Board of Directors

Mike Brown (Vice Chair)

Mike holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the California State Polytechnic University- Pomona and a Masters of Business Administration degree from California State University – Channel Islands. He had a 14 year career as a Project Engineer, Engineering Supervisor and Program Manager with Honeywell and was a Captain for Sky West Airlines for seven years. Currently he serves as the Vice President / Business Manager of AMETEK-Pacific Design Technologies. He and his wife Janice have twin sons who graduated from the DPEA in 2019.

Lisa Couch (Co-Chair)

Lisa is a registered mechanical engineer in California.  She received a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley.   Lisa worked for 34 years in heavy industrial engineering, design and consulting for upstream energy.  She started her career with Chevron as a design engineer and joined TJ Cross Engineers, Inc. as President in 1995.  The company provided multi-disciplinary engineering and design for heavy industry clients.  The company was sold in 2015 to Parsons Corporation.  In 2017, she helped start-up Anacapa Engineering and Design, Inc. to mentor the next generation of engineers in renewable energy.  To date, the emphasis has been dairy biomethane, solar PV and Carbon Capture Sequestration.

Jamie Flint (Treasurer)

Jamie graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a Business degree, emphasis in Accounting. She has been practicing in the field for the last 30 years and is currently self employed with a variety of small business clients. Jamie has held many volunteer positions, especially in our local schools, while raising her two daughters, who both have been students in the DPEA.​​

John McClure

John is an executive coach and mentor with over 30 years of experience helping individuals and teams attain maximum effectiveness and manage through change. His background includes working with a wide range of leaders from the C-Suite of multi-billion dollar companies, series A-C start ups, to supporting the board members of nonprofits. John’s operational experience spans 27 years with Intel across 7 different countries. He lived 15 years abroad and held a variety of leadership roles spanning from General Management of geographic regions to Product Development. John has been an Executive Coach for 8 years. He has been able to combine his entrepreneurial, organizational, and operational acumen with a wide range of first-hand experience in driving change as a leader, producing a great mix of drive and empathy.  John has extensive experience with organizational development initiatives and is especially skilled in change management and org design.

Eckart Meiburg

Eckart received his Diploma and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. As Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, he teaches and conducts research in the field of computer simulations. Within the community, he has helped organize Science Fairs, and he has coached local Math Superbowl and Mathcounts teams.

Michelle Pickett (Co-Chair)

Michelle is an experienced corporate attorney and has practiced law in Santa Barbara for over 20 years.  Prior to moving in-house at Yardi Systems, Inc., Michelle was a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck advising entrepreneurs, corporations, partnerships and nonprofits in various industries including water and agriculture, technology, gaming, and entertainment.  Michelle has volunteered her time and expertise to the community’s nonprofit sector.  Presently, in addition to serving on the Board of the DPEA Foundation, she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Santa Barbara City College Foundation and is a member of the CEC Partnership Council. ​

Liz Salentine (Secretary)

Liz is a graduate of Cal Poly, SLO with a BS in Business Administration and a minor in Marketing. Liz worked for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in the high tech industry for over 20 years. As an Advanced Systems Engineer and Program Manager, she supported contracts with General Motors, Hitachi Data Systems and the Navy Marine Corps. After retiring from the “corporate world”, Liz immersed herself in raising her two children and being involved in their schools and activities. Over the years, she has held many volunteer positions including serving as PTA President at Foothill elementary school.​​

THE FORMATIVE FOUNDATION GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE PAST SERVICE AND HARD WORK OF ITS FORMER BOARD MEMBERS:

  • John Martinis, 2007-2010

  • Alison Butler, 2007-2011

  • Kathy Logan,  2007-2011

  • Lisa Daniels, 2007-2012

  • Lars Bildsten, 2007-2013

  • Eric Tran Le, 2011-2014​

  • Steve Green, 2011-2014

  • Denise Tisdale​, 2013-2014

  • ​Gary Simpson, 2007-2016

  • Susan Christol Deacon, 2007-2016​​

  • Carol Rezec, 2014-2017

  • Mei Sheng Ng, 2012-2017

  • Sandy Seale, 2007-2018

  • Karen Lehman, 2012-2019

  • Daren Hillebrandt, 2016-2019

  • Igor Mezic, 2017-2019

  • Kevin Wojcik, 2017-2020

  • Sheetal Gavankar, 2020-2022

  • Doug Whetter, 2016-2023

  • Daniel Husthing, 2017-2023