Ralph Imondi, PhD
Executive Director
Coastal Marine Biolabs
Integrative Biosciences Institute
Ventura Harbor, CA

Ralph pursued his doctoral research in the field of developmental neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his postdoctoral research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He is currently the Executive Director of Coastal Marine Biolabs (CMB), a harbor-based NGO that conducts a wide-range of education and research activities that benefit the VSE project. Over the last decade, CMB has become a focal point for interdisciplinary collaborations centered on the creation of new instructional models and web-based technologies to facilitate the integration of science research and education. During this time, CMB's state-of-the-art biosciences facility has supported a wide range of research and outreach activities ranging from environmental water quality assessments of coastal watersheds, to marine biotoxin monitoring, to DNA-based inventories of marine indicator species, to eco-morphologic studies of rockfishes. Through large-scale funding awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, CMB has developed, deployed, and evaluated a series of regional and national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs that respond to science education reform agenda and projected workforce shortages of STEM professionals. Ralph's involvement in the VSE takes him back to his roots in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, where he supplemented his summer income by harvesting quahogs with a high school buddy using a borrowed work skiff equipped with bullrakes and other tools of the trade. He has called Ventura his home for the last 10 years.

Masaaki J.Hori, Principal Mas Hori & Associates

Mas Hori & Associates is a food safety consulting group. He specializes in Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) Coordination and Sanitation Consulting. He provides private consulting service to a number of food processing firms in California and is the lead trainer for the Food Safety with FIBR Training Institute which teaches Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s), Standard Sanitation Operating Procedures (SSOP’s) and HACCP courses. Mr. Hori is also a board member of the Food Industry Business Roundtable (FIBR).

Mas served as an Food and Drug Investigator, Senior Food and Drug Investigator and Supervising Food and Drug Investigator for the California Department of Health Services, Food and Drug Branch for 26.5 years. He has experience in inspecting food products (including low acid food processing and HACCP systems), pharmaceutical products, medical device products, cosmetics products, and the bottled water industry. Prior to joining the California Food and Drug Branch, he worked for the Los Angeles County Health Department, as an Environmental specialist, inspecting restaurants and markets in Los Angeles. Since 1996,he has trained over 1500 individuals in HACCP (through AFDO Seafood Allicance HACCP Training Course and FIBR, which is required by federal law to be applied in wholesale seafood operations. He has also trained the Southern California counties in the Shellfish program.

He graduated from California State University at Los Angeles with a B.A. degree in Biology. He is presently the Past Chair of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Division of the American Society of Quality (ASQ). He presently holds a certification for HACCP with ASQ, as a CHA (Certified HACCP Auditor), which standardizes the auditor for auditing HACCP systems for foods.