Officers

Shannon Miller – Chair

Shannon is an agent enrolled to practice before the IRS. She runs her own tax practice in Santa Barbara, California and speaks frequently about health care reform.  She works with many clients adversely affected by our health care crisis. 

Shannon originally hails from St. Louis, Missouri where she grew up and received her Bachelor's degree from Webster University.  After graduating she lived and worked in Dublin, Ireland where she received her teaching certification.  Then she moved to Hiroshima, Japan for five years before returning to the United States and becoming a tax accountant.

Millie Braunstein – Vice-Chair

Millie has been actively involved with the effort to obtain a single-payer health care system in California since 2005. As a member of Health Care for All in Yolo Chapter she has served as the chapter membership chair, chair of the chapter, and as a Yolo Director for HCA – CA. Since 2010 she has been chairperson of the state level HCA Communications Committee.

In retirement Millie moved to Davis in 2002 where she has been an active community volunteer. In addition to her work in the health care reform movement, Millie served as a member of the Yolo County Mental Health Board from 2004-2010. She currently is a member of the Board of the League of Women Voters, Davis. As part of her current activities with the National Alliance for Mental Illness, she co-teaches the “Family to Family” education program for the Yolo Affiliate once a year and is a NAMI Trainer to Train the teachers of this course.

Her nursing career was primarily in public health settings with the final ten years as a nurse educator in a small Catholic University in Michigan where she was a Professor of Nursing and Chair of the Graduate program in nursing. During the 70s, 80s and 90s she served on various community Boards and planning groups as an advocate for health related services. Throughout her nursing career, Millie has been a volunteer provider of health care in community based settings, and has seen the effects of inequities in access to health care. She received her undergraduate degree in nursing from California State University, Sacramento, her Masters in nursing from the Oregon Health Science Center, and her PhD in nursing from Wayne State University in MI.

Bart Woolery – Membership Secretary

Bart Woolery is the current State Membership Secretary as well as co-chair of the Santa Barbara County Chapter of HCA-CA.  Bart's advocay work is informed by having grown up in Latin America where issues dividing the haves and have-nots have historically been more visible than in our country.  Bart has been intimately involved with this issue since around 2006.  Bart is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara and its Executive Committee.  Having obtained his B.S.M.E. at the University of California in Santa Barbara, his main claim to fame outside of the arena of health care advocacy is having designed the mechanism that deploys and supports the solar arrays on the International Space Station, one of the largest deployable structures in space.  He is also an avid Toastmaster, having achieved the level of Advanced Communicator Bronze and Competent Leader, he is constantly honing his speaking and listening skills to help him advance the goal of Health Care for All.

Gerry Hunt – Treasurer

Gerry is a CPA and longtime member of AICPA. He has been HCA's Treasurer for twelve years and serves on many committees.

Allan Beek – Recording Secretary

Allan is a retired computer designer with a BS in Physics from Caltech.  He has been involved in health care reform since the Prop 186 campaign and helped incorporate HCA in 1996.  He is also the secretary of affiliate Orange County Nation Group and volunteers for the League of Women Voters and DISCLOSE.