The Advisory Board

We are so thankful to have such a wonderful Advisory Board to help with strategic advice for The Weston Collective! Each member comes from such a unique and impressive background and all share a deep appreciation for the arts. We are so thankful for the help and support they provide!

Carola Macbeth Barton

Carola Barton is a consultant to non-profit organizations and philanthropists. She has worked for 14 years in the global philanthropic advisory arena, as well as Director of Development for medical research organizations and an international television network. From 2006 – 2009 she lived in Hong Kong where she held the position of Director for the Clinton Global Initiative – Asia, a project of the Clinton Foundation.

Carola also served as Vice-President of Affiliate Relationships at Saga Foundation, a global enterprise working to support former heads of state and government in furthering their goals for social change.

Carola was First Vice President at Morgan Stanley until 2003, where she provided advisory and asset management services to individuals and institutions over a period of 16 years.

Her experience includes service on the boards of numerous domestic and international public and private sector organizations.  Carola presently serves as President, Board of Trustees, for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.

John Supan

Since 2005, John has been a partner with FLG Partners, LLC, a consulting firm providing Chief Financial Officer and Board Advisory services. John has extensive experience working with both public and private companies and a primary interest with start-up and emerging growth biopharma and high technology companies.

He has worked with a multitude of other companies and industries both as an Audit Partner for the “Big 4” accounting firm of Ernst & Young and directly as a CFO. John’s experience spans strategic, financial and business planning, IPOs, equity and debt financings, and merger and acquisition analysis, execution and integration, both domestically and internationally.

John has served on numerous non-profit Boards including Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, American Heart Association and Rotary Club and is currently active with the Watsonville Pilots Association.

Ann Jastrab

Ann was born in Utica, New York, and grew up in nearby Whitesboro. She received a BA in English Literature and a BA in Studio Art from Hartwick College before completing her MFA in photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1995. After graduation, she joined the resident faculty at the Maine Photographic Workshops and taught there for nearly a decade in both their year-round program and their intensive summer workshops. After living and working in Sweden, India, Australia and a number of places in between including Manhattan, Ann eventually moved to Los Angeles where she printed for the Motion Picture Academy (while still driving back to Maine every summer to teach photography).

Prior to taking the position of executive director of CPA, Ann worked as the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco. She has served on numerous boards and fundraising committees and is thrilled to bring her talents, passion, and leadership skills to Carmel. Besides being a curator and an educator, Ann is a writer and editor and she is also a fine art photographer who still carries around a wooden view camera…and a metal one too.

Karl Pallastrini

Karl Pallastrini grew up in Carmel Valley, attended Tularcitos Elementary School and graduated from Carmel High School. He returned to Carmel after college and served as Principal at Carmel Middle School for fourteen years, followed by Principal at Carmel High School for nine years. During those years as Principal, Karl has served on several of the local non-profit Board of Directors. Some of those positions include Start Line Director for the Big Sur International Marathon, President of Carmel Youth Baseball, Board of Directors of the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary, Board President of MEarth, and now entering his ninth year on the Carmel Unified School District Board of Education. Two special events in Karl’s career include being named to the Monterey Peninsula Community College Hall of Fame, and his election to his first term on the Board of Education as a “Write-In” candidate.

As Principal, Karl has supported the Arts and Technical Career Pathways as a must do experience for all students. Academics aside, exploring the vast potential our students have in the Arts is a key to self-discovery and life-long interests. Karl spent countless hours in the darkroom in college, fascinated by the beauty of black and white photography. The art of making a picture, first with the camera and then again with the enlarger is becoming a lost art. That is unacceptable to Karl. Ansel Adams and Ed Weston left a legacy that not only needs to be cherished, but preserved. The opportunity to support the Weston Collective is truly an honor.

Hillary Paganelli

As the founding member of Head Start’s ‘Adopt a Family’ program, Hillary Paganelli has an extensive background in non-profit outreach services in Los Angeles. Partnering with Santa Monica‘s One Voice, Hillary initiated and developed a 1000+ family strong high school mentorship program in Santa Monica’s underserved youth community, pairing families in need with West Los Angeles private high-school students.

Hillary has also worked with University of Southern California‘s department of visual anthropology, researching and writing papers and book chapters on LA‘s gang culture after a complete immersion experience in her college years. Hillary has experience as an art director, focusing on community outreach programs such as ‘artists in prisons’ through LA’s non profit LA Theatre Works, as well as running their photography, graphics and media art departments.

An artisan at heart, Hillary developed and ran a fine craft pottery business whose works have been featured in the Simon Wiesenthal Museum gallery, freehand gallery, hands Gallery, among others. Featured in the Los Angeles magazine and Bon Appétit, her hand painted ceramic and furniture lines were collected by fine craft collectors across the nation. These days she has teamed up with her husband, photographer Manuello Paganelli, directing all aspects of art production. They live together in a cottage in Carmel by the Sea, California, where Manuello’s images are represented by the Weston Gallery

Dr. Michael Adams

Michael was born in Yosemite National Park in 1933. He grew up attending local schools, then Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, followed by Stanford University. In 1953, Michael joined the USAF as an Aviation Cadet, completing pilot training and commissioning as a 2/Lt., in 1955. After a two-year tour in Japan as a fighter pilot and another year in New Mexico, he returned to Yosemite as a ski instructor, desk clerk and later manager of Big Trees Lodge and Tuolumne Meadows Lodge. Michael continued to fly as a fighter pilot with the California Air National Guard in Fresno while attending Fresno State College. While attaining a BA in Geography, he began pre-medical studies, graduating from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1967. He returned to the USAF as a flight-surgeon/pilot-physician in Germany in 1968. In 1971, Michael and his family returned to Fresno and a residency in Internal Medicine  becoming Board Certified in 1974.. He again joined the California Air National Guard as flight surgeon, pilot-physician and Clinic Commander. Michael entered the private practice of Internal Medicine in Fresno, retiring in 2000, after 25 years. He also retired from the USAF in 1993, as a Major General and duty as Deputy Surgeon General of the USAF for the Air National Guard.

Michael is Chairman of the Board of Best’s Studio, Inc., dba The Ansel Adams Gallery, now in its 118th year of operation in Yosemite Valley. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco Medical School, Department of Medicine, and taught in the UCSF program in Fresno, retiring in 2019. Michael has been involved with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona where his father’s archive is located.