Chuck is the Chairman of Pinnacle Forum’s national board and a certified life coach for Halftime, Inc. – two organizations dedicated to helping people discover their God-given passions and become fully engaged in impacting the world.
Chuck brings to those roles a lifetime of experience as a successful and respected leader in business and industry. After graduating from college in 1977, he founded C.L. Bryant, Inc., which over the next 25 years grew to become one of the top-producing petroleum distributors in the nation, with 150 employees and more than $250 million in annual sales. Chuck sold the company in 2006, and since then has been involved in multiple start-ups as both an investor and consultant.
Most important, even while achieving some success in business, Chuck increasingly felt God calling him to help others discover and embrace their unique calling.
In 2005, he helped establish the first Pinnacle Forum chapter in California, and served as executive director in Modesto for six years, during which time the chapter grew to nearly 100 people in eight forums. In 2011, he was named to the organization’s national board and became National Board Chair in 2014. Concurrent with his Pinnacle Forum experience, Chuck became involved with Halftime, Inc., and later was trained to provide one-on-one life coaching to business leaders.
Chuck has been the driving force behind expanding Pinnacle Forum across the country, and with building partnerships with like-minded organizations such as Halftime, C12, The Masters Program, and others.
Chuck and his wife, Cheryl, have been married for 36 years, and have three adult children and nine grandchildren.
In 1970, John Evans' father at 52 years old unexpectedly passed away. John was 20 years old at the time. This event dramatically changed the direction John and his new wife Wendy’s lives.
John and Wendy left Oregon State University and headed back to Patterson, California to help his family and his family’s third generation telecommunications business make the transition from being highly regulated to the highly competitive telecommunication’s industry we have today. The transition included John’s family purchasing his cousin’s side the family interest in the business in 1984.
Over the next decade and a half, the business grew from a small landline company founded in 1913 serving forty customers to a regional company offering state-of-the-art large business telecom systems and cellular services. In 2001, the Evans family sold their company to a group of ex-AT&T executives and its cellular enterprise to Sprint Cellular Services. The sale would allow John to spend 100% of his time focusing on impacting and helping to make cities the best they can be.
Over the last 25 years John helped develop or or played a primary role developing over 20 various community wide organizations and efforts to facilitate his original calling to transforming one family, one neighborhood and eventually one city at a time. Every one of these organizations adopted three primary components that are essential for successful transformation: Colaboration-Alignment-Impact (on the human condition)
Ric did his undergraduate work at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois and his Masters at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is currently the pastoring at The Beacon in Orange, Chaplain for the Orange City Fire Department and Executive Director of Love Orange, and Regional Minister for the SoCal Network of NAB Churches. He has lived and worked in Romania and the Netherlands and led volunteer teams in over 20+ countries including Uganda, Ukraine, Hungary, Mexico. He and his wife Carolyn have been married for 26 years and have 2 amazing adult children. Currently, they are parenting a Siberian Coyote named Archibald.
Jeff Pishney is the Founder and CEO of Love Stanislaus County and Love Our Cities. Officially beginning as a non-profit organization in 2014, these city-wide volunteer days and other initiatives have helped over 100 cities and have had over 248,000 volunteers since beginning in 2009. Jeff recognizes that more sustainable solutions are needed beyond volunteer days in order to see our cities thrive. His efforts have evolved to championing ongoing volunteerism, collaboration among leaders and initiating programs for Neighbors, Schools, Kids and Seniors.
Jeff grew up in Iowa, went to college and graduate school in Virginia and has been in Modesto, CA since 1995. Prior to being CEO, Jeff was a pastor for almost 20 years. As a college pastor, Jeff started to get a vision for his community. This vision grew when he became the outreach pastor during which Love Modesto began. Jeff and his wife, Karen, have been married for 18 years and have three children. Besides loving his family, Jeff is involved at his children's activities, passionate about justice issues and cheering on his Iowa Hawkeyes.
Gina grew up in rural Missouri, spent several years in Asia after college, and now calls Colorado Springs home. With a background in education, she has taught overseas and worked with English Language Learners in the U.S. After a decade of staying home to raise her three boys, Gina found a unique gift at the intersection of her passions—schools, churches, and serving the community.
As the Citywide Initiatives Coordinator at COSILoveYou, Gina organizes the city’s two large serve days and leads efforts to connect local community partners with schools through the School Connect model.
Outside of work, Gina and her husband Dan enjoy hiking, playing board games, and cheering on their boys at baseball games and ninja competitions. On a rare quiet Saturday, you might find her sipping coffee in a cozy chair, soaking up the sun, chatting with a friend, or getting lost in a good book.
Jay Williams is the Founder & Executive Director of OC United, a non profit organization doing good work in the North Orange County area of Southern California (https://ocunited.org/). Our mission is to strengthen individuals and families within marginalized communities against future trauma by addressing the underlying need for connection, purpose, and healthy power. OC United's first action steps were to start Love Fullerton 10 years ago and there are now close to 15 cities participating in Love Our Cities today (https://lovefullerton.org/).
Jay pastored in two churches for 30 years before starting OC United here in SoCal. He has been married to Grace for 36 years, and they have 4 adult kids all working in education in under-resourced communities. He loves to play pickleball, tennis and mountain biking.