Joanie Ciardelli, Co-Founder, Director Emeritas

Joanie (Misrack) Ciardelli is a very part-time resource and volunteer in the area of peace-building. She was Co-founder of Pathways To Peace (PTP) in 1983 with Founder Avon Mattison, and a Director of the organization until 2002. She continues to be an Advisor and represents PTP with the United Nations Association of Marin. For many years she represented PTP on the Board of the Citizens for a UN People’s Assembly and has served on several committees of the Threshold Foundation.  These included funding not-for-profits working for Peace, Justice, and Democracy, the Environment, Documentary Film and Mideast Peace. She also volunteered for many years at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Joanie is involved in socially responsible investing, having spent many years in the corporate world of business. This included directing/managing Marketing Research for Levi Strauss International and teams within Del Monte Corporation, and consulting/resourcing in leadership development for a large-scale corporate change endeavor. Joanie was a co-founder of Soviet-American Business Opportunities, Inc. and served as President of the American Marketing Association, San Francisco Chapter. She has published articles on “Marketing Peace” and participated on several panels related to PTP’s programs: the Culture of Peace Initiative and Peace Within Organizations.  More recently Joanie has spoken about the International Day of Peace for various Rotary clubs and in several programs around that Day and Peace Week.  She is now a member of the Rotary EClub for World Peace and a member and officer of the Mill Valley Chapter of PEO International.

Joanie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration/Marketing from the University of California at Berkeley, a Masters of Business Administration in Management from Golden Gate University, and an “Agent of Conscious Evolution” Certificate from the Institute of Conscious Evolution. She was married to Dr. Jack Ciardelli, Jr. until he passed away in 2017, and they shared their home with the original Peace Cat, Princess Jasmine. She very much enjoys traveling — including visiting Jack’s five children, ten grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren. Joanie’s research skills have turned to photography and genealogy, tracing and documenting family back several generations. She began the process of documenting the history of PTP through photos, and then worked with Avon Mattison to create a book and e-book, A Tale of Two Star Sisters and Pathways To Peace (available through this website).