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• Semifreddi's Industrial Bakery Tour

  • When
    August 29, 2025
  •  
    10:30 AM
  • Location
    1980 North Loop Rd., Alameda
  • Spaces left
    0

  Join waitlist

  

  We have had to postpone this event.

  The new date is August 29

  Call phone (+15102078761)

  We will be given a tour of the Semifreddi's industrial bakery in Alameda which runs 24/7, as well as a take home gift of various loaves of freshly baked bread worth $25. 

  It all started on Oct 15, 1984 in a tiny 450 square-foot shop in Kensington/Berkeley CA, and on that day and every day since it’s been about family.  Tom Franier, his sister Barbara Rose and her husband Mike took a chance on a dream and brought Semifreddi’s to the world.
   
  Long story short, it worked.   
  
  Obsessed with quality, obsessed with giving back to the community and obsessed with taking care of their employees like family, Semifreddi’s grew over the next 40 years by sweating the small stuff and making it happen every single day 363 days a year.

  Where:  Semifreddi's bakery
  

  Website Semifreddis.com

  1980 North Loop Rd., Alameda, CA, 94502

  Time:  10:30 AM

  Cost: $25 (all for scholarships)

  PBKNCA rep:  O'Neil Dillon

  Group size:  18

  If on the day of the event you find you can't make it, call O'Neil Dillon at 510-207-8761. Simply not paying or not replying prevents us from allowing someone else to attend. No-shows do NOT receive a refund!
  

  If you register, then later decide not to attend this event, there may be others on the waiting list who will be able to take your place, so please cancel (click HERE, or on "Already registered" if you are on the event page) or by contacting  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  If you are on the waitlist and wish to be removed without being registered, please contact  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

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• San Francisco Presidio and Tunnel Tops

  • When
    September 13, 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM
  • Spaces left
    8

  Register

  To register, we prefer you pay online via the black "REGISTER" button on the left. For other options, contact O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  Call phone (+15102078761)

  We will have a private, docent-led tour of the Presidio and Tunnel Tops.

  Lawmakers transformed the Presidio into a National Park in 1996, and since then it has become one of the greatest (and greenest) places to explore in all of San Francisco. Join us on a walk through San Francisco’s panoramic, luscious park, with wooded areas and scenic views as far as the eye can see including the newly-created Tunnel Tops.
  

  From Spain, to Mexico, to the United States — The Presidio has been home to more militaries than almost any other fortress in America. And for good reason: it’s a sprawling, fortified estate strategically located at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. During the Spanish-American War, it was where America’s troops were trained and shipped across the Pacific. A decade later, it would be an oasis for earthquake survivors, housing refugees and coordinating rescue efforts.

  When:  September 13 @ 10AM

  Where:  Meet at the Officer's Club, 50 Moraga Ave., at the Main Post.

  Parking:  Paid parking on the street.

  Cost:  PBKNCA Members $35 ($10 for scholarships); all others $45 ($20 for scholarships)

  Maximum group size: 30 (with two docents)

  PBKNCA representative:  O'Neil Dillon

  Links:

  presidio.gov

  parkconservancy.org/parks/presidio-tunnel-tops

  
  

  If on the day of the event you find you can't make it, call O'Neil Dillon at 510-207-8761. Simply not paying or not replying prevents us from allowing someone else to attend. No-shows do NOT receive a refund!
  

  If you register, then later decide not to attend this event, there may be others on the waiting list who will be able to take your place, so please cancel (click HERE, or on "Already registered" if you are on the event page) or by contacting  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  If you are on the waitlist and wish to be removed without being registered, please contact  O'Neil Dillon at oneilsdillon@gmail.com or 510-207-8761

  Show details
• 39th Asilomar Conference - Feb 13-16, 2026

  • Start
    February 13, 2026
  •  
    4:00 PM
  • End
    February 16, 2026
  •  
    12:00 PM
  • Location
    Asilomar, 800 Asilomar Ave, Pacific Grove, CA

  Register

  
  

  To register, we prefer you pay online via the black "REGISTER" button. But you may mail the coupon and a check by snail mail.  After you register you will receive information about reserving room and meals with the PBK group. For registration or logistics matters, please contact Barry Haskell at bghaskell@comcast.net. Registration is $150 (member and guests rate), $180 Non-PBKNCA, which goes in part to scholarships.  (Remember, to be part of the PBKNCA package, do not reserve directly with the facility - wait for the information from Barry.) 

  Here is a preview of 2026 Speakers. For more information, contact Deirdre Frontczak, (707) 546-4238, dfrontczak@scu.edu.

  
  

  Friday evening - Seeta Chaganti 2023 Teaching Excellence Awardee

  Professor of medieval literature. English department UC Davis 

  Carceral Angels: Medieval Sheriffs and Modern Police Abolition 

  This talk will offer an overview of the book project I am currently completing. My book argues that only by understanding Anglo-American policing through its origins in the early medieval English sheriff can we surmount the obstacles we have encountered in abolishing modern police and prisons. I will begin by discussing the Anglo-Saxon origins of the sheriff and the early interdependence he mandates between violence and the protection of the property rights due to the English as the white angelic co-heirs of the angels in heaven. I will then illustrate how this ideology shapes representations of the sheriff in late-medieval English outlaw literature and end by revisiting modern theories of police abolition in terms of the premodern dynamic of racialized carceral violence. 

  Seeta Chaganti is a professor of medieval literature in the English department at the University of California, Davis. Her first book, The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary (2008), explored the role of the devotional object’s visual languages in the medieval reception of vernacular poetry. Her second book, Strange Footing (2018), won the MLA Scaglione Award for Comparative Literary Study. It argues that late-medieval participation in dance traditions shaped readers’ means of apprehending poetic form in lyric and narrative verse. Her third book, “Carceral Angels,” is in progress and draws upon both her expertise in medieval poetic archives and her activist work in police abolition on the UC Davis campus and beyond it. She has published widely in a variety of academic journals, helped to found Medievalists of Color and Race before Race, and served as an elected trustee of the New Chaucer Society and the Medieval Academy of America.

  
  Saturday morning - Thomas P.  Lyon 

  Professor, University of Michigan 

   Rebuilding Institutional Trust through Corporate Political Responsibility 

  We are living through a global crisis of trust in institutions.  Only 36% of people believe the next generation will be better off, and over 60% hold grievances against business, government and the rich.  Business has a crucial role to play in rebuilding institutional trust, because only business is still considered both competent and ethical by a majority of people globally.  This talk will argue that a key foundation for rebuilding trust is corporate political responsibility, a place for business to stand in a world of heated and polarized rhetoric, a vision that may just thread the needle between the unrealistic hope that business can stay out of politics altogether and the increasingly untenable view that money is speech and companies should feel free to deploy it without restraint in pursuit of higher returns for shareholders.  

  Tom Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce at the University of Michigan, with appointments in both the Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability.  He coined the term Corporate Political Responsibility in the 2018 article “CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics,” chosen as the Best Paper in California Management Review that year.  Lyon was a founder of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), hosted its first conference, and served as its President.   He received the World Sustainability Award in 2023 and the 2022 Distinguished Scholar Award, Organizations and the Natural Environment division, Academy of Management.  He has testified before Congress, and given keynote addresses at academic and practitioner conferences around the world.  He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, the University of Paris, the University of Pisa, Georgetown University, and Resources for the Future.  He earned his BSE from Princeton University, and MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University. 

  
  Saturday afternoon - Christine Kurtz  

  Master Beekeeper

  
  

  Bees, Bees, Bees! Would you like to learn more about our most important pollinators and their problems?

  Christine Kurtz is a long time Sonoma County resident with 20 plus years of beekeeping experience under her belt. She is a believer in regenerative and treatment free all-natural hive management and strongly supports locally adapted bee colonies. She patiently educates local beekeepers and encourages them to share their knowledge and their bees. 

  Kurtz has been past president and an active member of the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association for many years. She spearheaded efforts that led to that organization receiving Congressional, as well as state and local recognition for outstanding work in the nonprofit area. 

  A believer is lifelong learning, Christine was a part of the panel at UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center that defined the “Honey Wheel”. She is currently enrolled in the Master Beekeeper program there and is starting a research project on entombed pollen. She has also studied permaculture and was one of the founders of PAA (Pollinator Advocacy Alliance) to educate the public and beekeepers about the ecological impact of high intensive and mass industrial beekeeping and seeks to find balance amid these competing interests so that all bees can thrive. 

  Christine lives in Petaluma with her husband of 35 years, 30 chickens, their Rottweiler, and an ever-changing number of bee hives. She started her honeybee consulting business in 2014 and travels all over Sonoma, Napa, and Marin counties helping people with their bees. 

  Saturday evening - Giovanni Peri

  Department of Economics, UC Davis 

  Immigrants’ and Refugees economic success and their contribution to the US economy 

  Dispelling myths that they displace US workers and depend on welfare, 25 years of research show that immigrants and refugees in the US quickly achieve strong economic integration and success and that their inflow contribute to the employment and economic growth of local US economies as well as to entrepreneurship, innovation and growth of its companies. They bring different skills, increase demand and dynamism and in the recent year the US economy, including its workers, would have benefitted from more immigration, rather than less. 

  Giovanni Peri is the C. Bryan Cameron Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics at UC Davis and Founder and Director of the Global Migration Center at UC Davis, a multi-disciplinary research center focused on migrations and refugees. He is Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has been Co-Editor of the Journal of European Economic Association between 2017 and 2022 and Chair of the UC Davis Economics Department between 2015 and 2019. His research focuses on the economic determinants and consequences of international migrations and immigration policies. He has published around 100 refereed articles in academic Journals including the American Economic Review, The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and many others and his work has received more than 30,000 citations.

  He has received research grants from the Mac Arthur Foundation, the Russel Sage Foundation, the World Bank and the National Science Foundation. His research is often featured in media outlets such as the Economist, the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal and NPR news. He has advised more than 50 Ph.D. students, currently employed in academic, research and policy institutions all over the world. He has often provided his expertise on economics of migrations and refugees to government and international agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office, the IMF and the World Bank. 

  
  Sunday morning  - Francisco Jimenez   

  Modern Languages / Literature (Santa Clara University) 

  Living and Writing a Migrant’s Life

  I will share a personal narrative rooted in my experiences growing up in a family of migrant workers and how those formative years have shaped my writing. The talk will explore the intersections of farm labor, migration, identity, and storytelling, reflecting on the challenges and resilience that marked my upbringing—experiences that echo in the lives of many migrant families today. To provide visual context and bring these stories to life, I will use PowerPoint to present childhood photographs from that period and screen The Unbroken Sky, a 24-minute dramatic film adapted from my memoirs.

  Francisco Jiménez emigrated from Mexico to California and, as a child, worked alongside his family in the fields. He later earned a B.A. from Santa Clara University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University under a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. His acclaimed memoirs have been adapted into stage plays and a dramatic film. His four-book series—The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, Breaking Through, Reaching Out, and Taking Hold—is listed among the American Library Association’s 50 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. He holds honorary degrees from the University of San Francisco and De Anza College. In 2015, a school in Santa Maria was named in honor of him and his late brother. His work has been recognized by the U.S. Congress, the Department of Education, the California State Senate, and the Governor of Jalisco. Among his honors are the John Steinbeck Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the U.S. Professor of the Year Award. Now Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University, Jiménez remains involved in promoting education and literacy across the country. 

  Sunday afternoon - Mohan Gurunathan   

  Food systems / sustainability (Stealth Startup; MIT)

  The Earth on our Plate: Why Changing our Diet Is Essential to Saving our Planet 

  Have you ever wondered about the hidden costs of feeding 8 billion people three meals a day?
  
  The impact of agriculture on our planet far exceeds that of any other human activity. Yet, most of us rarely give it a second thought when we sit down to eat.  In this presentation, we’ll explore the surprising connections between our daily food choices and some of the world’s most pressing issues: climate change, deforestation, species extinction, water scarcity, pollution, world hunger, human health, and many other serious environmental and social issues. You’ll learn how simple dietary changes—adopted on a societal scale—are essential to solving many of humanity’s greatest challenges, and play a critical role in preserving our planet for future generations. 

  Mohan Gurunathan is an engineer, activist, and entrepreneur who has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for over 20 years. He is an expert on food systems and sustainability and is frequently invited to speak about the environmental and social impacts of our diet choices. Mohan has given over 40 talks on this subject in the San Francisco Bay Area, to a range of audiences including high schools, colleges, religious groups, environmental orgs, and many others.  Mohan played a leading role in convincing the City of Mountain View to include plant-based diet promotion as a part of their 2019 Environmental Sustainability Plan. He also serves as an advisor and/or board member for numerous environmental and animal advocacy nonprofits. Mohan runs a small engineering consulting business and splits his time between that, various non-profit activities and spending time with his family. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from M.I.T., and works as an independent engineering consultant in Silicon Valley. 

  Sunday evening  - Susanna Faas-Bush 2025 Scholarship awardee (Hardardt award)

  Classical Archaeology UC Berkeley

  Reconstructing Everyday Life in Pompeii: The Mysteries of the Boscoreale Treasure

  On April 13th of 1895, a worker on private excavations just outside of Pompeii reported something dazzling - a buried hoard of over 100 coins, golden jewelry and silver dining ware found at an otherwise modest Roman villa/vineyard. The drama of this find, and its subsequent sale to the Louvre, would far overshadow the rest of the villa’s excavation. This rich archaeological material has never been fully mined for what it can tell us; moreover, Susanna Faas-Bush has discovered more than 300 additional pieces from the collection, stored separately in Pompeii but forgotten for decades – a discovery, she states, that “has never gotten the attention it deserves.” 

  Susanna Faas-Bush, a PBKNCA scholarship awardee for 2025, is a PhD candidate in Classical Archaeology at UC Berkeley. Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 2017, she graduated from Oberlin College. in 2018 with a double major in Latin Language & Studies and Archaeology and a minor in Greek. She has worked at Pompeii as part of the Pompeii Artifact Life History Project for five field seasons, and as the Archaeological Institute of America's 2024-2025 Olivia James Traveling Fellow she spent the last year conducting dissertation fieldwork.    

  In this presentation, she discusses her doctoral work studying the Villa della Pisanella, an ancient Roman villa-vineyard outside of Pompeii where the Boscoreale Treasure was discovered more than 125 years ago. Tracking down artifacts through six different countries, she draws new connections between the long-separated objects. Faas-Bush focuses on reconstructing daily life for all the inhabitants of the villa, painting a picture of both of the luxury agritourism approach to wine-selling used by the owners of the villa, and the highly controlled lived experiences of the enslaved laborers. 

  Taking her audience behind the scenes of one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world, she will also discuss more broadly how the digitization of archaeological data in Pompeii enables exciting leaps in the field, as well as the superintendency's recent efforts to open up the excavations to the public in new ways. 

  
  Monday morning - Jim Richardson B.A., M. Div., PBK: UCLA 1975

      California History / Politics 

  The Remarkable Life and Legacy of Willie Brown 

  Born in racially segregated Texas in 1934, Willie Brown rose to become the Speaker of the California State Assembly in the 1980s and ’90s — and arguably the most powerful African American politician in the country at the time. With a flair for clothes and controversy, Brown was certainly among the most entertaining political figures of our age. Brown went on to serve two terms as mayor of San Francisco. 

  But Willie Brown did not come out of nowhere. He was part of a political lineage whose impresario, Phillip Burton, fell one vote short of being elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives before his untimely death in 1983. Brown took up Burton’s mantle in the years that followed. Others who emerged from the Burton-Brown political family tree included Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, John Burton, Bill Honig, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris.         

  Jim Richardson, a former journalist with The Sacramento Bee, wrote the critically acclaimed Willie Brown: A Biography, published in 1996 by the University of California Press. As a research fellow at the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, and an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow, Richardson traveled extensively in East Texas where Brown grew up, interviewed members of his family, dozens of politicians, and followed the paper trail from Washington D.C. to Sacramento. Brown also gave Richardson four lengthy interviews. He and Brown have stayed in touch, including for a two-hour interview, published in CalMatters, marking Brown’s 90^th birthday in 2024         

  Richardson, who is also an Episcopal priest, wrote a recent book about his ancestors, The Abolitionist’s Journal: Memories of an American Antislavery Family, that was the subject of his talk at the 2020 PBK conference. The Abolitionist's Journal won the Gold Award from Forward Review for the best history book in 2022. Forward Review highlights books by independent and academic publishers.

  We are delighted to invite you to share in a weekend of learning, dialogue, and fellowship at the Asilomar Conference Center on the spectacular Monterey Coast.

  But this is more than eight interesting speakers, it is an opportunity to renew old friendships, or make new friends at meals; walk on the beach or the trails. Explore the historic buildings of the Asilomar State Park. Visit the Butterfly Grove Inn to see the beautiful Monarch Butterflies, and much more. 
  

  

  “Education is the most powerful weapon we have to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
  

  Some of you may feel ready for new beginnings.  Some may be eager to expand your learning into unexplored ground.  Some of you may just be eager for a chance to hang with friends in a beautiful,  refreshing and historic coastal retreat.  And for some of you, all three apply.  Thankfully, we are looking forward to a new season for the PBKNCA Asilomar Conference in February!  It is again time to reserve your space for a weekend of learning, inspiration, fellowship and a breath of sanity, on the magnificent Monterey coast. Come, bring a friend, and find out for yourself. 
  

  If you have questions on this year’s program, please contact dfrontczak@scu.edu. For registration or logistics matters, please contact Barry Haskell at bghaskell@comcast.net. Registration is $150, which goes mainly to scholarships. Cost will be similar to last year, about $680 per person, double occupancy, and includes all nine meals and parking. All registered participants will receive forms to reserve their Asilomar accommodations, including meals; please check your email. (Remember, to be part of the PBKNCA package, do not reserve directly with the facility.)

  Please join us once again for the annual Asilomar Conference -- to learn, engage in discussions, and to listen to one another in new ways.

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