Sonoma County GO LOCAL is a marketing network of 400 Sonoma County businesses, non-profits, and government agencies.
GO LOCAL provides economic development marketing to help increase awareness about the importance of going local, to drive more market share to locally owned businesses, and strengthen our local economy.
The GO LOCAL Team
Merith Weisman, Incoming Director (starting November 1, 2024)
Merith Weisman is the Incoming Director of Sonoma County GO LOCAL. In her professional experience, Merith has often served as a bridge; building relationships with and among people, communities, governments, and organizations with diverse backgrounds, interests, histories, experiences, and missions. Her career started out in the nonprofit sector, then shifted to building and supporting mutually beneficial partnerships between public higher education and the local community.
For over sixteen years, she served as the Founding Coordinator/Director of the Sonoma State University (SSU) Center for Community Engagement. In this role, she assisted local companies and organizations with accessing the resources of SSU, including placing thousands of student assistants, student interns, and faculty researchers in collaborative opportunities. Merith also directly supported and mentored dozens of college students as well as older youth serving as AmeriCorps members. She also developed and taught in the Professional Social Media certificate program. Further, Merith was active in SSU and community leadership efforts with sustainability, climate change, and resilience, serving as a Member of Friends of SMART, SSU representative to the Sonoma County Cradle to Career Operational Team, Steering Committee Member for the Sonoma County Sustainable Enterprise Conference, and Member of the Sonoma County Workforce Investment Board (WIB) Youth Committee.
An entrepreneurial spirit lives in Merith. For example, she envisioned a complex cloud-based database for businesses, education, government, and nonprofits to document and increase university-community collaboration while also managing required technical regulations. She recruited, engaged, and facilitated a team from a local engineering firm, representatives from universities, and city/county employees who worked together for many years and ultimately developed coMesh (now the EduConnect module of Fundly, a CRM for nonprofits). Later, she sold her share of the software to the engineering firm.
Merith grew up on the East Coast and has an academic background that includes a doctorate in educational leadership and an MA in applied cultural anthropology. Her master’s research took her to live in Indonesia, where she later returned to support Plan International USA’s work in the wake of the devastating 2004 earthquake and tsunami. She has also traveled extensively for education and pleasure and has visited every continent except Antarctica.
A resident of Cotati, Merith is an active member of COAR (Cotati Organized Against Racism) and serves on the leadership committee of the ACLU Sonoma Chapter. Contact: m.weisman@golocal.coop.
Janeen Murray, Outgoing Director (1/2018 through 10/2024)
Janeen Murray is the Director of Sonoma County GO LOCAL through October, 2024.
Janeen started out as a science teacher in Sonoma County public schools, inspiring a commitment to learning and sustainability in our youth. She then shifted over to experience the private sector, managing operations and marketing for locally owned businesses.
Now supporting the GO LOCAL community since 2010, Janeen has served as Director since 2018. In parallel, she manages Sustaining Technologies, LLC, a worker-owned and cooperatively-managed LLC that provides the media publishing and management for GO LOCAL.
She's a volunteer member of the Sonoma County Food System Alliance. After hours, you may come across her playing accordion around the county with The Hubbub Club street band, and she also serves on the board of the nonprofit Hubbub Music Society. Contact: j.murray@golocal.coop
Debbie Stohlman
Debbie grew up in Sonoma County, wife to Mark Stohlman and mother to two beautiful daughters Julia and Rachel. She has been in the mortgage banking industry for over 28 years and a paid tax preparer for 20 of those years. Debbie is GO LOCAL's bookkeeper, accounts receivable specialist, accounts payable, accounting coordinator, and serves on the GO LOCAL board. Debbie's passion is volleyball, and her need to balance her inner compass is filled by recharging at Doran Beach for some serious (and seriously fun) doubles volleyball. Her love of volleyball also has her running her own volleyball tournaments and the volleyball ministry at her church. Contact: d.stohlman@golocal.coop
Leslie Graves
Leslie joined the GO LOCAL team in August 2023 and is the Marketing Coordinator. Her experience ranges from management, marketing, and producing community events over the last 20+ years in Sonoma County. Leslie's voice may be recognizable to some as she is regularly heard as the announcer for many live events including the City of Santa Rosa's Earth Day in Courthouse Square, LIVE at Juilliard Park Concert Series and a bevy of local athletic events in the Bay Area. You can also catch her hosting the Historical Society of Santa Rosa's webinar series. When not working or volunteering including serving on three local boards, Leslie spends precious time with her husband, adult daughter, two grown sons and two rescue dogs. Contact: l.graves@golocal.coop
Team photo courtesy of Lisa Rose Small Business Photography
The Sonoma County GO LOCAL Board of Directors
Terry Garrett - Treasurer
Terry Garrett served as the co-managing member of Sonoma County GO LOCAL and Sustaining Technologies from 2009 through 2018. He is now a member of the board. He has also served as a board member of Sonoma County Economic Development Board and co-chair of the Cannabis Advisory Group for Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Prior to his work in local economic development, he published local newsweekly newspapers and magazines and developed marketing programs for local retailers and restaurants. Most recently he spent 4 years as Chief Operating Officer for Mercy Wellness.
Janeen Murray - President
See above.
Matt Reynolds
Matt Reynolds decided at an early age that through entrepreneurship he could directly help people improve their lives. Matt is President and Co-founder of Indigenous Designs Corporation, a leading premium organic apparel brand and producer of hand-crafted fair trade clothing. INDIGENOUS is a leading global, sustainable-fashion brand that has led the way in today’s eco-fashion world. The company is committed to supporting fair trade values and indigenous artisan communities, investing in natural and organic fibers and environmentally friendly dyes, and to spreading the beauty of handmade eco-fashion.
Matt and Indigenous Designs continue to be heavily involved in promoting sustainability in collaboration with the Organic Exchange, the OTA (Organic Trade Association), SVN, BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), Fashion Revolution Day, Triple Pundit, Worldways Social Media and B-Corporations. Matt continues to lead Indigenous Designs as a company immersed premium fair trade fashion as well as sustainability.
Debbie Stohlman
See above.
Mark Stohlman
Upon retiring from over 24 years of service in the United States Coast Guard and 14 of those years in Sonoma County, he settled in Sonoma County for good in 2007. Mark spent 11 years in hotel management, most recently at the Bodega Bay Lodge as Director of Rooms and Revenue and was GO LOCAL's Marketing Coordinator for 4 years as now supports GO LOCAL as a board member.
And our tech master...
Reavis Sutphin-Gray
Reavis Sutphin-Gray began programming as a hobby in junior high school. He graduated from Pomona College in 2005 with a B.A. in computer science. Since then, he has worked in electronics and as an independent contractor engineering biotech software and systems. Reavis strives for efficiency and reliability both when developing algorithms and when mapping out the role of technological components in complex systems.
Recently, Reavis has leveraged his extensive background and education in traditional imperative, functional, and object-oriented programming methodologies to become adept at agile web application development. He sees Ruby on Rails and Django as powerful tools that enable small teams to create outstanding software through rapid iteration paired with extensive automated testing and static analysis. Reavis is the Lead Software Developer and Co-Managing Member of Sustaining Technologies.