gibbs was a section manager for HRB-Singer which developed signal intelligence programs for various U.S. Government intelligence agencies. He was also a manufacturing quality specialist for Texas Instruments.

He taught courses in Leadership, “Risk Management” and “Project Requirements” for Project Management International (PMI).

Public Service: Dr. Gibbs has mentored Fulbright Scholars in the Santa Clara University MBA program and served as a judge in the Santa Clara MBA Innovation Center start-up competition.

Gibbs served on the board of “Leading to Play,” a non-profit education organization founded by Stanford All American and Hall of Fame basketball player George Selleck. He served as the Chair of the Centre Country Pennsylvania Drug and Alcohol Commission and was appointed by the U.S Speaker of the House to the “Binger Commission” to “turn around” the Cincinnati School System. He is a co-founder of PGLives and Leadership Pacific Grove. He is the “Red” co-chair for the Monterey Bay Braver Angels Alliance. He is a member of the Pacific Grove Economic Development Commission and volunteers with I-Help.

Education: Dr. Gibbs has a master’s in clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. in Organization/Industrial Psychology from Texas Tech University.

We would like to meet you

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!

Let's roll up our sleeves and get busy - join us as a volunteer to play in the dirt or donate to fund our work, to Keep Pacific Grove Beautiful!

Many parts of our town have been overtaken by invasive plant species and unsightly weeds. Pacific Grove Cares volunteers remove the weeds, carefully trim plants and trees use creative approaches help maintain City median islands and other areas.

There are many ways you can help out. You can help with light gardening, adopt a median island, or help with marketing.

Of course, you can also make a donation of any size which will make a big impact.

Pacific Grove Cares is an affiliate of Keep California Beautiful.

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