Brief Biographies of 2008-9 Board of Directors

President: Lois Garland
Since moving to Palo Alto with her family in 2002, Lois Garland has been a volunteer for PAUSD schools in several capacities.  She led PiE’s recent benchmarking study that compares PAUSD to several comparable school districts from across the nation.  Lois is also a parent representative on the Addison Elementary School Site Council.  In addition, Lois has held multiple leadership positions at Addison Elementary School, including PTA Co-President and Partners in Education school representative.

Lois also serves on the National Committee for University Resources for the University of Virginia and is an executive committee member of the Board of Trustees of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia.

Lois holds a BS in Computer Science and an ME in Systems Engineering, both from the University of Virginia.  She worked for several years as a management consultant for Booz, Allen & Hamilton.  Lois and her husband, Doug, have two children at Palo Alto High School and one at Addison Elementary.

Secretary: Brian Aronstam
As a parent at Duveneck Elementary School, Brian served as liaison to the PTA Council; worked as co-Webmaster of the school Web site; and served on the school's Site Council and Budget Steering Committee. At Castilleja School, which his daughter now attends, Brian has been a Parent Representative for his daughter's class and served two years on the school's Leadership Committee, parent board (the Castilleja School Association) and Buildings and Grounds Committee. Brian has also served numerous roles at PAFE, including president.

In the community, Brian recently has served on two Agency Review Committees for United Way Silicon Valley. Brian is a lawyer and journalist who previously practiced law at a major Silicon Valley law firm and worked as an editor at several Bay Area newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and Oakland Tribune.

Vice President, Development: Hazel Watson
Hazel Watson has been involved with Partners in Education for a number of years. Firstly as a key member of the elementary direct appeal team for the 2005-06 school year and is now entering her second year as VP Development. She also served as the PTA president for Fairmeadow elementary school for 2003-05 and various positions on the board over several years. She has volunteered at her children's school in a variety of capacities including working in the science lab and library, and coordinating the school's book fairs. Hazel has also served as the Co-vice president of Leadership for the Palo Alto Council of PTAs coordinating training for the various leadership positions in the unit PTAs.

Hazel has a BS in Applied Biological Sciences from the University of the West of England and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the University of Bristol, UK. She has worked at the University of Bristol veterinary school and as a high school science teacher. The family moved from the UK to Palo Alto over 8 years ago. She is the mother of two boys, one at Gunn High School and one at JLS Middle Schooll.

Vice President, Finance and Administration & Treasurer: Melinda Christopherson
Melinda grew up in Palo Alto and graduated from Paly. She and her husband, Mark returned to Palo Alto 11 years ago. They have four sons who all attend Palo Alto schools, two at Paly, one at Jordan and one Paly grad/college freshman. Currently, Melinda works for the California Family Foundation, which supports over 100 families in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park in the areas of housing and education. In the education arena, the California Family Foundation operates a school: Beechwood is an independent Young Fives thru 8th grade school with 160 students. For the foundation, Melinda sits on the board and performs a wide variety of tasks including the bookkeeping, payroll, taxes, fundraising & grant writing, substitute teaching, and mentoring students and families. She has also worked for PAUSD as an instructional aide and substitute teacher.

For the past three years Melinda has served on the board that supports TEAM at Paly, where next year, she will be co-president. She has been PTA president at Walter Hays once, and twice at Jordan. She has run school scrip programs for many years. After six years, she just resigned as Secretary of the Palo Alto Little League Board of Directors. She has also served as president and treasurer of a couple preschool boards.

Vice President, Governance: Elisabeth Einaudi
Since moving to Palo Alto with her family in 2004, Elisabeth Einaudi has been an active volunteer for PAUSD schools.  She has been a member of the PAPiE School Benchmarking team, as well as a room parent and library volunteer for both Barron Park and Juana Briones Elementary Schools.   She was PTA president for her children’s prior elementary school in Newton Massachusetts.

Elisabeth holds a BA and MBA from Harvard University.  She worked for several years as a management consultant for Mercer Management Consulting in their strategy and organizational development practice, and also worked for several years in healthcare management at Massachusetts General Hospital.  Elisabeth and her husband, Todd Collins, have one child at Terman Middle School, one at Gunn High School and one in a private school.

Vice President, Marketing and Communications: Karen Matthys
Karen Matthys has over 18 years of marketing and business strategy experience.  Karen is a Principal at Indigo Partners (www.indigoHQ.com), and focuses on brand strategy, positioning, new product and service launches and marketing strategic plans.  Before becoming a consultant, Karen was the Director of Marketing Strategy at Cellular One. Previously, Karen worked in various marketing management positions at Apple Computer in Cupertino and Japan.

Karen and her husband Mike live in Los Altos Hills with their three sons and one daughter.  They are part of the Nixon, Terman and Castilleja school communities.  In addition to activities at Indigo Partners, Karen serves on the board of TheatreWorks where she has led brand strategy, individual donor fundraising, and trustee development committees.  She has also led various school activities and is currently volunteering as a math teacher assistant at Nixon.
Karen received an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Director, Development & Governance: Susan Bailey
Susan Bailey has been a PiE board member since its inception in April 2005, serving as its initial president for 3 years. She is currently on the Governance and Development committees. She has also been a board member for the Friends of the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo, the Addison PTA and the Addison Site Council. She is currently serving on the Jordan Site Council. Susan initiated the Addison Noon Science program and has served as the Addison After-School programs coordinator, a Reading Tutor volunteer, and a Computer Lab volunteer. She co-Chaired the Addison Auction for 2004-5 and has chaired the Budget Review Committee at the school. She also served as a key member of the Partners in Education Major Donor Committee in 2004-5.

Susan has a daughter at Addison elementary school and a son at Jordan Middle School. In November 2002 she left Lockheed Martin after fifteen years, most recently as the Chief Engineer for an Air Force satellite program. She is an aerospace engineer with degrees from MIT and Stanford.

Director, Development: Marcie Brown
Marcie Brown has been involved in many local community non-profits and groups for the past 15 years.  She was the Palo Alto PTA Council president from 1998-2000, encouraging the movement of the school district towards a district-wide fund raising model.  In PTA, she has also served on the Executive Boards at all school levels as well as at the county-wide level. She has been very active in the Girl Scouts of Palo Alto and was on the Board of Directors for the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County.  Marcie has been a member of the Junior League of Palo Alto-Mid Peninsula for 20 years and has served on or chaired committees in the areas of membership, fund raising and communications.  Currently, she serves as a Sustainer Advisor to the League's Community Projects Council.  Marcie is also on the Family Resources Foundation Board.

Marcie and her husband Chet have a college-age daughter, who is a PAUSD graduate.  They live in a far corner of southwest Palo Alto with two canine companions.  Marcie has a BA in Communications from Cal State Fullerton and is a 1994 graduate of Leadership Palo Alto.

Director, Development: Lori Buecheler
For the past 20 years, Lori Buecheler has been involved with the education of children in a variety of capacities.

She started with tutoring school-age kids from the Projects in Chicago.  She then moved to Seattle and served as a board member for Child Care Resources, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of early childhood education.

Living in Palo Alto with her family since 2003, Lori has spent several hours as a volunteer in the classroom and has served as the PiE representative at Walter Hays, where she and her team raised the school's participation rate from 50% to 74% in two years.  Lori is also actively involved in addressing the educational disparity in underserved areas such as East Palo Alto, East Menlo Park, and East San Jose.

Lori has a BA in Communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She formerly worked in marketing management for a variety of start-up companies, including an educational DVD-game company.  Lori and her husband, Kurt, have two children at Walter Hays Elementary.

Director, Development: Scott Hayes
Scott resides in Palo Alto and has two children attending Palo Alto schools. He is active in the community through his support of Stanford Lively Arts, Lucille Packard Children's Hospital, Music@Menlo, Toys for Tots, and Building with Books. He is from Long Island, but has lived in NYC, San Francisco, and Honolulu. While in Hawaii, he chaired fundraising for two prominent private schools and established one school's advisory board and PTA.

Scott is a Director with Citi Private Bank in Palo Alto and has held management positions with Bankers Trust Company, Bank of Hawaii and The Spectrem Group. At Citi Private Bank, he directs the Venture Capital | Private Equity practice in Silicon Valley, and works with high-net worth individuals and private foundations in California and New York. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, American Banker, San Francisco Business Times, San Jose / Silicon Valley Business Journal, and the Honolulu Advertiser. He graduated from Villanova University as a Political Science Major and Business minor.

Director, Development: Leslyn Leong
Since moving to Palo Alto from San Francisco in June 2004, Leslyn has been actively involved in her three children’s pre-school and elementary schools.  At El Carmelo School, she served as Liaison to the PTA Council (2004), Secretary on the Executive PTA Board (2005 to current), and room parent in both her son’s and daughter’s classroom (2004-current).  She also started and co-leads her daughter’s Girl Scout Brownie Troop.

Leslyn has also served on other boards, including the Asian Art Museum (SF)  Docent Board, where she was the Executive Secretary from 2001-2003.  Leslyn earned a juris doctorate from UCLA Law School and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Washington.  She formerly practiced real estate law in both private law firms, and The Gap, Inc. as a Director and Senior Attorney, and more recently has been involved in real estate investments.

Director, Development: Mandy Lowell
Mandy Lowell served on the PAUSD Board of Education from 1999 to 2007, including two terms as President. During that time, the District adopted a policy for district-wide fundraising for staff, and also proposed and passed the first parcel tax to augment our district's operational funds. She also served as a board liaison to PIE, as well as serving on the District's Property Committee and the City-School Liaison Committee with the City of Palo Alto. Mandy currently serves as a Co-Chair of Strong Schools for a Strong Community, the citizens' support group for the proposed PAUSD bond measure.

Prior to serving on the Board of Education, Mandy practiced law at the Los Angeles and San Francisco offices of a major New York law firm. She served as several terms a delegate to the California Bar Conference of Delegates and as Vice-President of the Harvard Law School Alumni Associations of Los Angeles and of San Francisco.

Director, Development: Nancy Smith
Nancy Smith has been involved with Palo Alto schools since moving to Palo Alto with her family in 2002.  As a Fairmeadow Elementary School parent in the PTA, she has served as Parliamentarian, Partners in Education school representative, VP of Fundraising, in various non-board positions, and for two years as PTA President, from 2005-2007.  Nancy is a parent representative in her second term on the Fairmeadow Site Council, is currently on the PTA Council Exec. Board, and is now a member of the JLS PTA Exec. Board as well.  She has volunteered at her children's schools in a variety of capacities, including in the Science Lab and library, as a room parent, on numerous school community events and as coordinator of Fifth Grade Fundraising.

Nancy has a BA in Liberal Arts from St. Mary’s College of California and a K-8 Teacher’s Credential from St. Mary’s College School of Education. She has worked as a classroom teacher at the elementary level in the east bay and at the high school level in the Boston Public School district.  Following her Master’s work in Linguistics, Nancy taught English as a Second Language in the Davis Unified School District.  Nancy is the mother of two children, a sixth grader at JLS and a second grader at Fairmeadow.

Director, Finance & Administration & Assistant Treasurer: Xenia Hammer
Xenia has been an active volunteer with Palo Alto Schools for many years.  She has served on the Duveneck PTA Executive Board as Treasurer for 2 years and has completed a 2 year term on Duveneck Site Council.  She is currently Secretary of Palo Alto High School PTA.  She ran eScrip at Duveneck for 2 years, and has been an active volunteer in the classroom.  Most recently, Xenia worked on the PIE Benchmarking Study, comparing PAUSD to other top public school districts in the country.

Xenia holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University.  She was a management consultant with Booz Allen and Hamilton and with R.B. Webber & Company specializing in high tech marketing and strategy.  Xenia and her husband Gary have 3 children in Palo Alto Schools - a 10th grader at Paly, a 7th grader at Jordan and a 4rd grader at Duveneck.

Director, Finance & Administration: Al Russell
Al helped develop PAFE from its beginning in 1984, chairing the exploration committee that recommended creation of the Foundation to the school district. He served as President for 2.5 years and chair or co-chair of the Grant Allocation Program since the inception of PAFE. Al has held a wide variety of PTA positions and been the school site council chair at two schools. He was President, Vice President and Treasurer of the Palo Alto High Music Boosters Program for four years, and the recipient of the Sally Siegel Award for service to the School District in 1994.

Al has also served on and chaired site disposition and re-use committees. For two years, he led the District's Long Range Planning Committee to evaluate the entire district program and make long-term recommendations for the operation and improvement of the district. He spent the last 8 years on the School District's Planning Review Committee for the Building For Excellence Program, with an effective budget currently of almost $200,000,000. Al is also the current president of the Gold Star Awards Committee at Palo Alto High School that awards college scholarships to students of academic merit and serious financial need.

Al has three children, who have attended Pre-School Family, El Carmelo, Ohlone, Jordan, JLS, and Palo Alto High School. His first grandchild is in kindergarten at Ohlone. He is a practicing tax attorney with over 30 years of experience, and a graduate of Stanford University and the Law School at the University of San Francisco.

Director, Finance & Administration: Dan Seligson
Dan Seligson is currently the Parliamentarian of the Walter Hays PTA, weekly eNews editor since 2003.  He served as its VP of Communications for the 2005 and 2006 academic years, during which time he built Hays' online directory.  Dan is a Trustee of the Summer Science Program, Inc., a foundation that has run a summer astronomy high school since 1959.  He has 7 US Patents.

Dan is a graduate of the Summer Science Program in Ojai, CA, Amity High School in Woodbridge, CT, MIT (BSc Physics) and Berkeley (PhD Physics).  He worked at Intel in process- and manufacturing-technology for 17 years.  He was also general manager of an internal startup there. Today he invests in and advises startups, mostly in Silicon Valley.

Dan has three children at Walter Hays, where his wife Margaret is a prodigious volunteer.  He is an avid bicyclist and photographer.

Director, Governance: Linda Verhulp
Linda Verhulp is the Executive Director for the Morgan Family Foundation, a private foundation that focuses its philanthropic goals on youth, education, the environment and stewardship. Linda was raised in Palo Alto; she returned after many years away by way of Los Angeles, Saudi Arabia and London. While overseas, Linda was General Manager of the employees’ association for the United States Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Linda’s professional experience includes management positions in finance, operations and marketing in both the non-profit and for profit sectors.

Linda is actively engaged at her children’s schools volunteering in various capacities. She has co-chaired the Palo Verde Elementary School Site Council, served on the JLS Site Council, is an active participant in the JLS Budget Committee (a collaboration between Staff, Site Council and the PTA), and is currently on the JLS PTA Executive Board.  She has also served as President of the Board at her children’s childcare center. Linda and her husband, Rod, have two children in Palo Alto schools – an 8th grader at JLS who will be attending Gunn in the fall and a 2nd grader at Palo Verde. Linda holds an Economics degree from UCLA.

Director, Marketing and Communications: Judy Logan
Judy has been actively involved with multiple Palo Alto schools for the past 8 years, including Parents Nursery School, Young 5s, Duveneck Elementary, and Jordan Middle School.  She has served on the Duveneck PTA in a number of capacities, including two years on the PTA Executive Board, and two years as Co-Chair of the Duveneck Just Parties fundraiser. 

Judy has over 15 years of marketing and management experience, and was the Vice President of Marketing Communications for Netscape Communications.  Currently a marketing consultant focused on branding, lead generation, and product launches, she has also worked at Apple Computer and a marketing agency in San Francisco.  A product of California public schools, Judy holds a BA in Psychology, with a Business concentration, from UCLA.

Judy and her husband, Todd (a Palo Alto native and Gunn High graduate), have a daughter in sixth grade at Jordan, and a son in second grade at Duveneck. 

Director, Marketing and Communications: Liz Simons
Liz Simons has been involved with Palo Alto schools and education in a variety of capacities. At Duveneck Elementary School she served as Human Relations co-chair, piloted and coordinated the Junior Great Books literature program, created and ran a Kids' Newspaper, and organized an after-school Chess Club. In 2001-2003 she wrote the daily "School Matters" column for the Palo Alto Daily News, for which she received a Palo Alto PTA Council Honorary Service award. Over the years she has served on PAUSD core literature and GATE committees. This year Liz began volunteering at College Track, a non-profit organization with centers in East Palo Alto, Oakland, and San Francisco devoted to helping promising, under-resourced students graduate from high school and succeed in college. Liz is a former elementary school teacher and received her BA in journalism at UC Berkeley and a Masters in Education at Stanford.

In the fall, Liz's daughter will is a college freshman and her son is at Menlo School.

Director, Marketing and Communications: Diana Walsh
Diana worked as a journalist for 20 years and was most recently a metro reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. During her career, she covered several beats, including City Hall and elementary and secondary education, winning several journalism awards.

She has been an active volunteer at Palo Alto schools and is currently serving as the Partners in Education representative to Addison. She has also written articles as part of the community outreach program of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Previously, she served as Communications Director for the California Democratic Party and worked in the news departments of two local television stations.
 
Diana received her B.A. in International Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
 
She and her husband Kent have three children: a freshman at Paly, a sixth grader at Jordan Middle School, and a third grader at Addison Elementary.

Ex Officio/School Board Liaison:  Barb Mitchell

Ex Officio/ PAUSD Superintendent: Kevin Skelly

Ex Officio / PTAC Liaison: Sarah Carpenter