Our People

Laura Bent is the Chief Executive Officer for Samaritan House of San Mateo County. Previously, she was the Director of Programs and Services and most recently, the agency’s Chief Operating Officer, serving a total of 11 years at Samaritan House before becoming CEO. Prior to Samaritan House, Laura was as an executive leader for the YMCA of San Francisco and worked a total of 21 years for the YMCA movement. In total, Laura has committed more than 35 years in service to the nonprofit sector.

Additionally, Laura has served on a number of boards and committees over the last 20 years. She is the immediate past Board Chair of the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of several groups serving San Mateo County, including: the Continuum of Care Committee, the Housing our People Effectively Inter-Agency Council, the Recovery Coordination Council, and the Core Agency Network Executive Leadership team. Laura is a current board member and a 20-year member of the San Mateo Rotary Club, co-president of the Music Boosters program for San Mateo High School, and Vice President of the Borel Middle School PTA. She also volunteers her time to support various community events at both the County and local city levels. She currently resides in San Mateo with her husband and two sons and believes very strongly that the more we give, the better we live!

Alec Raffin joined Samaritan House in July 2023 as Chief Operating Officer. With over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, his work has focused on generating positive social impact by creating and sustaining organizational effectiveness initiatives. He was the founding Executive Director of Mpower, a Colorado-based nonprofit organization, and ran Streetside Stories, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that cultivated the voices of young people by teaching them how to write, illustrate, and share stories that honor their personal experiences. Most recently Alec served as Director of Operations at Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation where he was responsible for directing organization-wide operational effectiveness projects and overseeing the team responsible for supporting the organization’s business infrastructure. Prior to TNDC he was a Senior Advisor for Fiscal Management Associates, a nation-wide consulting firm that helps nonprofit organizations strengthen their operational and fiscal capacity to effectively meet their missions. Alec is a San Francisco Bay Area native and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jolie Bou leads the Finance/Accounting team at Samaritan House and has been Chief Financial Officer since September 2005. She’s passionate about having positive synergy between finance and developments departments. Her responsibilities also include Information Technology and risk management. Prior to joining the Samaritan House team, she was the Executive Director for the Women’s Recovery Association in Burlingame and was previously their Director of Finance for 10 years.

Jolie’s career began in accounting and her nonprofit work goes back more than 35 years with experience and expertise in wide range of key areas including finance, accounting, strategy, development, human resources and capacity building. In addition, Jolie has participated in several distinct national and local organizational learning collaboratives such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s national collaborative, “Paths to Recovery”. These initiatives focused on process improvement, infrastructure capacity, outcomes, and learning from peer organizations.

Connie Gershaneck, PHR is Vice President of Human Resources at Samaritan House. Connie has been with the organization since 2011. Prior to joining Samaritan House, she served as Administrative Services Director at the Peninsula Family YMCA (YMCA of San Francisco) for 14 years. Connie attended San Francisco State University with studies in Industrial Psychology.

Connie takes pride in working for an organization whose mission is to provide hope and opportunity for the underserved. As a Certified Professional in Human Resources since 2009, it’s her goal to ensure supportive working environments for the Samaritan House team. Connie has been a coastal resident with her husband for over 30 years and is an ardent fan of all things Hawaii and Christmas.

Dr. Baldeep Singh, MD is a Clinical Professor and the former Clinical Chief for Internal Medicine in the division of Primary Care and Population Health, at Stanford. He is a local kid from the South Bay, who attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and Northwestern for medical school. Following residency at UCLA, he spent two years in the National Health Service Corps in the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Northeast Valley Health Corp., primarily serving the working poor and homeless populations, before returning to UCLA to join the faculty. At UCLA, he served as Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Program, medical director of one of the faculty practices, and also led the resident combined ambulatory continuity clinic for UCLA and Venice Family Clinic, which is one of the largest Free Clinics in the country. In 2009, he moved to be closer to family. Until recently, he led the Stanford Internal Medicine faculty practice as well as the Internal Medicine resident outpatient continuity clinic. He was recently a Board member at MayView Health Center in Mountain View, and has been the Co-Director of the Pacific Free Clinic at Stanford since 2010. His career has focused on underserved care, global health (Ecuador and Kenya), health care delivery, and medical education.
He is married with two adult sons, and loves travel, crosswords, and guitar.

Executive Director at San Mateo Foster City Education Foundation – San Mateo, CA

Director at Generosity in Action – Hillsborough, CA

Vice President of Operations, Sares-Regis Group, Redwood City, CA

Retired Educator, Consultant – San Mateo, CA

Hillsborough Councilmember – Hillsborough, CA

Community Progs. Specialist II – San Mateo, CA

Psychotherapist – East Palo Alto, CA

Executive Coach and CEO Peer Group Chair at Vistage Worldwide, Inc. – San Mateo, CA

Attorney at GCA Law Partners LLP – San Mateo, CA

MD Nephrologist, Former Faculty Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco Medical School – Portola Valley, CA

Retired Director, San Mateo Health Department – San Mateo, CA

CFO, DroneDeploy.org, San Francisco, CA

Financial Advisor, Ting & Associates at Merrill Lynch – San Mateo, CA

Commercial Banking – Redwood City, CA

Director, Legal at Corcept Therapeutics, Inc – Menlo Park, CA