Roy Earnest has served as a gerontological social worker and program administrator since 1978 in a wide variety of community based non-profit senior services as well as a 15 year tenure from 2002 to 2018 at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that is best known for the AmeriCorps program. This broad range of experience has given him an in-depth perspective on the continuum of services for older adults in the United States.
After retiring from CNCS in 2018, he joined the staff of the Center for Age Friendly Excellence (CAFE) in August 2019 as one of their part-time Associate Directors. www.cfafe.org. He also continues to give back to the community as a volunteer by serving as the Chair of Pacifica’s Age Friendly Community Task Force, an advisory council member for UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare’s MSW-Aging Services concentration, Treasurer of Pacifica’s Environmental Family, the Director of the annual Kahuna Kupuna Benefit Surf Contest in Pacifica since 2000 and other volunteer projects.
A lifelong surfer, Roy teamed up with filmmaker David L. Brown to produce “Surfing for Life” (1999), a documentary that explores healthy aging through the unique perspective of 10 surfers ranging in age from 60 to 90 who continue to surf and remain vitally connected to their communities. The film won numerous awards at international film festivals and was broadcast on PBS throughout the country. www.surfingforlife.com.
Roy loves having good conversations with friends and meeting new people, hiking, surfing, nature experiences, art, music, travel and doing what he can to make the world a better place, especially for older adults and the environment.
Roy received his BA in Psychology with a minor in gerontology from Richard Stockton State University, Pomona, NJ in 1977 and then completed his Masters-of-Social-Welfare with a focus on aging services at UC Berkeley in 1982. He currently lives in Pacifica, CA with his wife Nancy and their three affectionate cats.
