Submit Date: May 23, 2025
First Name Middle
Initial
Last Name
Email Address
Street Address Suite or Apt
City State Postal Code
Primary Phone Alternate Phone
Employer Job Title
City of Napa Boards & Commissions
Profile
Mailing Address (if different than Resident Address above) Length of Residence in the City of Napa:
8 years
Length of Residence in the County of Napa:
8 years
Registered to vote in the City of Napa?
Yes No
Ethnicity *
Caucasian/Non-Hispanic
Interests & Experiences
Which Boards would you like to apply for?
Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission: Submitted
Michael J Cole
RSA+ Project Engineer (Civil PE)
Michael J Cole
ATTACHMENT 1
Upload a Resume
Community Service Experience:
the vast majority of my volunteer efforts are for my church community. I orgranize/run the coffee shop with my wife, Hana.
Education:
University of California, Davis - Civil Engineering 2017 Other relevant experience or expertise:
CA registered professional civil engineer with a knowledge of Napa Planning and Engineering. I commute to work on bike and recreationally enjoy our vine trail up valley.
Thorough appreciation of the biking culture I experienced during my undergraduate studies at UC Davis and abroad in the Netherlands, France, Australia, and Japan. Way too many hours spent on YouTube channels focusing on people-centric urban planning (Not Just Bikes, CityNerd, City Beautiful, etc.)
Additional Questions
What is your understanding of the role and responsibility of this board? The goal is to advise and discuss matters regarding bicycle transportation and pedestrian issues. This goal is aligned with my belief that cities are to be designed for people, not cars.
I'm not anti-car by any means, but I believe that there needs to be greater advocacy for bikers/pedestrians that often gets drowned out by car-centric arguments. I would like to offer my experience as a professional engineer, biker, and pedestrian Have you ever attended a meeting of this board? If so, how many? no
What duties of this board are most interesting to you?
The advocacy for bike and pedestrian infrastructure being a more serious component of development/improvement plans. I'd like to use my engineering and urban design knowledge to help improve our biking and pedestrian experience within City limits.
What activities of this board are least interesting to you? None - but that is likely my naivety. I'm willing to learn and adapt as needed! What programs or projects would you like to see improved or implemented? Although the gold standard is Class I bike paths and/or physical separation between vehicle traffic and bikes/peds, a more realistic approach for our city is implementing more stiped Class II bike lanes. I think I would focus my efforts on recommending that. I'd like to see better biking considerations when crossing 29.
Michael J Cole
How would you approach improving these project(s) or program(s)? I would recommend that striping be added on new development as a condition of approval whenever feasible. I would continue advocating for CIP to include bike infrastructure (or at the minimum additional signage/striping).
Are you involved in any organizations or activities that may result in a conflict of interest if you are appointed to this board? I do work for a local civil engineering firm, RSA+.
Please list two local references and their phone numbers:
How did you learn of this vacancy?
Other
Michael J Cole
Michael Cole, PE
Designing with people in mind, not just cars
EXPERIENCE
RSA+ , N apa— Project Engineer
February 2025 - PRESENT
Land Development Engineer with a focus on grading, utility, and site d
esign.
Utilize design standards set by local jurisdictions
Coordinate dry utility design (PG&E and communications ) Prepare hydrologic, hydraulic, and other engineering related calculations Radius Design, W
alnut Creek — Project Manager
May 2021 - February 2025
PG&E Applicant Designer ( Gas and Electric)
Coordinate extensively with dry utility providers to facilitate new service a
nd/or relocation of electric, gas, and communication infrastructure RSA+ , N apa — Assistant Engineer
July 2017 - May 2021
Assist with land development engineering calculations and plan p
reparations.
Prepare engineering estimates.
Conduct site inspections and SWPPP monitoring.
EDUCATION
University of California, D avis — B.S. Civil lEngineering 2017
Focus on water resources and geotechnical engineering
SKILLS
Engineering Design
Familiarity with Napa design
standards, specifications, codes,
a
nd ordinances
Engineering Calculations
Project Management
Budgeting
Submit Date: May 31, 2025
First Name Middle
Initial
Last Name
Email Address
Street Address Suite or Apt
City State Postal Code
Primary Phone Alternate Phone
Employer Job Title
City of Napa Boards & Commissions
Profile
Mailing Address (if different than Resident Address above) Length of Residence in the City of Napa:
4.5 years
Length of Residence in the County of Napa:
4.5 years
Registered to vote in the City of Napa?
Yes No
Ethnicity *
Caucasian/Non-Hispanic
Interests & Experiences
Which Boards would you like to apply for?
Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission: Submitted
James A Rosen
Clarasight Staff Software Engineer
James A Rosen
Upload a Resume
Community Service Experience:
Slow Down Napa, 2022-06 - present, member of steering committee Napa CERT, 2020-09 - present, volunteer member Belmont CERT, 2018-06 - 2020-09, volunteer member Education:
Carnegie Mellon University, Masters of Science in Information Security Policy and Management, 2008-05 Washington University in St Louis, Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, 2004-05
Other relevant experience or expertise:
My first job was working in a bike repair shop. I've been an avid biker since then. I bring my daughter to or from school by bike most days. I do many errands around Napa by bike or pushing my daughter in a wagon. I have spoken before city council on several transportation-centric topics and attended the public design review for Lincoln Ave.
Additional Questions
What is your understanding of the role and responsibility of this board? To advocate for members of the community who walk, bike, use other micro-mobility devices, or wish to do so. To advise the city where mobility issues intersect with urban design, transportation, economic development, health, safety, and accessibility.
Have you ever attended a meeting of this board? If so, how many? 2 What duties of this board are most interesting to you? The two duties that interest me the most are (1) talking to members of the community to understand their needs and desires and (2) learning more deeply how policy is made and enacted.
What activities of this board are least interesting to you? Part of the board's work is to establish their own by-laws and rules of procedure. I'm more interested in the learning and advocacy than the meta work of defining the operating processes.
What programs or projects would you like to see improved or implemented? From over twenty years of software engineering work, I know that it's important to let people try things and learn from both successes and failures. I would like to see more prototype bike and pedestrian corridors. I also want the public to have a more comprehensive understanding of the successes and failures of past efforts like the Main St pedestrian park that recently reopened to vehicle traffic.
James A Rosen
How would you approach improving these project(s) or program(s)? I always approach engineering and policy problems holistically. Without listening to all stakeholders -- and actively recruiting their participation -- it's impossible for groups to come to sustainable long-term solutions. I use a variety of proven communication techniques from the Double Diamond to the Table Read to include all voices while keeping the group focused on the right stage of the problem and solution.
Are you involved in any organizations or activities that may result in a conflict of interest if you are appointed to this board? No
Please list two local references and their phone numbers:
How did you learn of this vacancy?
Other
James A Rosen
8/27/23, 6:51 PM James A Rosen
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About
Fractional staff engineer: digital transformation, system design, coaching Web Dev: front-end, back-end, full-stack, platform
Contact
Work Experience
Principal at Con ident Technology
Napa, CA
Fractional staff engineer: digital transformation, system design, coaching, web application development, platform engineering
Key technologies: TypeScript, React, Remix, Astro, Redis, Tailwind, Cloud lare, Fastly Compute@Edge
Sr Software Engineer at TIME CO2
Remote
Full-stack, full-lifecycle holistic software engineering to help solve the climate crisis.
James A Rosen
Software Engineer in CA, USA, he/him
con ident.technology
— Now
—
8/27/23, 6:51 PM James A Rosen
2/3
Engineering Manager at Everlane
San Francisco, CA
Gardening Week (lead): a once-per-quarter opportunity
for self-directed work to pay down technical debt and
prorotype new technologies and features.
Request for Comments (lead): a process and working
group to evaluate technological choices. Example topics:
CDN providers, geolocation API, Docker, centralized
secrets store, feature lags.
Digital transformation, CDN (principal engineer):
identi ied selection criteria; evaluated vendors; led
prototypes and negotiations. Edge caching reduced
page-load time, decreased bounce rate, increased
revenue. Edge compute enabled the ecommerce
engineering team to safely migrate users to a new mobile experience.
Engineering career ladder (major contributor): Created
Everlane's irst formal career ladder. De ined key
technical-, communication-, emotional-intelligence-, and leadership skills for each engineering level. Used the
ladder to promote equity and inclusion; guided two
reports to promotions within the irst year.
Key technologies: React, Next.js, JavaScript, TypeScript, Tailwind, Ruby, Rails, HTTP, Cloud lare, Builder.io, Airtable, Terraform
Senior Architect at Fastly
San Francisco
RBAC (team lead): improved customer security and
enabled sales to larger enterprise customers.
TLS management (team lead): built a self-service TLS
certi icate management system. Enabled more customers
to easily secure their tra ic; reduced sales-engineering time to con igure large accounts.
Design System (principal engineer): established a UI
component library shared by all Fastly products, whether Ember-based or not.
UX team (founder, team lead): onboarded and coached a
team of junior developers, some of whom were in their
irst software-engineering role. One-on-one and group
training in agile development, Ember.js, and systems
engineering.
Digital transformation, UI (team lead): Migrated the
primary Fastly UI from Backbone to Ember.js while adding testing, monitoring, and usability and design
enhancements. Enabled faster, more con ident customer
onboarding.
Key technologies: Ember.js, Ruby, Rails, SCSS, SVG, VCL, HTTP
—
—
8/27/23, 6:51 PM James A Rosen
3/3
Lead Engineer at Zendesk
San Francisco, CA
App Market (principal engineer): Enabled the community
to extend the capabilities of the Zendesk platform and
integrate it with other services, expanding the reach of the product without commensurate development and
maintenance costs.
Front-End Operations Team (founding member):
Architected and built a framework for dozens of engineers across many teams to build and deliver code that runs
together in the same browser process. Improved
performance and reliability of HTTP delivery and browser JavaScript.
New Zendesk (major contributor): A redesigned
experience targeted for high-volume customer support
teams
with Ember.js. Signi icant contributions to customer
research, prototyping, development, and maintenance.
Key technologies: Ember.js, Ruby, Rails, MySQL, jQuery,
SCSS, HTTP
Volunteering
Steering Committee Member at Slow Down Napa
Napa, CA, USA
Working with Napa neighbors to reduce speed and
improve the safety on our residential streets.
Speaking
Empathetic Experiences at O'Reilly Fluent
San Francisco, CA, US
empathy, ux, front-end, performance, universal design
Making Design by Committee Work at Burlington UX
Burlington, VT
ux, process, how groups think, metacognition, meditation Ember.js at Scale at jsDay
Verona, IT
Ember.js, modules, addons, collaboration, Conway's Law
Carson: On the Path from Big-Ball-of-Mud to SOA at Aloha Ruby Conf
Honolulu, HI, US
Ruby on Rails, Rails Engines, SOA, monolith, Conway's
Law
—
— Now