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.

Jolene Miller, “Jo”, joined RGS in 2015. Jo has extensive computer networking experience, expertise in personnel administration, report, letter and memo preparation, technical document editing, formatting and publishing, and meeting agenda coordination. Jo’s work experience includes being an Information Systems Technician/Help Desk Supervisor for the United States Navy.

Examples of reports Jo has developed include Business Development Proposals and Statements of Qualifications, Environmental Impact Reports (EIR), Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), Initial Study/Negative Mitigated Declaration (IS/MND), Biological Assessments (BA), Biological Resource Assessments (BRA)Wetland Delineations (WD), Natural Environmental Assessment (NES), General Plans (GP), Climate Action Plans (CAP), Zoning Codes (ZC), and Housing Elements (HE). She is proficient in formatting Caltrans documents and in preparing permit packages and Planning Commission Agendas. She also served as network administrator and provided Information Technology support for 3,500 officers and enlisted personnel within a shipboard environment.

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.

Xavier Thomas joined RGS as the JPA’s Human Resources Manager in 2021. In addition, as a highly respected human resources leader with a broad range of experience, Xavier serves our partner agencies in a consulting role, for example, as an executive recruiter.

Prior to joining RGS, Xavier had over twenty-one years of experience in human resources and management. In addition to his many years of experience in recruitment and selection, as a human resources executive, he directed and performed HR functions such as benefits administration, classification and compensation, employment development, policies and procedure development, and performance management.

Xavier has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a certificate of completion from the CPS Human Resources Analyst Academy.

Outside of work, Xavier loves to spend time with family and friends, cook, play chess, travel, and volunteer.

Christina joined RGS in 2018 providing Human Resources services to RGS partner agencies. In 2019 she joined the authority’s internal team where she provides HR related support to RGS employees. She provides onboarding services; employee training coordination; benefits administration; leave management and workers compensation coordination; and policy and procedure interpretation and administration.

Prior to joining RGS, Christina has 8 years of public sector human resources and financial experience. Her experience includes recruitment and selection, hiring and onboarding, employee training, payroll processing and administration, creating 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.

Kelly Bagley came to RGS in 2020 with over 20 years of experience in office management and accounting in both the private and public sectors. Her most recent 10 years were working in local government performing clerical and accounting duties including the preparation, maintenance, review, auditing and processing of public sector payrolls and reviewing auditing and processing of other financial and statistical records. She is skilled in the areas of A/P and A/R, employee benefits management, and year end reporting.

Kelly is a member of GFOA and CSMFO. She has obtained the Certified Payroll Professional designation from the American Payroll Association.

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.

Hermelinda Flores joined RGS in 2020 as a Project Advisor where she supports the authority’s internal Finance team as well as RGS partner agencies. Hermelinda brings over 20 years of administrative and financial experience in private and governmental institutions. Her expertise includes payroll; CalPERS reporting; Accounts Payables and Accounts Receivables; journal entries and account recording keeping. Additionally, Hermelinda is skilled in records management; file maintenance; and reports and agendas used for public meetings.

Hermelinda holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from Menlo College, and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Education from Brandman University.

Angelius Knox joined RGS as an Advisor in the Finance service group in 2021. She provides professional accounting services such as preparing and transmitting client invoices, processing payments, and performing related accounting services for the JPA.

Angelius has over thirty years of experience in accounting and finance in the private and public sectors. Her areas of expertise include preparing financial statements, processing payroll, preparing and analyzing budgets and forecasts, and reconciling accounts.

Angelius has a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in business administration/accounting.

Outside of work, Angelius enjoys playing tennis, hiking, and traveling.