Board of Directors
Meet our highly qualified board of directors. They are all experienced in financial, high-tech, government or education management and knowledgable about the realities of operations and governance. Most are sangha members of Mountain Cloud Zen Center
Mark Paul Petrick (President of the Board of Directors)
Mark Petrick earned his undergraduate degree in fine art from the University of California at Berkeley, where he also did graduate work in architecture. He earned his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he was a Mellon Fellow at the school’s Center for Art and Technology. He taught college art and photography, and exhibited as an artist and photographer at major institutions such as SFMoMA, the Chicago Art Institute, the Walker Art Center, and the Des Moines Art Center. His varied career also included work as a magazine publisher, writer, commercial photographer, and work in industrial and public relations. He retired in 2014 after working as a director of marketing communications for a manufacturing firm. Mark is a student at Mountain Cloud. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he continues to pursue his creative interests.
Carolyn Klamp (Secretary)
Carolyn has been a practicing attorney for over 30 years working mostly in the non-profit sector. She has experience working with non-profit Buddhist organizations, including Thich Nhat Hanh’s organization, Plum Village. Carolyn is happy to become an official member of the Mountain Cloud Board after serving as an ex-officio member and the Board Treasurer for the last few months.
Bryan Baldwin (Treasurer)
Santa Fe resident Bryan Baldwin brings more than 25 years of progressive responsibility helping mission-driven organizations become more purposeful, focused, and strategic. He has extensive nonprofit management experience and most recently served as a senior administrator for a large public university in New England and concurrently led its private foundation. The earlier part of his career was spent working in the international diplomatic arena.
Bryan earned a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Public Discourse from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and is also a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management. He and his wife, Lisa Cushing Shaw, are avid travelers, lived abroad, and have visited more than 50 countries. Along with their sweet and whimsical dog Bruce, they now call Santa Fe their permanent home.
Valerie Forstman (Ex-officio)
Valerie is MCZC’s Guiding Teacher and is an Associate Zen Master of the Sanbo Zen lineage. Her first teacher, with whom she continues to work, was Ruben Habito Roshi. Since 2003, she has also trained under the guidance of Yamada Ryoun Roshi, current abbot of SanboZen.
Valerie’s vision of the core of the Zen path is a way of coming home to who we truly are. This includes koan training, “just sitting” practice, and breath awareness practice, and what it means to undergo the immense change of heart implied by the term “awakening.” What a joy and what a long road it can be, not just to taste this, but to embody it and live it out in lives of compassionate service.
Henry Shukman (Ex-officio)
Henry Shukman has trained with several Zen teachers, particularly the roshi’s Joan Rieck, John Gaynor, Ruben Habito and Yamada Ryoun Roshi, as well as with teachers and mentors in other traditions. Henry has received dharma transmission (inka shomei and sanmotsu) from Yamada Ryoun Roshi, Abbot of Sanbo Zen, and is a Shōshike (Authentic Zen Master) of the Sanbo Zen lineage of Kamakura, Japan. He works with his dharma colleague Valerie Forstman on the programming at Mountain Cloud, as well as offering teachings. He is also a cer2fied mindfulness teacher.
In addition, Henry is an award-winning author and poet. His struggles as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, paved the way for him to develop a well-rounded approach to spirituality and meditation, under the guidance of his teachers – one that includes both compassionate concern for the sufferings of the world and the great liberating power of awakening as its foundation. Henry is the founder and teacher of the Original Love Program, a comprehensive non-sectarian guide to meditation practice, and is co-director of the Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute