Organization

The American Cetacean Society is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefit corporation, governed by a national, volunteer Board of Directors and managed from its headquarters in San Pedro, California. Because ACS is organized as a single organization rather than as separate local legal entities, ultimate fiduciary and policy oversight for the operations of the American Cetacean Society lies within the purview of its National Board of Directors.

The heart and soul of ACS activity happens at the local chapter level. Each chapter is managed by a board, which provides oversight for the chapter’s annual programs and budget in support of ACS’s mission, vision, and values. Local chapter boards are managed through clear and direct pathways of communication and report back to the National Board of Directors.

san francisco bay chapter board of directors

Anne-Marie Batchelor: President

Anne-Marie Batchelor is a human resources executive at a national financial services start-up in the Bay Area.  She has been in the field of human resources for the past 15+ years, and has a passion for teaming up with non-profits that support a social justice and socially responsible mission and value statement.

Anne-Marie has had a longstanding passion for marine mammals and fish.  This passion led her to complete a graduate degree with a focus on marine mammals, specifically pinnipeds.  She has volunteered with the California Academy of Sciences, and continues to nurture her love of all things marine by volunteering with the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the American Cetacean Society, as well as other local and regional marine-focused organizations.

Wade Cobb: Board member, Treasurer

Wade Cobb has had a passion for marine mammals ever since an encounter with a humpback whale as a young child in his hometown in New Jersey. Now, as a certified scuba diver, surfer, sailor, and stand-up-paddler, Wade spends many of his days on or near the water, and has dedicated his volunteer efforts toward ocean conservation for over a decade.

Wade graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree from Providence College and spent his early career as an Investment Banker in New York City. He left Wall Street and moved out to the Bay Area in 2021 to focus on supporting startup and growth-stage companies through Venture Capital.

 Wade's fascination with the ocean has brought him to different corners of the world and let to organization and involvement in multiple ocean/river/bay clean-ups and fundraisers. He is thrilled to be working with the ACS community to help protect and conserve our marine neighbors and their home.

FIRUZE Gokce: board member, MARKETING DIRECTOR

Experienced in online marketing, marketing strategy and Search Engine Optimization, Ms. Gokce, is a serial entrepreneur since 1997. She has cofounded three startups and received international recognition as a judge for Affiliate Marketing Awards in United States. Those in the global industry took notice, with Ms. Gokce receiving invitations to exhibit at international events. She won international honors from the likes of the Affiliates4u Awards and the Affiliate Marketing Awards.

After moving to California Firuze has realized her personal passion in empowering nonprofits such as American Cetacean Society, San Francisco Chapter, SharkStewards, Empowering the Turkish American Community, Tech Bay Area Advocates, and SDG Impact Accelerator. She has a true passion for protecting and conserving marine life.

susan hopp: board member, events and speaker outreach

Susan Hopp, a self-described “water person”, is a strategist, educator, and practitioner of sustainable and regenerative management.  Since 2007, she has applied her years of experience with technology companies, both startups and multinationals, to building sustainability momentum in business. She spotlights the business case for sustainability as a key integrated strategy informing culture and organizational practices, and has worked with organizations across industries to help them formalize their sustainability strategy and execute sustainability initiatives.  An alum of Presidio Graduate School of Sustainable Management in San Francisco, Susan is also an adjunct faculty member at USF, teaching Sustainability Leadership in the Environmental Management Masters program.

A native Detroiter, Susan is in the cold waters of San Francisco Bay or the Pacific whenever possible and credits the ACS Naturalist class which she took in 2015 as the catalyst for an even deeper love and respect for whales, dolphins, and porpoises. “They inspire me everyday to stay present to the joy and magic of ocean life that indeed, supports all of life on Earth…” 

SUSAN SHERMAN: board member, SECRETARY

Susan Sherman has a B.S. in Biology from San Francisco State University and is currently a science teacher in San Francisco. Susan’s specialties are birds, marine mammals, and marine ecology. As a science educator, she has taught teachers, developed and written curricula, presented at conferences, aquariums, and museums, and recently won an award from John Hopkins University for teaching talented youth. Some of the research projects that Susan has participated in are: humpback whales in Southeast Alaska; sampling fish populations in the Atlantic Ocean with NOAA; collecting data on various species of Alcid chicks on the Farallon Islands; fall bird censuses on Alcatraz Island with the National Park Service (for 10+ years). Susan has been an Oceanic Society naturalist in the Bay Area for more than 30 years.

Marc Webber: Board member, SCIENCE advisor

Marc Webber is currently a cetacean field research associate at the Marine Mammal Center, an organization he has worked with extensively with stranded marine mammals going back to 1976. His current research is on the cetaceans of the San Francisco Bay Area: harbor porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, gray whales, and humpback whales, even as he continues his lifelong fascination with pinnipeds through several ongoing projects.

Marc spent 30 years with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the National Wildlife Refuge and Marine Mammals Management programs. His last assignment was as Deputy Manager of the 4-million-acre Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to more than 60 percent of North America’s breeding seabirds and provides habitat for numerous pinniped species. He is a contributing author on anthologies of marine mammals, their behavior, and habitats. His fieldwork has taken him around the world from the Antarctic to the Arctic, and the Pacific coast whale migration paths are regular expeditions.

communications committee

 Dave Thompson:  Events Publicity COORDINATOR

Dave Thompson, one of our past Vice Presidents, was a passionate sailboat racer for 7 years in the Bay area while he owned a custom marine canvas shop, The Canvas Works.  Before that, he was a high-wind addicted windsurfer.

He has over 20 years of computer programming experience in relational database applications, mostly with IBM on contract assignments in different places all over the U.S.  In 2003 he returned to school at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, to pursue an M.S. in neuroscience and studied MRI’s of autistic children’s brains.  

All of that time on the water fueled his interest in working to help save the marine environment and the sea life in it.  He enjoyed his time as an Education Docent at The Marine Mammal Center and loved the barking of the sea lions, and was a docent at Pier 39 when they had a presence there.

In 2011 he founded the Meetup Group for our ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter.  He continues to promote awareness and education through that group which now has over 200 members.  He posts the monthly ACS presentations to LinkedIn and to multiple Meetup groups with over 5,000 aggregate members.