Each year the JLOCC seeks out members of the community to serve as advisors, lending their expertise in a variety of areas to the League. Community advisors serve as consultants to the League, helping councils and committees with issues they may face that touch on their areas of expertise. This year the JLOCC was fortunate to recruit the following distinguished professionals to serve as community advisors.

Gene Howard

Gene Howard is the CEO of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Orange County. With over 35 years of experience working on foster care issues, he has held positions such as a live-in care worker, program director, statewide Program Administrator (for Arizona), director of Children Services for Orange County, and CEO for 15 years of the Orangewood Children's Foundation.

Deborah Mayhew

Deborah Mayhew is a public relations consultant and freelance writer with a strong background in agency and corporate communications. She has developed and implemented award-winning programs for a diverse range of clients in the health care, tourism, television, arts, and retail sectors. Prior to her consulting work, she was a director in the Southern California offices of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, an international public relations firm headquartered in New York City. In addition to JLOCC, she is an Advisory Board member of The Raise Foundation--Better parents. Better kids., Advisory Board Chair of the Newport Community Counseling Center, and a Steering Committee member of Playhouse Women, a support group for The Laguna Playhouse.

Patricia McMaster

Patricia McMaster is the Director of Community Programs for the Orange County High School of the Arts. Pat is very active with the local community organizations serving youth. She is an active member of the National Hispanic Business Women Association and the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana. She is the past President of the National Latina Business Women Association-Orange County and the Past President and currently the Treasurer of the Long Beach-Manta Sister Cities organization. She served as the Chair of the umbrella organization - Sister Cities of Long Beach, Inc. Pat has many years of experience in volunteer work with local community organizations helping the elderly and the youth (locally and in Ecuador, South America). She is a member of the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Daniel McQuaid

Daniel McQuaid has been the CEO of the Volunteer Center Orange County since 2005. He brought more than 25 years of leadership experience as a chief executive officer, community leader, board chairperson, organization consultant, and professional trainer. Between 2000 and 2005, Dan was retained as an independent consultant by more than 100 Southern California nonprofits, providing growth planning, evaluation and training services. For the twenty prior years he was the Executive Director of Canyon Acres Children's Services. He has been a board member of the United Way Orange County and past board chair of the largest statewide child welfare association. In addition to his work in the nonprofit sector, Dan is experienced as a child, adult, and family psychotherapist.

David Taylor

David Taylor is the Field Representative for Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. David has a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science and has worked in government for about four years both in California and Arkansas. David started working for Assemblyman DeVore in September 2008. Since then, he has made numerous connections in Sacramento and throughout our district. David’s job consists of representing the Assemblyman at meetings/special events and doing casework for their constituents.

Elizabeth Toomey

Elizabeth Toomey is the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Community & Government Relations at the University of California, Irvine. She serves as UCI's legislative coordinator, responsible for advising on campus positions and strategies related to local, state and federal legislative and community relations matters, and as the campus spokesperson to elected officials and community leaders. Providing leadership for campus community relations, Liz manages a comprehensive community relations program, which includes developing connections with business organizations and with the culturally diverse communities of Orange County. She also serves on a number of boards in the Orange County region, including the OC Business Council Government Affairs Committee and the Orange County Forum, and is involved with the Great Park Committee. In addition to her role as a JLOCC Community Advisor, she also serves as a Community Advisor for the Irvine Public Schools Foundation.

Jeffrey Wilcox

Jeff Wilcox is a Certified Fundraising Executive and past president of the Orange County Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. He is the former Executive Vice President of United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Executive Director of CHOC Foundation for Children at Children's Hospital of Orange County. He is President and CEO of Third Sector Learning and Interim Solutions for the Nonprofit Sector, a full-service training and executive transition services firm exclusively for nonprofits in Long Beach and Vancouver, BC. Jeffrey's commitment to Junior League is evident in not only his service to the JLOCC as a community advisor - he was also an advisor for the Junior League of Los Angeles!

Jason Pyle

Jason Pyle - is a Fire Captain for the Costa Mesa Fire Department. Jason has been in the emergency services since 1995. Jason has held the positions of Emergency Medical Technician, Firefighter, Engineer and Fire Captain. Jason is a member of California Incident Management Team 3. CIMT-3 is responsible for large scale incident management of emergency incidents including events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist events and wild fires. Jason is on the Costa Mesa Firefighter's Community Relations Committee and is also a teacher for the Costa Mesa Fire Department's Citizen Fire Academy. Jason is stationed out of Costa Mesa Fire Station 4 and is currently the Captain on Costa Mesa's Urban Search and Rescue Apparatus, USAR-84.

Maria Chavez Wilcox

Maria Chavez Wilcox is President and CEO of the Orange County United Way, a position she has held since 1996 (and the first woman to do so). With a career spanning over 25 years with United Way, she has made tremendous strides in obtaining fiscal stability, increased revenue and overall management of the organization. Her management excellence has enabled Orange County United Way to allocate more time and dollars to programs and collaboratives offered by their community partners. She is a highly regarded national leader in voluntarism, sitting on numerous boards such as the National Children’s Alliance, Orange County Business Council and the Girl Scout Council (Long Beach Chapter). Her dedication has also earned her recognition as the Outstanding Business Woman by the Orange County Business Journal and the Amelia Earhart Award Recipient by University of California – Irvine.