Leadership

Par­tic­i­pants in the Mag­ic inten­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Mag­ic ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion enjoy over­lap­ping lead­er­ship from diverse, accom­plished indi­vid­u­als with long records of engage­ment and con­tri­bu­tion at Mag­ic and in the world beyond. Below we list first res­i­dent fel­lows who guide the inten­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and then trustees who guide the ser­vice organization.

Intentional Community Resident Fellows

Robin Bayer

Resident Fellow / President

Robin Bay­er first vol­un­teered with Mag­ic in 1988 to par­tic­i­pate in a tree-plant­i­ng project. She’s still tak­ing care of those trees as man­ag­er of Magic’s habi­tat stew­ard­ship and resource plan­ning activ­i­ties, for which she is region­al­ly known. Dur­ing the 1990’s, when Palo Alto was revis­ing its Gen­er­al Plan, she orga­nized res­i­dents to cre­ate an ecol­o­gy-based vision for the city. For much of her tenure at Mag­ic, she’s been one of a hand­ful of res­i­dent fel­lows who guide oth­er res­i­dents in cre­at­ing Magic’s val­ue­science-based res­i­den­tial ser­vice learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and who share pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ties teach­ing and pub­lish­ing about val­ue­science. Since 2004, she’s over­seen main­te­nance of Magic’s legal and finan­cial records. Robin is a moth­er to twin girls born in 1999 and to a boy born in 2004. She enjoys run­ning, swim­ming, hik­ing, and read­ing. She holds a B.S. in Civ­il Engi­neer­ing from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, where she was elect­ed to Phi Beta Kap­pa and Tau Beta Pi, and award­ed a Ter­man Prize as top Civ­il Engi­neer­ing stu­dent in her grad­u­at­ing class.

picture of Jeffrey Hook

Jeffrey Hook

Resident Fellow

Jeff has been with Mag­ic since 1980. He has been an impor­tant con­trib­u­tor to evo­lu­tion of Mag­ic’s orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture, includ­ing val­ue­science-based ser­vice learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and its diverse projects to pro­mote health, coop­er­a­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. From Mag­ic’s ear­li­est days Jeff has led in bring­ing more peo­ple to more con­sis­tent­ly and com­pe­tent­ly prac­tice sci­ence to live well and con­tribute to oth­ers’ doing so. He envi­sions a world where a small­er human pop­u­la­tion coop­er­ates to thrive in peace and plen­ty by con­serv­ing resources and pro­tect­ing envi­ron­men­tal attrib­ut­es on which all rely. Jeff holds a B.A. from Stan­ford. He has also been a soft­ware engi­neer for Solarci­ty and Tes­la. He enjoys play­ing piano and singing, and exer­cis­ing in the out­doors, espe­cial­ly running.

picture of Hilary Hug

Hilary Hug

Resident Fellow

Hilary Hug first came to Mag­ic on the same day as Robin Bay­er in 1988. After sev­er­al years of vol­un­teer work in Indone­sia, she returned, and now man­ages Mag­ic’s res­i­den­tial ser­vice learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Hilary is a life coach and medi­a­tor who leads Mag­ic’s work­shops on life-plan­ning and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and con­sults to indi­vid­u­als and groups. She plans and over­sees class­es and events at Mag­ic, and plays an active role in teach­ing and pub­lish­ing about val­ue­science. A cer­ti­fied yoga instruc­tor, she teach­es through Mag­ic and in oth­er set­tings. She is a moth­er to twin girls born in 1999 and to a boy born in 2004, and she enjoys out­door activ­i­ties, music, and good times with friends. Hilary earned a B.S. in Human Biol­o­gy from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in three years.

picture of Andrew Nepomuceno

Andrew Nepomuceno

Resident Fellow

Andrew first encoun­tered Mag­ic when he enrolled in Val­ue­science at Stan­ford in 2010. Less than a year lat­er, in Jan­u­ary 2011 he became a Mag­ic res­i­dent and intern. He has con­tributed to design and con­struc­tion of 373 Oxford as an eco­log­i­cal­ly informed res­i­dence, and he has played lead­er­ship roles in CalAve Farm­ers’ Mar­ket food sal­vage, oak habi­tat stew­ard­ship, val­ue­science teach­ing, and main­te­nance of phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture and social fab­ric in the res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty. Since becom­ing a fel­low in 2015 he has shoul­dered pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for ori­ent­ing new res­i­dents and coor­di­nat­ing res­i­dents in oper­at­ing the com­mu­ni­ty. Andrew enjoys play­ing vio­lin, hik­ing in nature, danc­ing, and work­ing for com­mon good. He holds a B.S. in bio­me­chan­i­cal engi­neer­ing from Stan­ford and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a Ph.D. in epi­demi­ol­o­gy there.

picture of David Schrom

David Schrom

Resident Fellow / Secretary-Treasurer

David Schrom co-found­ed Mag­ic in 1972. He has won nation­al and inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for guid­ing projects in health edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment, dis­pute res­o­lu­tion, urban plan­ning, nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment, and val­ue­science teach­ing. Since Magic’s incep­tion, he has been a cen­tral fig­ure in evolv­ing its val­ue­science foun­da­tion, its strat­e­gy of inte­grat­ed research, teach­ing, and demon­stra­tion, and its projects inter­weav­ing themes of per­son­al health, coop­er­a­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. Cur­rent­ly he writes and teach­es about val­ue­science, pro­vides coun­sel to those oper­at­ing Mag­ic day-to-day, and leads in adapt­ing Mag­ic ideas, poli­cies, and pro­grams to the unprece­dent­ed chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of the cur­rent era. He enjoys run­ning, swim­ming, bik­ing, hik­ing, giv­ing thanks, coop­er­at­ing for com­mon good, and cul­ti­vat­ing aware­ness. He holds a B.A. (Schol­ar of the House) in His­to­ry from Yale Col­lege and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Pri­or to vol­un­teer­ing full-time with Mag­ic he worked in edu­ca­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing, law, finance, gov­ern­ment, and charity.

Magic Service Organization Trustees

picture of Robin Bayer

Robin Bayer

Trustee

See above under Inten­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dent Fellows.

picture of Dinesh Dutt

Dinesh Dutt

Trustee

For­mer Fel­low, Cis­co Systems
Dinesh G Dutt first encoun­tered Mag­ic in 1995 when he attend­ed a val­ue­science pre­sen­ta­tion and imme­di­ate­ly res­onat­ed with the idea of phil­an­thropy ground­ed in human ecol­o­gy and direct­ed to the roots of a full spec­trum of human con­cerns. Since then he and his physi­cian wife Shan­tha­la Keshavacharya have been enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers and gen­er­ous donors. Dinesh worked for over 20 years in the com­put­er net­work­ing indus­try. He was a key archi­tect of many of Cis­co Sys­tem’s most suc­cess­ful enter­prise net­work­ing prod­ucts and a co-inven­tor of VXLAN, a bedrock of many net­works, gen­er­at­ing more than 40 patents. In 2018, he left his role as a Chief Sci­en­tist at Cumu­lus Net­works to start an open source project, author tech­ni­cal books, and devote more life to par­ent­ing his daugh­ter Maya and to phil­an­thropy. Dinesh has authored three acclaimed data cen­ter net­work­ing books pub­lished by O’Reil­ly. He’s pas­sion­ate about advo­cat­ing for val­ue­science and about apply­ing it to pro­mote his own and oth­ers’ health, to cre­ate a more peace­ful and coop­er­a­tive soci­ety, and to pro­tect the Earth we share.

picture of Santiago Escruceria

Santiago Escruceria

Trustee

Out­door Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter Man­ag­er, Mono Lake Committee
In 1979, when San­ti­a­go Escruce­ria came to the Unit­ed States to study at Foothill Col­lege, he made his first home the Mag­ic com­mu­ni­ty. In that same year San­ti­a­go co-found­ed Mag­ic, the 501(c)(3) pub­lic ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion. He has served on Magic’s board ever since. Dur­ing his sev­er­al years as a Foothill stu­dent and Mag­ic res­i­dent, San­ti­a­go led in clos­ing neigh­bor­hood streets to short-cut­ting dri­vers, plant­i­ng street and park trees, regen­er­at­ing native oak pop­u­la­tions on near­by open space, and orga­niz­ing cycling adven­tures for Magi­cians and mem­bers of the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty. Lat­er, while earn­ing a bach­e­lor’s degree in Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy from Sono­ma State Uni­ver­si­ty, he was an active vol­un­teer field researcher for the Greater Far­al­lones Nation­al Marine Sanc­tu­ary. For more than two decades he has direct­ed the out­door edu­ca­tion pro­gram of the Mono Lake Com­mit­tee. Since 2008, he has led win­ter bird­ing tours in his native Colom­bia. San­ti­a­go is also a Com­mis­sion­er of the Lee Vin­ing Fire Pro­tec­tion Dis­trict, Pres­i­dent of the East­ern Sier­ra Audubon Soci­ety, and a ded­i­cat­ed lover of nature.

picture of David Schrom

David Schrom

Trustee

See above under Inten­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dent Fellows.

picture of Bradley Zlotnick

Bradley Zlotnick, MD, FACEP

Trustee

Brad Zlot­nick first affil­i­at­ed with Mag­ic in 1981, when he con­tributed to the devel­op­ment of val­ue­science with research for his Har­vard hon­ors the­sis. He joined Magic’s habi­tat stew­ard­ship work as planter, water-car­ri­er, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and came to sup­port our broad­er mis­sion as an advo­cate, advi­sor, and donor. An avid ath­lete and lover of nature, he’s repeat­ed­ly under­writ­ten fel­lows’ and depen­dents’ out­door adven­tures. Brad is a grad­u­ate of Stan­ford Med­ical School and a Board Cer­ti­fied emer­gency physi­cian. His clin­i­cal prac­tice informed roles guid­ing large med­ical group prac­tice, emer­gency depart­ment man­age­ment and qual­i­ty improve­ment, pro­fes­sion­al soci­ety lead­er­ship, and polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy. He serves on the board of Gua­nacaste Dry For­est Con­ser­va­tion Fund and is an advi­sor to the Inter­na­tion­al Bar­code of Life and the Kyoto Sym­po­sium Orga­ni­za­tion. Founder of San Diego Bar­code of Life, Brad has con­ceived, led, and con­tributed to bio­di­ver­si­ty projects in part­ner­ship with diverse edu­ca­tion­al, civic, com­mer­cial, and gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties, includ­ing Mag­ic’s Sil­i­con Val­ley Bar­code of Life.