The Board of Directors is responsible for establishing broad policies that affect all Aspire charter public schools, advocating Aspire’s mission, and providing strategic guidance to the organization. The Aspire Board of Directors consists of 10 active members, plus members designated by the organization’s chartering districts. The Aspire Board of Directors includes:
Bill Hughson, Independent Consultant
Bill graduated from Williams College in 1986 with a degree in English literature and from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990. Bill’s professional affiliations include CEO of Noah’s Bagels, President of AG Ferrari Foods, President of ePlast.com and his current position as President of DaVita Rx. He is also a Director of two medical technology firms, Sensurtec and Fulfillium, and is Managing Member of Silicon Valley Investment Partners. Bill is married and is the proud father of a young daughter.
Melvin J. Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer, Wellington Financial Group
Mel Kaplan has been a real estate investor since 1960. He is CEO of Wellington Financial Group, an entity that invests in commercial real estate nationally.
In 1988 Mel and his family founded the Harry Singer Foundation, a nonprofit educational operating foundation dedicated to youth development. He serves on Harry Singer's Board and advises various other 501 c (3) corporations.
Mel is an alumnus of MIT and UC Berkeley where, in the 70s, he lectured at the School of Business Administration. His specialty continues to be problem solving and entrepreneurship. His biography has appeared in Marquis Who's Who In Finance and Industry and Who's Who In The World.
Steven L. Merrill, Venture Capitalist
Steve Merrill has been active in venture capital investing since 1968, and most recently was a Partner with Benchmark Capital. He was president of BankAmerica Capital Corporation in 1976 and managed this very successful venture activity until 1980 when he formed Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre (MPAE), a privately held venture capital partnership. MPAE managed funds of approximately $285 million provided by a group of 50 limited partners, including major corporations, pension funds, insurance companies, university endowments, and prominent families. Some of the companies funded by MPAE include America Online, Aspect Telecommunications, Cypress Semiconductor, Documentum, and Palm Computing. MPAE stopped making new investments in 1996 and the partners founded Benchmark Capital and Foundation Capital. Steven is a limited partner in both of these firms but is no longer involved in the day-to-day management.
Currently, Steven is devoting more time to civic and non-profit activities as well as his private investments. He was chairman of the Board of Trustees of Town School for Boys, a member of the Committee to Restore the San Francisco Opera House, and he is a past director of the Children’s Health Council.
Steven is also a past president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and a past director of the National Venture Capital Association, and has been a director of numerous privately held companies. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance and a BA in Sociology from Stanford University.
Louise Muhlfeld Patterson
Louise Muhfeld Patterson has had an extensive career as an HR executive and trustee of college-preparatory schools. She was Vice President of Human Resources for American Express company for 14 years, where she was a generalist for the Western Region, supporting over 1500 employees in 40 different locations. She specialized in organizational effectiveness, executive leadership and team development. She has consulted to beverage company Odwalla as Acting VP of Human Resources and to Addis Corporation, a marketing and branding organization. She implemented a Quality of Work life Survey for startup companies in Silicon Valley for Klein Associates. As a volunteer, she has served as a Trustee for many independent schools, including St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts, Drew College Preparatory High School in San Francisco, and Marin Country Day School. As Trustee, she has led the governance committees, chaired a number of executive director searches, led strategic planning efforts, and participated in several capital campaigns. She also currently serves as a Trustee for the San Francisco Zoological Society. Ms. Patterson received a BA in Psychology and Education from Vassar College and also studied the British school system at Oxford University.
Don Shalvey, Co-Founder and Board Chair, Aspire Public Schools
Don Shalvey has over 35 years of experience in public education, having served as superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal, classroom teacher, and counselor in all levels-primary, elementary, middle, and high schools, college and adult education. Prior to joining Aspire, Dr. Shalvey was Superintendent of the San Carlos School District in Northern California, a district of approximately 2,600 students and six elementary schools. Don has also worked in the Merced School District, a rural district of approximately 11,000 students and in the Lodi Unified School District, a district of approximately 28,000 students that includes a portion of urban Stockton.
Under Don’s leadership, the San Carlos District sponsored the first charter school in California and began participation in the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, the Hewlett-Annenberg Project and a federal Technology Challenge Grant. Don also co-founded Californians for Public School Excellence, the organization that sponsored the California Charter School Initiative that raised the cap on the number of charter schools. Don has been a member of State Superintendent Delaine Eastin’s Charter School Committee as well as an advisor to the California Network of Educational Charters. Don earned a Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership/Administration from the University of Southern California, a Masters of Education in Counseling and Guidance from Gonzaga University and a B.A. from LaSalle College.
Richard C. Spalding, Founder, Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners
In March of 2003, Dick co-founded Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners, where he focuses on life science investing. The fund has been initially capitalized at $120 million, and will invest in both the medical technology and life science sectors. Dick also co-founded the ABS Ventures Healthcare investment group in January 2000, again leading the firm’s investments in life sciences.
Prior to joining ABS Ventures, Dick was a Chief Financial Officer of public and private companies, an investment banker with Alex Brown, and a co-founder of the Palo Alto office of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. For his entire career he has worked with growth companies, primarily in the health care area, on corporate partnerships, financings and operations. He is currently a director of 3D Systems, a public company, and CBCA, Inc.
He received a BA degree with honors from Harvard College and a J.D. with honors from Columbia Law School.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board supports Aspire’s Board of Directors and staff by providing expertise on specific issues that affect the organization’s business and education strategies. The Advisory Board includes policy makers, education researchers, community leaders, and investors.
William B. Pace
Bill recently stepped down as President and Chief Executive Officer of Kurt Salmon Associates (KSA), an international, multidisciplinary management consulting firm focused on the consumer and healthcare industries. KSA has been named as one of the "Top 10 Consulting Firms to Work For" by Consulting Magazine for the last six years. Prior to KSA, he co-founded and led Swander Pace & Company, a leading strategy consulting firm based in San Francisco, and was a founding limited partner of Swander Pace Capital, a private equity firm with over $1 billion under management. Bill has a life-long interest in education, serving early in his career as an elementary school teacher and an assistant dean of students. He has been involved with numerous education and community service organizations, most recently as a member of the Yale School of Management board of advisors and as founding chair of the Yale Center for Customer Insights. Bill earned a Bachelor of Arts from Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Arts in Education from Claremont University Center, and a Master of Business Administration from Yale School of Management.
Ann Bowers
Ann Bowers is the Chair of the Board and the founding Trustee of the Noyce Foundation. Previously, her career was in human resource management in California's Silicon Valley. She was the first Director of Personnel for Intel Corporation and the first Vice President of Human Resources for Apple Computer and consultant to many startups. In her role as the Chair of the Silicon Valley Joint Venture Education Initiative, Ann was instrumental in the design of a challenge to Silicon Valley schools to redesign themselves for the 21st century. Currently, Ann is a Director of both the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, as well as a Trustee of Cornell University.
Anthony J. Colón
Anthony J. Colón is the Vice President of the National Council of La Raza’s Center for Community Educational Excellence (C2E2). Mr. Colón came to Washington, D.C. from Oakland, California where he served as the Principal of the Oakland Charter Academy and a member of its Board of Directors for the past two years. Prior to his period in California, Mr. Colón was the Principal/Executive Director of the Beacon School – a private nonprofit, pre K through 12 school. In New York City, he was the Director of Special Education for Community School District Ten and served as the chairperson of the Committee on Special Education. Mr. Colón has 30 years experience as a teacher and school administrator in public, private and parochial schools, and has served on the faculty of Lehman College at the City University of New York and at Fordham University’s Department of Bilingual Services. He holds a Master’s degree and a Professional Diploma in educational administration from Fordham University in New York, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in sociology from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York.
Sayed Darwish
Sayed Darwish is Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Documentum; in that capacity, he is responsible for the overall management of the Company's worldwide legal affairs and provides corporate legal counsel to the board of directors and the executive management team. Previously, Mr. Darwish served as General Counsel and Vice President, Legal & HR for Forté Software, Inc., where he helped manage the successful merger of Forté with Sun Microsystems. He has also served as Corporate Counsel in the Commercial Group at Oracle Corporation, practiced labor law at Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison, and served with Judge Thelton Henderson of the 9th District. Mr. Darwish also serves on the Board of Holy Family Day Care, which provides child care for homeless and low-income children in San Francisco’s Mission district. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in math and political science, and received his JD from University of San Francisco.
Paula Evans
Paula Evans is currently the interim Headmaster at Dover-Sherborn Regional High School in Dover, MA. She was the Principal of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School from 1999-2001 where she collaborated with an administrative team and faculty to redesign a 2,000 student high school into five Small Schools. Prior to coming to Cambridge, she was the Director of Professional Development at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University in Providence, RI. She taught at the secondary level for seventeen years—primarily in the Newton Public Schools in Massachusetts, with some experience in Boston as well, and has taught education courses to Brown undergraduate and graduate students. Beginning in 1984, she worked at Brown University in several different capacities—as founder and director of the Institute for Secondary Education, a collaboration between the University and local school districts; as director of Brown's teacher education programs; as director of professional development, first for the Coalition of Essential Schools and then for the Annenberg Institute. She was responsible for developing, leading, and supporting the National School Reform Faculty, a network of some 7000 teachers and principals from schools across the country. She has published in Daedalus, the Harvard Educational Review, Education Week, and Phi Delta Kappan.
Paul Hill
Paul Hill is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. He is a research professor in the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, and also directs the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which helps communities adopt alternative governance systems for public K-12 education. In addition, Dr. Hill is a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Economic Studies Program. His work focuses on reform of public elementary and secondary education. He is currently leading studies of school choice plans, charter schools and school accountability. His most recent book, Fixing Urban Schools is a primer for city leaders and foundations on strategies for transforming failing urban public school systems. He is also the author (with Lawrence Pierce and James Guthrie) of "Reinventing Public Education: How Contracting Can Transform America's Schools", and he contributed a chapter to Private Vouchers, edited by Hoover Institution senior fellow and Koret Task Force member Terry M. Moe. Previously, Dr. Hill was a senior social scientist in RAND's Washington Office.
Thomas P. Johnson
During 43 years of involvement in public education, Dr Tom Johnson has been an urban secondary school teacher and counselor; a professor of graduate policy studies; and chief personnel officer in three school districts including a decade supervising major Human Resource functions in the fifth largest school district in the nation. He is a school district/charter school examiner for the Educational Quality and Accountability agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; an Organizational Consultant to State Departments of Education; Charter Schools; School Districts; Foundations and non-profits and collaborative. For a decade, he was affiliated with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as a test site supervisor; a national consultant and New England liaison. He was also an adjunct fellow at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. He holds earned degrees from Boston College; Stanford University and Harvard University. His life experience also includes two and one half decades as a part time soldier with enlisted and commissioned service in five states and the Pentagon. He lives on Cape Cod, with his spouse, Beverly who is a retired educator.
Michael W. Kirst
Michael W. Kirst is Professor of Education at the Stanford School of Education. He brings years of personal experience in government education policymaking, at both federal and state levels, to his classrooms and research. He is co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a research consortium including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and USC which provides analysis and assistance to California policymakers to help build an ongoing picture of California education through analysis and dissemination of papers on educational policy issues. Dr. Kirst is a past President of the California State Board of Education. His recent publications include: "Bridging Education Research and Education Policymaking" in the Oxford Education Review (2001); "Bridging the Remediation Gap" in Education Week (1998); and The Political Dynamics of American Education (with Fred Wirt, 1997).
Ann Lieberman
Ann Lieberman is a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, and directs the K-12 Program of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). She is also a visiting professor at Stanford University. Dr. Lieberman is an emeritus professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and co-founded the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching. Dr. Lieberman’s scholarship has enriched understanding of teacher development and practice in the context of school reform. She has written and edited numerous books and articles on the professional development of teachers and the conditions of school reform. She is a past president of the American Educational Research Association. In addition, she is one of few academics who has worked with both the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) in their efforts to expand their work to address “professional” issues of teaching and learning. As a researcher, Dr. Lieberman is currently working on deepening the field’s understanding of different structures that support school reform including, most recently networks partnerships and coalitions. Her recent publications include: Teachers--Transforming their World and their Work (with Lynne Miller); The Work of Restructuring Schools; “Networks and Reform in American Education” (with Maureen Grolnick) in Teaching as the Learning Profession: Handbook of Policy and Practice, edited by Linda Darling-Hammond and Gary Sykes.
Hilary Pennington
Hilary Pennington is the Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Jobs for the Future. As the co-founder of Jobs for the Future, Ms. Pennington is widely recognized as one of the leading research and policy development organizations in the country regarding issues of workforce development and future work requirements. Ms. Pennington has overseen an extensive research and policy agenda, as well as consulting with over 20 states and many communities on the issues of economic change, youth transitions, and workforce development. Jobs for the Future’s policy work has been nationally influential, and its designs for a comprehensive approach to workforce development have been implemented by seven governors. It helped craft a major piece of federal legislation, the School To Work Opportunities Act, which has provided over $1 billion to help states and communities build better systems for supporting youth transitions from high school to postsecondary education and rewarding careers. Ms. Pennington was a member of Clinton’s Presidential Transition team in 1992 and recently completed tenure as a co-chair of the Presidential Advisory committee on Expanding Training Opportunities. She has advised former President Clinton and the first Bush administration on workforce and education policies and worked with the Secretaries of the Departments of Labor and Education to design the landmark School to Work Opportunities Act, enacted in 1994. Prior to founding Jobs for the Future, Ms. Pennington worked in corporate strategy and public policy at Aetna and the Boston Consulting Group. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Management and Yale College. She holds a graduate degree in Social Anthropology from Oxford University. In 2000, Ms. Pennington was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, on a one-year sabbatical from Jobs for the Future. Ms. Pennington serves on the boards of the Milton Hershey School and the Hershey Trust Company, the Independent Sector, the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth.
Steven Poizner, Philanthropist, Poizner Family Foundation
Steve and his wife Carol created the Poizner Family Foundation to help improve public education in low-income communities. Steve serves on the boards of several innovative nonprofit organizations, including EdVoice and New Schools Venture Fund. Steve also taught American Government to 12th grade students at Mount Pleasant High School in San Jose, where he received the “Rookie Teacher of the Year” award.
Teaching American Government gave Steve the opportunity to share with students his experience as a White House Fellow (2001-02). As a White House Fellow, Steve served for 6 months under Dick Clarke, the President’s Special Advisor on Cyber-Security, and 6 months with the USA Freedom Corps, where he developed and presented two proposals to the President, who ordered their implementation. Specifically, Steve’s work resulted in the creation of a White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth, to better coordinate and enhance the effectiveness of 100+ federal programs, and the creation of Youth Achievement, a three-year, $300 million initiative to recruit and train mentors for more than one million disadvantaged youth. Youth Achievement was highlighted by the President in his 2003 State of the Union address.
Steve is the founder and former President of SnapTrack, Inc., which created the GPS-based technology that allows police and emergency medical services to pinpoint the geographic location of cell phone users in emergencies. Steve sold SnapTrack to Qualcomm Inc. in March 2000 for $1 billion. He was also the founder and CEO of Strategic Mapping, Inc., and served as a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
Steve has been active in community service groups since 1980. As President of the Palo Alto Jaycees, he was deeply involved in bringing a lawsuit (ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court) to open Jaycee membership to women.
Steve earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas, and an MBA degree from Stanford University with the distinction of “Arjay Miller Scholar”. He has also earned a black belt in Shotokan karate.
Delia Pompa
Delia Pompa is the Executive Director of the National Association for Bilingual Education. She has over thirty years of experience in her chosen field, and is one of our nation’s foremost experts on the education of language minority students. Ms. Pompa has extensive policy and programmatic experience, and has received numerous recognitions for her efforts on behalf of language minority children at the local, state, and federal level. Ms. Pompa began her career in bilingual education as a kindergarten teacher in the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, and went on to serve as the Executive Director for Bilingual Programs and Childhood Education at the Houston Independent School District. She also served as the Assistant Commissioner for Program Development at the Texas Education Agency before coming to Washington, D.C. as the Children’s Defense Fund Director of Education, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and Youth Development Initiatives. In 1995, Ms. Pompa was appointed Director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (OBEMLA) by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. During her tenure at OBEMLA, she worked to ensure continued and increased funding for bilingual education and led the Administration’s efforts to expand educational opportunities for Limited English Proficient (LEP) children. Ms. Pompa came to NABE in July of 1999, when she was tapped by the NABE Executive Board of Directors to head up a restructuring of the organization. As NABE’s Executive Director, Ms. Pompa has outlined several key goals for the Association. Among her priorities are the increasing of professional development opportunities for teachers of LEP students, and the appropriate incorporation of bilingual education into standards-based educational reform.
Pamela Russ
Pamela Russ is a professor at CSU-Stanislaus.
Eric Schwartz
Eric Schwartz is the Chairman/CEO of Sherman, Clay & Company’s music and finance divisions, and is involved in real estate and recycled paper manufacturing. He serves on the board of the Bernard Lee Schwartz Foundation, The BASIC Fund and Pomfret School, as well as the Community Advisory Boards of Edison School in East Palo Alto and St. Paul of the Shipwreck School in Bay View/Hunter’s Point. The Schwartz Foundation is a supporter of Aspire Public Schools, Edison School, St. Paul of the Shipwreck School, Pacific Research Institute’s Education Initiative, The BASIC Fund, the American Education Reform Foundation and other education-related programs. Eric is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business, Occidental College and Pomfret School.
Michael Schwartz
Michael Schwartz is the CEO of Sherman, Clay & Company’s real estate division, and is involved in real estate and recycled paper manufacturing. He serves on the board of the Bernard Lee Schwartz Foundation, which is a supporter of Aspire Public Schools, Edison School in East Palo Alto, St. Paul of the Shipwreck School in Bay View/Hunter’s Point, Pacific Research Institute’s Education Initiative, The BASIC Fund, the American Education Reform Foundation and other education-related programs. He also serves on the Board of Pomfret School and the Community Advisory Boards of Edison School and St. Paul of the Shipwreck School. Michael is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Stanford University and Pomfret School.
Technology Advisory Board
Aspire Public Schools Technology Advisory Board assists Aspire Public Schools management in developing, executing, and renewing the organization’s strategy for leveraging technology to improve student performance, administrative efficiencies and for attaining the maximum benefit for students and teachers from Aspire’s public and private funding.
John Sovereign
John loves building software that people love to use and helps them in their work. He has been a senior-level contributor and consultant to many innovative organizations in Northern California, including Apple Computer, BigBook, Charles Schwab, eBay, Intuit and Kaiser Permanente. His background spans UNIX kernel development, financial trading applications and award-winning web sites. John's current technical focus is cloud computing and is a consulting architect at Elastra, bringing IT delivery automation and optimization to large and small enterprises.
John is an active member of Parents for Public Schools. In his spare time, he manages 100 computers at his kids' elementary school. He's glad to lend his wealth of technology experience to an education innovator like Aspire.
Barbara Causby
Barbara is a technology executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in dynamic environments. She has a proven track record delivering complex web-based technologies to achieve business results, while effectively managing cost and risks. Barbara previously worked as a Vice President of Technology at Charles Schwab, where she held several positions developing technology strategies that aligned with business goals and objectives. She has strong planning and collaboration skills and a reputation of successful implementation of innovative programs and process across technology and business organizations.
Martin Eggenberger
Martin is a Professional Enterprise and Application Architect that solves enterprise IT problems in a proactive and insightful manner. He has experience working with Service Oriented Architecture, ETL Architecture and Data Warehousing. He currently works for Quanis, Inc. where he has developed Architecture and Engineering Roadmap. Martin provides his expertise on the Technology Advisory Board at Aspire Public Schools as well.
Martin's key strengths include Enterprise Software Architecture and development, Architectural and Financial risk analysis, Service-oriented Architecture, and Project Management experience. Martin is in the process of obtaining his M.B.A. from San Francisco State University, received his Masters of Science in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from SFSU, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Neu Technikum Buchs in Switzerland.
Scott Strait
Scott Strait has over 20 years of experience leading technology organizations, the last 12 years with Charles Schwab & Co. At Schwab, Scott was CTO, divisional CIO for the Schwab Institutional business serving independent financial advisors, and divisional CIO for the Schwab Investor Services business serving retail investors. As CTO and as head of the retail technology, Scott developed the technology strategy to emphasize cross-channel integration and common view of the customer to enable Schwab’s strategy shift from transaction-based to relationship-based client experience and led the complete rewrite of Schwab.com. As head of Schwab Institutional Technology, Scott led the effort to build SchwabInstitutional.com and to support the independent advisors as they adopted the Internet for the first time. Prior to Schwab, Scott was with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Arthur Andersen, where he was a CPA.
Scott earned a Ph.D from Stanford University in Engineering-Economic Systems and an MBA and a BS in Engineering from Lehigh University.