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Kristen Beall Watson is President and CEO of Kern Community Foundation, and President of Kern Real Estate Foundation. She has over 30 years of leadership experience in a unique combination of public and private accounting, education and philanthropy.

Kristen holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a master's degree in education from Point Loma Nazarene University, a clear California teaching credential, and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Kristen has spent a large portion of her adult life involved in Kern County philanthropy, serving as president of the Lori Brock Children's Museum, treasurer of the Junior League of Bakersfield, board member for the Girl Scouts, Joshua Tree Council steering committee member for the Bakersfield Women's Business Conference and American Cancer Society's Oktoberfest, founding member of the Women's and Girls' Fund of Kern County Vision Committee and advisor to students in the Jim Burke Education Foundation Dreambuilder program. Kristen currently serves as a Trustee for California Health Science University and board member for Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce and Southern Sierra Council Boy Scouts of America.

Louis Medina is the Director of Community Impact for Kern Community Foundation. He oversees the Foundation's Nonprofit Strengthening Initiative, which includes grantmaking, community engagement, marketing/communications, donor relations and special events efforts such as our Give Big Kern Online Day of Giving.

Born in El Salvador, Louis has also lived in Japan, China, Spain and England, and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe and North and Central America. He found a calling in nonprofit work while training as a phone crisis counselor for L.A.'s Suicide Prevention Hotline in the early 2000s. Since then, he has acquired 15 years of experience in nonprofit work, including in such diverse areas as crisis intervention, grant writing, homelessness and poverty prevention, outreach and marketing, project and event planning, and fundraising.

A lover of languages, Louis received a Double Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Languages & Cultures and International Relations from the University of Southern California, and a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain.

Louis is a former reporter for The Bakersfield Californian, a 2016 graduate of the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Bakersfield Program, a 2017 graduate of the Kern County Sheriff's Community Academy, and a 2019 graduate of Southern California Grantmakers' Emerging Leaders Peer-to-Peer Network.

Danette Rinehart is Director of Finance and Administration of Kern Community Foundation. She joined the Foundation in August 2007.

Previously, she was a small business owner of Network and Database Solutions and was a production database consultant for Midway Sunset Cogeneration, a subsidiary of Southern California Edison.

Danette is a graduate of California State University, Bakersfield with a degree in Business Administration. She is a certified Microsoft Systems Engineer and Database Administrator.