31st Annual OHA Walking Tours
Leader Biographies

Our tour leaders are enthusiastic and dedicated. We invite you to read a bit more about them. We thank you for your interest and hope you join us this summer as we further explore our diverse city!

Annalee Allen
A Tale of Two Showrooms, Saturday July 23, 1 pm – 3:30 pm
Oakland Women’s History Walk, Saturday, August 27, 1 pm–3:30 pm 
Annalee Allen is a weekly columnist with the Oakland Tribune, writing on topics relating to landmarks, tours, and local history. The author of two books on Oakland, she is deeply involved in area historic preservation, serving on the boards of the Alameda County Historical Society, and the Pardee Home Museum, among others. As coordinator of the city sponsored Oakland Tours Program, Annalee promotes the work of volunteer guides who lead walking tours of Oakland’s downtown. A past president of the Oakland Heritage Alliance, she also served for several years on the city’s Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board. Annalee has been a resident of Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood since 1978.

Phil Bellman
F. M. “Borax” Smith Estate, Saturday, July 9, 10 am –12:30 pm
Phil Bellman is a longtime East Oakland resident with interests in history, architecture and historic preservation. He served as an early member of the OHA Board of Directors and edited the OHA News for several years. He has led tours relating to Borax Smith both in Oakland and the Nevada desert for many years. Professionally, Phil works with Kaiser Permanente in the field of medical education.

Bill Coburn
Lake Merritt Modern, Saturday, August 6, 10 am–12:30 pm
(Coming soon)

Michael Crowe
Mountain View Cemetery, Sunday, July 10, 10 am– 12:30 pm
The Fox Theatre and Uptown Art Deco, Sunday, July 31, 10 am–12:30 pm
Michael Crowe is recently retired from the National Park Service, after 20 years of federal service. He coordinated the National Historic Landmark program, Federal Surplus Property Transfer program, and the income tax rehabilitation program. Michael is founder and former president of the Art Deco Society of California. He is currently a board member of Oakland Heritage Alliance. He is the former president of the California Preservation Foundation and has served as President of the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board. He gives walking tours of Mountain View Cemetery, and Art Deco architectural tours of Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley and Alameda. He holds a Masters in Art History from the University of Cincinnati. He has written numerous articles on preservation topics for national publications and is author of Deco by the Bay:  The Art Deco Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area, and with Bob Bowen, San Francisco Art Deco.

Kathleen DiGiovanni
Fairyland and Lakeside Park, Sunday, July 24, 10 am– 1 pm
Oakland Women’s History Walk, Saturday, August 27, 1 pm–3:30 pm
Kathleen Leles DiGiovanni is a long-time Oakland Heritage Association walking tour leader and a regular contributor to the OHA News. A librarian at the Oakland Public Library, Kathleen has logged thousands of hours working in the Oakland History Room, promoting and guiding exploration of Oakland's history through the library's rich resources. She thinks it's the best job in the world. In addition to this year's Lakeside Park and Women’s History tours, Kathleen has also led walking tours for OHA in Glenview Montclair Village and Fernwood.

Dennis Evanosky
The Redwoods of Oakland, Sunday, August 7, 10 am–1:30 pm
Dimond, Sunday, August 28, 10 am–1:30 pm
Dennis Evanosky is the city editor at the Alameda Sun and a free-lance writer with five published books: East Bay Then and Now; San Francisco in Photographs; San Francisco Then and Now; Oakland’s Laurel District; Mountain View Cemetery and Alameda’s Architectural Treasure Chest. Two more books are coming soon. He is currently the editor of the Alameda County Historical Society’s newsletter. Dennis served the Oakland Heritage Alliance as its newsletter editor for two years. He has received several Partners in Preservation Awards, with Steve Mix and Eric Turowski for a calendar featuring the Oakland Laurel district’s history; for restoring the Civil War section of Mountain View Cemetery; and for assisting Bill Caldwell with Oakland: A Photographic Journey. He has since teamed with Eric J. Kos to create 11 more history calendars featuring both Oakland and Alameda. Eric and Dennis also created the web site www.oaklandhistory.com.
Dennis has been a docent at Mountain View Cemetery for eleven years. He has worked as a docent at the Pardee Home Museum and leads the City of Oakland’s walking tour of Preservation Park. His walking tours for the Oakland Heritage Alliance include the Laurel District, the Dimond District, Leona Heights, the Oakland Estuary, Oakland’s First Suburb (Preservation Park and the Pardee Home Museum); Oakland’s Redwoods and Mountain View Cemetery’s connection to the Civil War. He also hosts four walking tours for the City of Alameda featuring that city’s history.
Dennis was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania and was raised in Maryland. He holds a masters degree in German from the University of Maryland. He taught German for the University of Maryland in Europe for nine years.

Ben Glickstein
A Landscape of Stories: 6 Acres of Discovery at Peralta Hacienda, Saturday,
August 13, 1 pm–2:30 pm
Ben Glickstein has led tours and managed Peralta Hacienda Historical Park's Community Tour Leaders Program for two years. Previously a student of cultural anthropology, Ben is passionate about using archaeology and oral histories to discover and share the untold histories of Oakland. On the 4th Wednesday of every month, Ben organizes History Cafés at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park in order to enrich the knowledge and perspective of his tour guides and the public. Over the last year he has presented - and personally learned from - speakers such as Fruitvale tour-leader Pamela Magnuson-Peddle, Californio historian Dr. Carlos Salomon, and Coyote storyteller Monte Periera,. He will share insights from these experts and others.

Don Holmgren
OHA regrets Don Holmgren will be unable to lead the Oakland Cable Railways tour. Jay McCauley will be leading Don's tour on August 21st.  Please see Jay McCauley's bio below.

Betty Marvin
Clawson Neighborhood, Sunday, August 14, 10 am–12:30 pm
Betty Marvin studies local history and buildings in the Oakland City Planning Department’s Cultural Heritage Survey project.

Celia McCarthy
Rail Meets Water: Then and Now, Saturday, July 16, 10 am–12:30 pm
Celia McCarthy worked as an Environmental Planner at the Port of Oakland for twelve and a half years. She was responsible for implementation of many cultural resources mitigation measures, including developing interpretive materials at several locations, publishing Pacific Gateway: An Illustrated History of the Port of Oakland, by Woodruff Minor, completing Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation of the Oakland Harbor Training Walls and the Todd Shipyard, and establishing the Port’s photographic archives. Celia is a graduate of the Master's Program in Cultural Resources Management at Sonoma State University.

Jay McCauley
Oakland’s Cable Railways, Sunday, August 21, 10 am–1 pm
Jay McCauley is "pinch hitting" for Don Holmgren, who has done extensive research on Oakland's cable cars and developed the "Oakland's Cable Railways" tour.  Jay is the President of the Society for Industrial Archeology (SIA).  He is a Senior Docent at the Computer History Museum. He was the primary developer of the 2008 SIA Annual Conference in San Jose, including the development of several tours.  Jay is a Silicon Valley "geek" whose current interests include how best to utilize social media to reach the next generation of preservationists.  He'll prod you about sharing your experiences from the tour via social media, photo sharing sites, etc.  http://gowalla.com/trips/118513 is a Gowalla trip of all the OHA tours.  Jay will be checking in on FourSquare etc...so should you!

Mike Petouhoff
Back to the Future: A Shepherd Canyon Walk through History, Saturday, July 30, 10 am–12 pm
Mike Petouhoff is passionate about preserving and improving open space, and creating real pedestrian and bicycle access along natural routes through urban areas. A resident of Oakland, his community work includes membership on the boards of Shepherd Canyon Homeowner's Association, and the Friends of Montclair Railroad Trail and many City boards and commissions. In his professional career, Mike enjoys work that involves applying technology and working with people to solve social problems.

Ray Raineri
The Alden Tract: Temescal’s Neighbor to the West, Sunday, July 17, 10 am–12:30 pm
Veteran tour leader-historic photo archivist and Oakland native, Raymond Raineri grew up in the Temescal district and graduated from Oakland Tech High School with the June graduating class of 1957. Along with anecdotes of his youth and Italian-American experience in Oakland, he shares stories of the settlers, the work of Italian immigrants and their early enterprises, and photos from his personal historical photo collection.  Some of his photos of Temescal history are posted on Oakland Tech’s history page: http://oaklandtech.com/staff/about-tech/photos-history  Don’t miss the ‘Notable Alumni’ link, also at the Oakland Tech site. Ray graduated from San Francisco State with a BA in Sociology, worked for 30 years for the Alameda County probation department, and has been retired for 20 years. He is an active member of many organizations; among those are the Oakland Heritage Alliance, the Alameda County Historical Society, The Piedmont Historical Society, The Emeryville Historical Society, The Sons of Italy, and the Colombo Club.

Barbara Smith
Mountain View Cemetery, Sunday, July 10, 10 am–12:30 pm
Barbara Smith comes from a long line of East Bay natives; her two grandmothers were born in Oakland in the 1860’s. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, she was one of the original history docents at the Oakland Museum of California. She is the founder of the docent program at Oakland’s historic Mountain View Cemetery where she has led history tours since the 1970’s. Long active in the community, she is president of Contra Costa for Every Generation, a county-wide nonprofit organization with the mission to make Contra Costa’s communities good places to age. She and her husband, Heber Smith, live in Alamo and are the parents of three daughters and have seven grandchildren and one great grandson.

Valerie Winemiller
Richmond Boulevard, Saturday, August 20, 10 am–12:30 pm
OHA summer tours combine two of Valerie Winemiller's favorite activities: walking and looking at old buildings. She has led the Richmond Boulevard and the Broadway Auto Row tours each several times. As an activist in the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood since 1974, Valerie has written and illustrated a number of local history articles for that neighborhood's newsletter, and some which have appeared in the OHA News as well, including a history of the innovative--but barely mourned--MacArthur Broadway Shopping Center. As an OHA member, she has advocated for preservation issues at various public hearings before city boards and the city council. She is an illustrator for a graphic design firm in Oakland.