Cookie Parker
Template:TOCnestleft Yolanda (Cookie) Parker is an entrepreneur with over 45 years of experience in technology. Most recently, she was the founder and President of KMS Software Company, a global software firm for Human Resource Departments that was acquired by SAP. A visionary and authority in process automation, Cookie began her career in 1968 with IBM, where she became the top Systems Engineering Manager and Marketing Manager in the Western Region. Cookie then continued at CGS, NCS and CPR before starting her own firm in 1994. Her philanthropic activities include memberships on the Boards of the National Foster Youth Institute, People for the American Way, Real Medicine Foundation and Democracy Alliance along with the Advisory Boards of MOM and View Park Conservancy. Cookie is also working with Los Angeles veterans groups and members of Congress to create a space for veterans for education, training, employment, benefits assistance, housing, and more.[1]
An entrepreneur, philanthropist, and community activist, Yolanda Parker is the wife of Fred Parker (retired Xerox) and the mother of Kevin Parker and Kim Parker. Ms. Parker received her BA and MA degrees from New York University in 1967 and 1968 respectively.[2]
Politics
Cookie Parker is a political activist who served on President Obama’s National Finance Committee for both the 2008 and 2012 campaigns; was a National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O); was on the original finance team for Common Purpose Project; and was a DNC Presidential Partner. Parker is the Finance Chair for Congresswoman Karen Bass’ re-election, and helps raise for funds for progressive Presidential, House and Senatorial candidates.[3]
PAC+ Santa Monica founding
From the founding of PAC+! This event was hosted in Santa Monica by Beth Broderick, Carol Coote, Nancy Stephens, Sara Nichols, Cookie Parker, Steve Phillips, Ana Grande, Marcelo Gaete, & Greg Akili. Steve Phillips shares the plans for PAC+, a new national social justice political action committee with chapters in 15 states across the country.
This event was an advance preview of the strategic goals and targeting that PAC+ will be pursuing in 2012 and over the next ten years.[4]
Democracy Alliance/Obama supporter
In 2014, the Democracy Alliance board included early Obama backers David desJardins and Cookie Parker. The newest board member, Susan Sandler, who was elected last week, worked to boost Obama by helping fund efforts to register minority voters in early primary states in 2008 through an outside group started by her husband and fellow Democracy Alliance member Steve Phillips.
April 2016 Democracy Alliance Santa Monica meeting
April 2016 Some of the biggest donors on the left huddled behind closed doors with liberal politicians including Nancy Pelosi to strategize about electing Democrats and confirming Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, but they also discussed ways to use Hollywood to advance their causes.
The occasion was the annual spring investment conference of the Democracy Alliance, which officially kicks off at the tony Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica, California.
The agenda also showed a particular focus on the California liberal donor community’s efforts to prepare for an impending upheaval in their state.
“As we approach the end of the Senator Boxer, Governor Brown, and Democratic Party Chair Burton era of California politics, a number of progressive policy, labor, and donor leaders have been strategizing together on how to win targeted candidate and initiative elections in 2016 and beyond, as well as policy battles in Sacramento,” read the description of a Saturday session called the California Donor Summit. It is sponsored by some of the biggest names in California progressive donor circles, including San Francisco real estate developer Wayne Jordan and his wife Quinn Delaney, Cookie Parker and Democracy Alliance board member Susan Sandler and her husband Steve Phillips.[5]