Lifelong change maker Karen Baker forges development in Yolo County

PHOTO: Executive director of the Yolo County Food Bank, Karen Baker

By Mehr Lamba

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Karen Baker, executive director of the Yolo County Food Bank, has had multiple different jobs throughout her career but they all shared one thing in common: making a change. 

“That’s what I’ve loved, and my whole career has been about that, and I just love it. There’s nothing like it,” Baker said, referring to her passion for making a change.

After 16 years of working for the state of California under three different governors, Baker was ready to retire. Soon after she met Kate Stille, owner of Nugget Markets and a member of the Yolo Food Bank board of directors, who asked if Baker would be interested in the interim job of executive director.

“I came down, met the staff, walked around and I’m like: I love this,” Baker said. 

Baker has now been working at the Yolo Food Bank for about a year and two months.

“It just excited me, it was kind of like the perfect next job because it capitalized on everything I’ve done in my past and I could put it all together and work for the Yolo Food Bank. So it was just perfect,” Baker said.

Throughout her career Baker has been involved in many different jobs focused around volunteerism. She has positively impacted communities in California and all over the country. 

Besides holding cabinet positions for the state of California, which are high-responsibility roles that report to the governor,  Baker has run a homeless agency in LA called Chrysalis, been a co-architect of the Listos California program and has helped start the AmeriCorps agency under the President Bill Clinton administration.

“All the jobs [that I have had] are about helping people, and making change happen through the power of service, or a great program,” Baker said.

After giving so much to others, Baker wasn’t quite done yet, and decided to take on the position of helping people in Yolo County, California, as the executive director of the Yolo Food Bank.

With the responsibility Baker holds, she is most passionate about helping others and showing people that there is enough food, and that the Yolo Food Bank simply needs to get it out to them. 

Maria Segoviano, the director of communications at the Yolo Food Bank, immediately loved the leadership skills that Baker embodied. Segoviano has been working there for over two years and is a colleague of Baker.

“I liked her coaching style in terms of professional development, she had a very multifaceted perspective of what it means to be a leader,” Segoviano said, recalling what stood out to her when Baker first joined the Yolo Food Bank.

Baker has changed the environment of the Yolo Food Bank in many different ways, including bringing many different groups of volunteers together to help the community. 

“She’s all about making a difference,” Segoviano said. 

To Baker, the idea of being able to help people with a basic necessity, such as food, is so important.

“Just watching people being fulfilled by that, and the work here has been great,” Baker said.