Happy Anniversary Dana & Leslie!

Leslie Mack Kizzee has been with Balance since 1998, 20 years! Leslie’s career at Balance illustrates the opportunity for growth here at Balance. With a degree in communications and a knack for getting things done, Leslie quickly grew her career from an Administrative Assistant, to Office Manager, to Human Resources Manager, and now is Balance’s Chief Operations Officer and Vice President of Operations. These days Leslie’s day-to-day is more focused on corporate operations and human resources, however, she’s always willing to jump in and help on any request that crosses her desk – and with a smile on her face! As a small company everyone wears many hats, Leslie truly walks this talk. When not at work you can find Leslie walking up-a-storm to get her daily miles in, cheering on her daughters at their latest sports event, or enjoying one of her many crafty hobbies.

Dana Jepsen celebrates his 10-year anniversary with Balance. Dana came to Balance with an eclectic background, with a Masters in Fine Arts Performance and years of construction experience, Dana brings both creativity and hands-on experience to his role as Designer and field hydrologist. Dana splits his time between field efforts and developing design plans. With a formidable presence, Dana excels at providing construction observation and field fitting for restoration projects, working directly with contractors. Other fieldwork includes water quality sampling, hydrologic and geomorphic monitoring. As a key contributor to the Alameda County hydrologic monitoring program, Dana maintains and calibrates the stream and rain gages for the County, often requiring a high-level of troubleshooting. On the design front, he clearly communicates design intent through the development of both conceptual drawings and construction documents – Dana has a strong design sense, he clearly portrays a restoration project during the plan development stage. Dana is on the top of Balance’s MacGyver list, granted being a bit of a MacGyver is a prerequisite at Balance, so he’s not alone. For those of you born after the 1980s, MacGyver was a tv show starring a character with an extraordinary knack for unconventional problem solving – apparently there’s a remake, though it’s not starring Dana.