Administrative Staff

Richard is the Executive Director and CFO for the JPA.  Since inception of the Authority on January 1, 2002, he has worked with the Board of Directors to implement the Authority’s strategic plan and manages day-to-day operations with a staff of professionals.  Other regional-benefit programs Richard helped establish and manage include: serving as executive director of two other shared-services JPAs; chairing the STARS (Self-Directed Tax-Advantaged Retirement System), a statewide buying pool of public agencies for Deferred Compensation Defined Contribution services at competitive pricing for public employees; and served as the first president of the Municipal Insurance Cooperative, a pooled purchasing program.

Richard began is public service career as a teacher in a public school system 30 years ago, and spent most of his pre-JPA career in municipal finance with a special district, cities and a county.  He served as Director of Management & Finance for Arlington County (VA) and as Finance Director for the City of San Carlos.  Richard attended George Washington University as an undergraduate and Law School student, received a BA from Columbus State University, and completed the Berkeley Executive Seminar in the Goldman School of Public Policy and the UVA Weldon Center for Public Policy.

Sophia Selivanoff is the Deputy Executive Director/Client Services for Regional Government Services. Sophia’s role is to coordinate and initiate various business plans with service line leaders and administrative staff to meet current and emerging public agency consultation needs. Sophia also facilitates a consistent and positive client relationship with RGS, by focusing on the core values of public service and teamwork.

Since joining RGS in 2009, Sophia has delivered effective, creative and flexible approaches to personnel administration in local government agencies; and has built a reputation among partner agencies for her HR knowledge and her commitment to serving the best interests of our clients. Sophia is passionate about making a positive difference in the work lives of public agency staff and committed to an ongoing and engaged partnership with agency staff that results in enhancing their ability to deliver confident, competent, and caring service to their communities.

With the enthusiastic support of her growing team, she successfully led the development of RGS’ regionally-based HR team service model, resulting in teams based in the Bay area, the Sacramento region, and Southern California. These teams contain an extensive array of HR talent with dozens of seasoned generalists and multiple specialty skill sets, significantly increasing RGS’ capacity to deliver a full range of cost-effective and responsive HR management services to local governments throughout California. Sophia is integrating this team-based vision of extended service capability with all of RGS’ consultative services.

When not at her desk, Sophia is most likely found (or not!) hiking with her husband in a remote corner of the planet, binoculars in hand, marveling at the world’s incredibly beautiful and engaging wildlife.

Rich Oppenheim joined Regional Government Services Authority as a Human Resources Advisor to support external clients, and also work on HR-related issues internal to RGS. He has worked for state and local government for 15 years gaining experience in a variety of HR and organization-wide projects and programs. His work involves building, leading, and implementing strategic HR and organizational development programs. He brings the ability to merge big picture innovation with ground-level implementation and deliverables. He is a proponent of mining information from organizations to produce data-driven decisions, and technological/process innovation in HR practices. His wide range of experience includes Examination/Selection, Strategic Talent Acquisition, Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, Talent Management/Development, eLearning Development/Planning, Mentoring Programs, Leadership Development, Succession Planning, Performance Management, Change Management, Onboarding, Knowledge Management, and Organization-wide Culture Change initiatives.

Rich completed undergraduate work in Psychology and graduate work in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

Tiffany has been with the JPA since the summer of 2010 as an Executive Assistant.  In addition to standard administrative tasks, Tiffany is the main point of contact for most Authority technical matters such as email, phone and web presence, and managed the review and implementation of communications and IT services, including the JPA’s website.  Prior to working with the Authority, Tiffany was a Technical Trainer and Quality Assurance Analyst for a private property insurance company and a Customer Service Representative for a private health insurance broker.  She has also taught high school social studies and has a master’s degree in teaching.  She earned her undergraduate degree from UCLA in Business-Economics and Sociology.

Chris came to RGS in early 2016 with over 35 years of experience in California local government. He has worked in cities large and small as Human Resources Director, Administrative Services Director and Deputy City Manager. He has had responsibility for such varied departments and divisions as animal services, purchasing, library, facilities, and police and fire. His major areas of concentration (and first loves) have been Human Resources and Risk Management. It is in these areas that Chris developed his sought after expertise in labor negotiations, employee relations, policy development, performance management, benefits administration, recruitment and risk management programs. He has been a trusted counselor and confidante to a number of city managers and senior department heads throughout Southern California.

Chris has an undergraduate degree and MPA from Cal State Fullerton.

Chris is RGS’ talent management advisor, finding and placing a variety of skilled staff to fill the needs of partner agencies for all service areas as well as for projects, assessments and interim placements.

Anna Marie Will joined RGS in 2018 as a Coordinating Advisor. Anna Marie has significant experience as a public agency Risk Manager and as an Underwriter for multiple property and casualty lines. Anna Marie has provided management, coordination, and implementation of the risk and insurance programs for public agencies liabilities, property, transportation, workplace safety and catastrophic insurance programs. She has developed and managed Risk Management department budgets and communication, including representing the agency’s Risk Management program to Board of Directors, staff, and other governmental and community entities. She has developed, managed, and delivered employee safety programs. In addition, Anna Marie has negotiated and managed contracts with third party vendors and provided public works construction project supervision.

Anna Marie has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from California State University, Sacramento and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.

Janet joined the JPA in 2015 and serves as the Human Resources Manager.   She manages the day-to-day operations of the Authority’s internal human resources and payroll functions.   Janet has over ten years of Human Resources experience in the public sector industry as a generalist and manager.  Janet has a Master’s degree in Counseling and is a nationally certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR).   Some of Janet’s areas of interest and experience include employee and labor relations, management coaching, performance improvement, benefits administration and payroll supervision.

Christina joined RGS in 2018 as a Project Coordinator. She has 8 years of public sector human resources and financial experience. She is skilled in recruitment and selection, hiring, employee training, administering new hire orientations, workers compensation, payroll processing and administration, creating contracts and proposals, human resources policies and procedures, interpretation and application of agencies policies and labor agreements.

Christina has a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership with a specialization in Human Resources Management from Colorado State University.

Shailvina joined the JPA in 2012 and provides payroll services to the Authority as well as proving payroll services to other partner client agencies.  In addition to working with the JPA, she has over 10 years of experience in the public sector as an Accounting Assistant for a school district and a city.  Shailvina has considerable knowledge about public-sector payroll and financial accounting and is skilled in human resources technician practices, policies, and procedures.  She also has experience in providing staff services during payroll platform migration.

Mi Ra joined the JPA in 2014 to provide HR support services to the Authority, where she is able to draw upon her diverse public and private sector experiences to provide a variety of human resources support.  She has dedicated the past six years to the private sector as a business manager for a small firm where she managed all aspects of the business, including payroll, human resources, and accounting.  Before moving to the private sector, Mi Ra spent over seven years in the public sector implementing Geographic Information System (GIS) for natural resource management.  She has worked for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California State University and Monterey Peninsula College where she developed projects, managed budgets and taught courses in GIS.

Jeff is responsible for all of the JPA’s financial operations including: financial reporting, billing, accounts payable, insurance & retirement plan funding, and systems.  Prior to joining the Authority in 2010 Jeff had over 25 years of private operations and financial leadership experience.  His past responsibilities include COO roles in group health plan and pension operations, CFO roles including high-growth company venture capital fund raising, growth and turn-around Consulting engagements, and various Commercial Banking positions.  Jeff has a dual MBA in Finance and Information Systems from Drexel University and a BA in Economics from Trinity College.

Lisa joined the JPA in June of 2014 and currently handles a variety of staff level accounting functions, including accounts payable.  Lisa has over 25 years of professional, private-sector accounting experience as a controller for a mid-sized company.  Her professional experience is in all areas of accounting, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventory management, general ledger, and financial analysis through financial statement preparation.

Shahrzad joined RGS in 2015 as a Project Advisor in community outreach; in 2017 she joined the internal finance team and will be providing accounting services to the JPA. Prior to joining RGS, Shahrzad spent 15 years as a financial advisor consulting small businesses and a senior vice president of a bank with experience in business development and public outreach in both public and private agencies. In 2012, Shahrzad was the recipient of the Mayors’ Diversity Award by the San Mateo County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Shahrzad’s passion for her community can be seen in her many board positions she currently holds. She is a founding board member of San Mateo County Sheriff’s Activities league and a founder and past president of Half Moon Bay Police Activities League. She has also help the positions of President and CEO of Friends of Half Moon Bay Park and Recreation, and she has held an appointed position as Park and Recreation Commissioner for the City of Half Moon Bay since 2010. Shahrzad has also been appointed to the city’s General Plan Advisory Committee since 2014. Shahrzad holds a Bachelor of Science degree from SFSU in Business Administration.

Sandra is responsible for all client invoicing and assists the Finance and Operations Manager in special projects related to JPA financial operations.  Sandra Strong joined RGS in 2018 as a Technical Advisor specializing in payroll. She has 9 years of experience in Payroll/Accounting in the occupational sector. Five of the nine years she managed all operations of a private organization’s human resources, benefits and payroll administration. She maintained payroll controls and assured that proper policies, procedures, rules and regulations were met.

Sandra has received a MBA from California State University of Sacramento in 2017. She has a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting and Finance from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.