ABOUT
Winter Consulting
Winter Consulting LLC is a growing leader in Bay Area community outreach and stakeholder engagement striving for sustainable and equitable transportation for all. Our team brings 45 years of combined experience engaging diverse stakeholders—from city and transit agency staff and elected officials to community leaders, business representatives, and folks from the general public. We specialize in reaching voices historically left out of the planning process through our network of CBO partnerships and community relationships forged over two decades.
Our team uses extensive in person and digital outreach, ranging from small focus groups to large panel discussions to public meetings incorporating the latest technologies in real-time audience polling and engagement software. We pride ourselves on making complex information palatable to the public and enjoyable to engage in order to maximize the amount of valuable feedback we receive from our participants.
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As a boutique firm, we benefit from the infrastructure and personnel to tackle complicated endeavors, yet we’re also small enough to deliver the agile personal touch every project deserves. We bid only on projects our team genuinely believes will improve the communities in which we live and work.
Winter Consulting's Mission, Vision, and Values
Mission
Build community, empower people.
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Vision
Sustainable, just communities built by empowered people.
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Values
Justice: amplifying historically marginalized voices to improve communities for all people
Transparency & authenticity: open and honest about our process
Inclusivity: of people’s ideas, cultures, customs, & communication styles
Compassion & collaboration: patient, kind and moving at the speed of trust
Accountability: to community, to clients, and for the high quality of our work
Our Team
Jocelyn Banuelos
Deputy Engagement Manager
Jocelyn earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of California Riverside in Political Science/ International Affairs because of her passion for social justice and policy. Throughout her career, Jocelyn has been able to work and intern at different non profit organizations throughout the Bay Area including Lean In, Bay Area Legal Aid, Ravenswood Education Foundation, and Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto where she worked closely with members of the community. Through these experiences and as a Bay Area native, Jocelyn has been able to develop an understanding and passion for community advocacy. She hopes to bring her skills and knowledge to Winter Consulting to help support its mission of social equity in local policy and projects.
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Shannon Dao
Administrative Assistant
Shannon, who was born in Vietnam and grew up in San Leandro, is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from San Jose State University. She seeks to fulfill her goals of establishing a healthy and happy life for herself and others in the future because of her autonomous upbringing. Because of her Bay Area upbringing, she also recognizes the struggles and obstacles that others endure, especially those who come from similar backgrounds. At Winter Consulting, she hopes to discover more regarding her community while also helping others improve their daily lives. As the Administrative Assistant, Shannon supports the Office Manager in running daily operations, financial processes, and team activities.
Shari D'Aguilar
Office Manager
Shari is dedicated to serving those who serve our communities. Shari has helped homeless individuals obtain housing and employment as a case manager at a Bay Area homeless shelter. She has honed her administrative skills as a Human Resources Assistant at a Los Angeles-based insurance company and as the Operations Manager at queer family- centered non-profit, Our Family Coalition. As Operations Assistant for Conscious Capitalism Los Angeles, she helped link socially and environmentally conscious businesses together. Shari's focus is on staff morale, and she supports all of Winter Consulting Group’s staff members by ensuring that day-to-day operations run smoothly.
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Stefania Diaz
Engagement Coordinator
Born and raised in the Central Valley, Stefania Diaz moved to the Bay Area in 2018 to complete her undergraduate degree in Political Science from San Jose State University. Throughout her career, Stefania has long dedicated a big part of her life to serve the communities that are most in need. Whether it is through grassroots advocacy or community engagement, Stefania has always had a passion for equity and social justice. Much of her previous work was centered around advocating for affordable, accessible health services in our region’s diverse communities as well as serving as a viable liaison to community residents by maintaining an accessible streamline of community services. As an engagement coordinator at Winter Consulting, she hopes to bring her skills and knowledge to continue to build upon equity, inclusion, and community engagement.
Christina Guarino
Engagement Manager
Christina graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado, Boulder with bachelor's degrees in psychology and anthropology. Her drive for implementing positive change at a large scale brought her to work at Winter Consulting. She enjoys working with a team that is passionate about equity, accessibility, and sustainability. Winter Consulting strives to listen to and support every individual across various communities, and Christina takes prides in being a part of that. Christina also loves taking public transportation, and is passionate about encouraging others to take it too. Her position as a Deputy Engagement Manager allows her to directly work with communities throughout the Bay Area, amplifying their voices and communicating their needs to cities and agencies. She's passionate about team building and business development, and she's grateful to use those skills in this work as well.
Rachel Montoya Gabrielson
Deputy Engagement Manager
Rachel arrives with a long-time mission to bring relevant, life-impacting information to local communities. During her career as an Oakland public school educator, she carefully guided her class from pre-pandemic times into pandemic times while jumping in to help the school with outreach efforts. Through that experience, she developed thoughtful, creative ways to keep communication with the school community consistent and meaningful. Her craft for powerful communication had been honed before this role: in 2010, she started the first Oakland network for women enduring the loss of a mother, a grassroots support community. Earliest in her career, she wrote for a daily newspaper on the border of Mexico in McAllen, TX where she spent time speaking with community members impacted by shrinking health care benefits. She is enthusiastic to fold her variety of experiences into the Deputy Engagement Manager position.
Ngan Nguyen
Engagement Coordinator
Ngan was born and raised in San José and is invested in improving the quality of life of underprivileged communities in the Bay Area. She received her Master’s of Urban Planning from San José State University. During her time at the City of San José, Ngan found her passion for community engagement, uplifting unheard voices and supporting marginalized communities. Ngan has also worked with non-governmental organizations like CommUniverCity, focusing on underserved communities in select parts of San José to understand their needs regarding parks and green, open spaces. As an Engagement Coordinator at Winter Consulting, Ngan is proud to continue serving neglected communities and pursue her passion in public service.
Iris Osorio-Villatoro
Engagement Manager
As a Deputy Engagement Manager at Winter Consulting, Iris Osorio-Villatoro helps design and implement meaningful community-led engagement. Born and raised in Southern California, she understands the impacts of inequitable planning on people’s everyday lives and hopes to use that knowledge in her work. Iris received a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies with a minor in Translation Studies from Stanford University, where she also volunteered as a translator for immigration-related non-profits in the area. After working as a facilitator for three years and developing curriculum related to racial, economic and social inequities, Iris is excited to continue facilitating difficult conversations to advance communities’ goals and visions for their own neighborhoods.
Dominic Treseler
Engagement Coordinator
Growing up in Berkeley, and later pursuing his bachelor's in political science at San Jose State University, Dominic is deeply invested in the success of Bay Area communities. While studying at SJSU, Dominic had the opportunity to assist many members of his community through constituent casework while interning at several local legislator's offices. While working as an Engagement Coordinator, Dominic also serves on SJSU’s Associated Students board as the director of legislative affairs, where he advocates on behalf of the students of his university to University administration and local representatives. His passion for engaging and serving underrepresented communities brought him to Winter Consulting where he strives to ensure the lives of every Bay Area resident are improved by the projects he works on.
Christian Ollano
Associate Director
Christian Ollano is a demonstrated community builder dedicated to ensuring that voices often not heard are given a platform to engage in the public participatory process. Leveraging his experience and skills in meeting facilitation, campaign strategy and coalition building, Christian aims to create a more accessible and equitable community engagement experience for all. Much of his previous work centered upon leading coalitions for local and statewide housing advocacy campaigns that brought critical protections for the region’s most vulnerable residents. He is passionate about building equitable and sustainable communities in both the physical and social realms, leveraging his network and expertise to create neighborhoods of belonging via his work as an Engagement Manager at Winter Consulting.
Frank Ponciano
Associate Director
Frank Ponciano moved to San Jose from the east coast in 2015 and since then has been dedicated to educating and otherwise engaging individuals and families in the Bay Area around issues affecting their everyday lives. Frank transitioned out of the corporate sector into community organizing in order to bring justice and equity to Bay Area communities that in many ways mirrored the one where he grew up. Frank’s work as a policy specialist for a San Jose Councilmember led him to specialize in housing and homelessness, public safety, and environmental policy. It was in this role that he began to realize the importance of transportation as an intersectional issue and how it can be the key to much of the progress we seek in our communities. Frank is passionate about equity in public participation and brings that enthusiasm to all of his work at Winter Consulting. He contributes through his extensive experience in community engagement, and wide network of relationships in the Bay Area. Frank manages a number of Winter Consulting’s key projects and supports the entire firm’s focus on equity in all of our work.
Corinne Winter
Founder
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Corinne brings 20 years of professional experience supporting sustainable and equitable change in the transportation industry. In her decade as executive director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and board chair of Transform, she helped expand membership bases, raised community awareness of the importance of sustainable transportation, and advocated for bike-able and walkable communities for all. She engaged diverse stakeholders including city and transit agency staff, elected officials, developers, community leaders, and business leaders. Corinne then founded Winter Consulting in 2015 to help ensure local community voices and concerns–especially those of historically underrepresented communities–were being heard by the agencies drafting and planning future transportation policy and projects. Corinne’s approach presupposes that continued progress toward a more sustainable transportation landscape cannot be decoupled from racial and social equity concerns.