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Green Dot Board of Directors
Officers
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Marlene Canter - bio
Board Chairman
Former LAUSD Board President
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Kevin Reed - bio
Board Vice Chairman
Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs at UCLA
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Brad Rosenberg - bio
Board Secretary
Chairman, Imagine L.A. |
Directors
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Noah Mamet - bio
President, Mamet & Associates
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Paul Miller - bio
Senior Advisor at LAUSD
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Ref Rodriguez - bio
President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures
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Gilbert Vazquez - bio
Managing Partner, Vasquez & Company, LLP
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Timothy Wahl - bio
Faculty Member, Cal State Northridge
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Denita Willoughby - bio
Vice President of External Affairs, AT&T California
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Arielle Zurzolo - bio
President of Green Dot's Teacher Union (AMU)
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Marlene Canter – Board Chairman, Former LAUSD Board President
Marlene Canter, overwhelmingly elected twice to the Los Angeles City Board of Education, served as Board Member for District 4 from 2001 to 2009 and as President from 2005 to 2007. The Los Angeles Business Journal named her Woman Executive of the Year in 2006 for her leadership of the Board. In 2008, the League of Women Voters presented her with their Government Leadership Award. In 2009, Ms. Canter received the Educator of the Year award from Loyola Marymount University's School of Education. During her tenure on the LAUSD Board, Ms. Canter made teacher quality and children's health and well-being her top priorities. She authored resolutions to ban the sale of soft drinks and junk food in LAUSD schools — which passed in 2002 and 2003, respectively — making LAUSD the first large urban district in the nation to approve such bans. California and many other districts have since adopted similar nutrition reforms.
Ms. Canter was willing to take on controversial issues and authored successful resolutions calling for increased scrutiny in teacher evaluations, the granting of tenure and changes to the state Education Code governing the certificated employee dismissal process. She now sits on the LAUSD Teacher Quality Task Force and will play a role in developing recommendations for legislative changes regarding teacher dismissals and seniority, strategies for implementing a merit pay system and improving the teacher evaluation process. Ms. Canter chaired the Board's Charters and Innovation Committee, a new committee she conceived to help drive school and District transformation. The Committee supports the District's efforts to create innovative partnerships, provide oversight for charter schools, and to facilitate reforms in the District. Drawing on her 30-year career as co-CEO of a successful teacher training company, Ms. Canter also created the Board's Human Resources Committee. The committee, which she chaired for 4 years, oversaw impressive improvement in the recruitment of highly qualified teachers. Ninety-four percent of the District's new hires now meet the State's definition of highly qualified compared to 64 percent of new hires in 2002/03.
Ms. Canter began her career in education as a special education teacher at Alta Loma Elementary School. She went on to co-found and serve as the co-CEO of Canter & Associates, now Laureate Education, Inc. The company became one of the world's leading teacher-training organizations and trained more than 1 million K-12 teachers worldwide. It developed an extensive catalogue of professional development programs, distance learning graduate courseware and resource materials for teachers, administrators, and parents. Ms. Canter sat on State Superintendent Jack O'Connell's P-16 Council and on the Board of Directors for her alma mater, Pacific Oaks College. She is also an advisor to the Children's Partnership, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan child advocacy organization. Ms. Canter also has served on the Boards of Directors for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the Kehillath Israel Synagogue of Pacific Palisades.
Ms. Canter has two children. Nikky graduated with her MBA at Kellogg College at Northwestern in Chicago and is working in the area of social responsibility. Her son Joshua, lives with his wife Kristin and new baby Jaya in Asheville, North Carolina and also in Costa Rica. He runs community service travel tours in Costa Rica and is pursuing his MA in psychology. They are both involved in work that helps make the world a better place.
Kevin Reed – Board Vice Chairman, Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs at UCLA
As Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs, Kevin Reed oversees UCLA's provision of campus-wide legal services, counseling, advice, assistance and litigation. He also supervises the provision of ombuds services, the prevention of sexual harassment and compliance with Title IX. A civil rights lawyer by training, Reed joined UCLA in March 2008, after serving as general counsel of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation's second largest school district. In nearly five years there, he directed LAUSD legal affairs, conducted litigation for the district and oversaw the work of 40 outside law firms and 40 in-house attorneys. Prior to joining LAUSD, Reed spent nearly eight years in a boutique litigation firm, which followed six years as the managing attorney for the western regional office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., in Los Angeles.
Reed's career has engaged him in a broad range of legal issues — from authoring billions of dollars in voter-approved school bond measures, to defending the use of a probabilistic seismic hazard model to estimate earthquake losses, to election law, to employment, labor and government law. He led collective bargaining at LAUSD and was a principal architect of a pathbreaking "pilot school" agreement with the LAUSD teacher's union. His career has focused on constitutional issues and civil rights, from his days litigating police abuse and housing discrimination cases to his work with the school district's historic efforts to relieve overcrowding at schools in low-income neighborhoods, to his current work advising the UCLA senior leadership in their efforts to foster diversity and create opportunities for underrepresented minorities in one of the nation's premier public universities. Reed remains committed to public education, serving on the Board of Directors of ExED, an organization dedicated to helping launch and professionally manage public charter schools and the Local Advisory Board of Education Pioneers, a national group focused on fostering professional talent for public education management. He also serves as one of UCLA's representatives on the governing council of the UCLA Community School, a parent- and teacher-led LAUSD pilot school in the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools Complex.
Reed received his J.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School and his B.A. with distinction, from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the California, New York and Massachusetts state bars.
Brad Rosenberg, Board Secretary, Chairman of Imagine L.A.
Brad Rosenberg is a successful businessman who has always worked to give back to the community. Over the past 40 years, Mr. Rosenberg has created and managed a variety of businesses - ranging from manufacturing, real estate development, management and commercial services. Since 1990, he has been president of SBR Investments, Inc., a real estate and investment company. He has used this business expertise to aid several philanthropic and non-profit organizations become more effective in their missions.
Since 2008, Mr. Rosenberg has served as Chairman of the Board Imagine LA, developing a framework for a business model that achieves the non-profits’ mission and goals to help homeless families into long-term housing and self-sufficiency. Under Mr. Rosenberg’s leadership, the number of families served by Imagine LA has increased dramatically.
Mr. Rosenberg currently sits on the Board of Directors of Green Dot Public Schools, serving in several capacities including Chairman of the Development Committee and Secretary of the Board of Directors. Since 1967, he has served as a member of the board of Trustees for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles/Camp Max Straus where he had also served as Interim Executive Director and Chairman. He was founding Chairman of Save-Our-Mountains and Glendale/ La Crescenta V.O.I.C.E., both groups organized to protect local wilderness recreational areas.
Mr. Rosenberg holds a bachelor's degree in Marketing from Michigan State University and a MBA in Finance from the University of Southern California.
Noah Mamet - President, Mamet & Associates
Noah Mamet founded his business and political consulting firm, Noah Mamet & Associates LLC, in 2004 after seven years as National Finance Director for the House Democratic Leader, Congressman Richard A. Gephardt. Over the last eight years, Mr. Mamet has overseen expansion of the firm to include offices in San Francisco and New York and is a private consultant for business and political affairs to numerous companies, families and individuals. He is also an unpaid advisor and fundraiser to numerous Democratic political campaigns, including Presidential, Senate, House and Gubernatorial races. Between 1995 and 2002, Mr. Mamet led efforts for Leader Gephardt to raise over $238 million for Democratic congressional campaigns, committees and other political groups. Mr. Mamet has over 20 years of development and fundraising experience and has worked directly for numerous national and international political leaders, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, President Mikhail Gorbachev, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. He has also consulted for numerous top business executives, including Elon Musk, Russell Goldsmith, Casey Wasserman, Marc Nathanson, Leo Hindery, Haim Saban, Berry Gordy, Chris Silbermann and Walter Shorenstein, among many others.
Mr. Mamet's charitable work includes his role as an active board member for the LA-based Green Dot Public Schools, which is the largest public charter school operator in CA and a leading catalyst for education reform nationwide. In addition, Mr. Mamet is a board member of NatureBridge, a national nonprofit organization which teaches math and science to underprivileged kids through an innovative approach, including field trips to national and state parks. A graduate of UCLA, Mr. Mamet has been a member of the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the National Jewish Democratic Council (MDC) as well as the Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation Commission.
Paul Miller - Senior Advisor at LAUSD
Paul Miller is a Program and Policy Development Specialist in the Human Resources Department of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Paul Miller joined LAUSD after serving as Chair of the transition team for Superintendent John Deasy. Prior to joining LAUSD Paul Miller served Teach For America as Executive Director of the Los Angeles region from 2009-2011. Under his leadership Teach For America- Los Angeles teachers achieved the highest teacher effectiveness results in Teach For America- Los Angeles' 20 year history. Paul Miller came to Teach For America after spending the previous two years leading economic development efforts in Camden, New Jersey, first as President of the Cooper Grant Neighborhood Association, and subsequently, as President of the Board of Directors and Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Camden Empowerment Zone Corporation. Paul has worked and studied in the UK, earning a Master of Science at the London School of Economics and pursuing a Ph.D. in International Studies at Cambridge University. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California where he earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Psychology and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. Paul is also a recipient of a Marshall Scholarship, a Truman Scholarship and a Galbraith Scholarship. Paul currently serves as a member of the Green Dot Public Schools Board of Directors and a member of the Loyola Marymount University School of Education Board of Visitors.
Ref Rodriguez - President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures
Ref Rodriguez is President and CEO of Partners for Developing Futures (Partners). Partners is a social venture investment and technical assistance provider that targets high-potential, early-stage minority-led charter schools and charter school networks that serve underserved students. Prior to joining Partners, Ref was Co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles. During his tenure, PUC developed 10 schools and became a well-regarded charter management organization in California. Ref's original inspiration for starting a charter school was to offer high quality learning experiences for youth in the predominantly Latino working class community where he grew up. His outrage for being considered "fortunate" for having graduated from college because of his socio-economic background is what drives him to create and support schools where college graduation is an expectation for all. He currently serves on the Boards of Partnerships to Uplift Communities, Green Dot Public Schools, Education Pioneers-Los Angeles, and the Alliance for a Better Community.
Gilbert Vasquez - Managing Partner, Vasquez & Company, LLP
Mr. Gilbert R. Vasquez is the Managing Partner of the certified public accounting firm of Vasquez & Company LLP. Since 1967, he has managed and directed a successful practice in public accounting, auditing, taxation, and financial consulting. Mr. Vasquez was a Chapter 7 Panel Trustee in the Central District of California, handling in excess of 3,000 bankruptcy cases annually. He has also served as a Chapter 11 Trustee, a Bankruptcy Examiner and a Receiver. Mr. Vasquez is recognized as a prominent Certified Public Accountant, community leader and entrepreneur. He is a member in good standing with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of CPAs. He is a past president of the California Board of Accountancy, the organization that licenses and regulates CPAs in California. He was the founder and past president of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA) – the most successful professional Latino association in the United States of America. He currently sits on its Corporate Advisory Board. Mr. Vasquez was an executive board member of the 1984 Olympic Organizing Committee and currently serves as a board member on its successor organization, the LA84 Foundation. Mr. Vasquez also continues to serve as a board member of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, Manufacturers Bank, Promerica Bank, and Entravision Communications Corporation. He is also the Vice Chairman and one of the founding board members of the Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles. He has been a member of various Boards of Directors including the California State University Los Angeles Foundation, United Way of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Metropolitan YMCA, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, and the National Council of La Raza. Other past corporate board appointments include Verizon (formerly) GTE of California, Glendale Federal Bank and Blue Cross of California.
Mr. Vasquez has received many honors including: the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund Achievement Award, the Coca Cola Golden Hammer Award, and the Citizen of the Year by the Northeast Chapter of the American Red Cross. He also received recognition from the California State University of Los Angeles as one of the 40 outstanding luminaries for his exemplary service to the University on their 40th Anniversary and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles’ Golden Book of Distinguished Service Award – the highest honor the YMCA bestows. Mr. Vasquez received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Accounting from the California State University, Los Angeles.
Timothy Wahl, Faculty Member, Cal State Northridge
Timothy Wahl has more than 40 years’ experience as an attorney specializing in banking and finance, business law and compliance issues in both the private and public sectors. Mr. Wahl currently serves as a faculty member at California State University at Northridge teaching an advanced course in business law.
Prior to this, he was a consultant to a private equity firm and earlier, served Fidelity Capital Market Services as Vice President for Capital Markets compliance. Previously, Mr. Wahl was General Counsel for Citigroup Capital Strategies and earlier served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for First Nationwide Bank and General Counsel for Citigroup’s consumer bank.
His background includes the position of senior attorney at several U.S. government agencies, including the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, the Justice Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Mr. Wahl also serves on the Board of Directors for Green Dot Public Schools. Mr. Wahl earned a B.A. from Villanova University, an M.B.A. from Rutgers University and a law degree from California Western School of Law.
Denita Willoughby - Vice President of External Affairs, AT&T California
Denita Willoughby was named CEO of The Wiki Group, Inc (previously WikiLoan) on March 1, 2012. She is responsible for overseeing world-wide operations and the long-term financial viability of the corporation. Previously, Willoughby was with AT&T for over 15 years. She was Vice President of External Affairs in the Greater Los Angeles Area, AT&T's largest market. She was responsible for working with key stakeholders to upgrade AT&T's Uverse and wireless networks. Her previous role was VP of Programming for AT&T's Uverse Video Content team. Willoughby acquired content and negotiated cable network contracts. Willoughby is an experienced executive with strong P&L, sales and leadership experience, with past roles at SBC, Morgan Stanley and IBM. Named by the California Diversity Magazine as one of the Most Powerful and Influential Women in California, Willoughby has an engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a member of the board for California Institute of the Arts, Green Dot Public Schools, Unite LA and Vision to Learn.
Arielle Zurzolo – President of Green Dot's Teacher Union (AMU)
Arielle Zurzolo is the President of Asociación de Maestros Unidos (AMU), the teacher and counselor union for Green Dot Public Schools. Arielle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and attended LAUSD schools because her family believes in free education but unfortunately LAUSD did not provide an academically challenging experience. She is dedicated to improving public education in her hometown because this battle is a personal one. She believes Green Dot will raise this bar and challenge other districts to improve their quality so that all students are served.
Arielle has taught several classes at Ánimo Venice including Ethnic Studies, Sociology, Freshmen Seminar and Reading Intervention. She advised the R.A.P. tribe, an afterschool performing arts group, and the Gay Straight Alliance. She has seen students’ transformations with her own eyes when they begin Green Dot at low academic levels with little motivation to succeed and leave with a High School diploma and excited to engage in the world that lays open in front of them.
Arielle decided to run for the AMU Executive Board so she can support her fellow teachers and counselors in their amazing work with students and each other. Her philosophy champions union/management collaboration that puts students first. She supports improving salary and working conditions and believes it is the union’s duty to also ensure that teachers and counselors take leadership roles on their campuses since they are the adults who are “on the ground” and spend the most time interacting with students and parents. She also believes that Green Dot and AMU should work to keep local control and decision-making at the sites so that they can best serve the unique communities in which they exist. She is honored to represent Green Dot teachers and counselors and to work at Green Dot Public Schools.
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