Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees of The Berkeley School is made up of volunteers who are dedicated to the quality and stability of the school. It is composed primarily of parents and community members. The Board’s meetings are held monthly, and are open to the community. Here is a brief bio of each member of the Board.
- Lauren Adams
- Pat Buechner
- Daralyn Durie
- Ann Fischer Hecht, Chair
- Bill Gorjance, Treasurer
- Lisa Hanson
- Dan Jackson, Secretary
- Signy Judd
- Lucy Mahaffey
- Janet McGarvey
- Helen Meyer, Vice-Chair
- Alan Saldich
Lauren Adams
Lauren Adams has been a fundraising professional and consultant at Bay Area arts, education, and social service organizations since 1982. Her employers and clients have included Cal Performances; the Chez Panisse Foundation; the Family Service Agency of San Francisco; the Grammy award-winning choral ensemble Chanticleer and children’s chorus Ragazzi; Montessori Family, Black Pine Circle and Berkeley Montessori Schools; the American Conservatory Theater; California Shakespeare Festival; the Oakland Museum of California; Calaveras Repertory and Vector Theatres; SFJAZZ; the Exploratorium and Chabot Space and Science Center. She has been a TBS board member since 2003, and has served on the development and Head Search committees, and currently chairs the school’s Trustees Committee. Her son is an eighth grade student at TBS.
Pat Buechner
Pat received his BA in Government from Beloit College in Wisconsin, putting it to work in Washington, D.C. first as a Congressional aide and later as media liaison for the Australian Embassy. Following his lifelong passion for games and technology, in 1996 he and his wife Ann moved to Berkeley, where he joined Maxis, the videogame studio best known for the popular simulation games SimCity and The Sims. Since Maxis was acquired by videogame giant Electronic Arts, Pat has held a variety of public relations, marketing, and business development roles and is currently a Vice President of Marketing. The Buechner family has been a part of The Berkeley (Montessori) School community since 2000, when their daughter Emma entered the ECC; son Ben joined Emma at the University Avenue campus this year. While the school has changed locations, teachers, program, and name, Pat has always believed in its commitment to help kids become intellectually curious.
Daralyn Durie
Daralyn holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford and Cal in biology and comparative literature, and is a graduate of Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School. She is a San Francisco lawyer in private practice, serves as the risk management partner at her firm, and is active in various professional associations. Her daughter, Iona, is a sixth-grader in Wildcat Creek, and has been at TBS since she was four. In addition to serving as Immediate Past Board Chair, Daralyn assists the school with legal issues.
Ann Fischer Hecht, Chair
Ann Fischer Hecht, Chair, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University, and her business background includes sales and business development in the professional staffing, computer hardware and software industries. Her family has been part of the TBS community for eight years. Her daughter, Kailey is currently a 5th grader in the Strawberry Creek classroom, and her son, Dylan is in seventh grade. Her non-profit experience includes serving on the boards of the Mosaic Project, The Glenridge Cooperative Nursery School and the Children’s Community Center Preschool. At TBS she has served on the Eco-Fund, Strategic Planning, and Development Committees.
Bill Gorjance, Treasurer
Bill Gorjance serves as Treasurer of The Berkeley School and heads its Finance and Audit Committees. Before becoming a Trustee, he contributed to the development and strategic planning committees. Since 2006, Bill has been Chief Financial Officer for the independent music publisher Peermusic, overseeing its worldwide finance and business development activities. He also leads the Classical music division for the company. Prior to that Bill spent 20 years in senior roles with US and European telecomm companies. Bill previously served on the boards of a public broadcaster, a symphony orchestra, a Montessori pre-school, and a publicly-listed smartphone company. He is the father of two daughters who are TBS graduates and now attend Maybeck High School, and one son who is a sixth grade student in Wildcat Creek.
Lisa Hanson
Lisa is the production manager for campaign strategy and media firm Whitehurst/Mosher Campaigns and public affairs company Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter & Partners. She also does freelance direct mail production for several other Bay Area clients. She has extensive political and campaign experience at local, state and national levels. Lisa previously founded and ran her own East Bay political consulting firm and managed a number of successful candidate and ballot measure campaigns. A native of Chicago, Lisa attended Indiana University. Lisa served as Chair of the TBS Parents Association for three years and served as co-chair of the highly successful BMS Honoring Our Teachers Gala and Auction for its first two years. Her daughter is in second grade.
Dan Jackson, Secretary
Dan’s family is in its 11th year at TBS. His children are Thomas (eighth grade in the Middle School) and Clara (6th grade in Wildcat Creek). Both have attended TBS since age 3. Dan has a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley and has worked in the environmental chemistry field for more than twenty years. His most exciting work experience to date was being a lab technician in the research group that discovered the first evidence that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by the impact of an extraterrestrial object. Dan returned to the Board last year after a year as ex-officio Immediate Past President, following a three-year term as Chair.
Signy Judd
Signy Judd, whose daughter is in the Live Oak classroom at the ECC, was elected to the Board of Trustees at their June 8, 2010 meeting. Her bio will appear shortly.
Lucy Mahaffey
Lucy is the mother of a TBS graduate now at The Urban School, and a TBS fifth grade student. At TBS, Lucy has served as a substitute teacher (where she created the 6th grade California and American History units), room parent, Admissions Ambassador and member of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. Her previous academic experience was as a Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant and Instructor in the UC Berkeley Department of Comparative Literature, a teacher at Flushing Language Center and Teaching Assistant and Teacher at the Bennington College Early Childhood Center. Currently, she is the Head Teacher at the Sunday School at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, where she helped create a Montessori-based religious education program for children ages 3 to 12. She also serves the Cathedral congregation as a member of the Family Ministries Advisory Board.
Janet McGarvey
Janet has been an educator for over thirty years. For much of that time, she taught English at the Branson School, University High School, and the Hamlin School. For four years she was the Director of the Western regional office of Independent Educational Services, a non-profit teacher placement service. She also served on the founding Board of the Bay School for nine years. Janet is the founding Director of The Bay Area Teacher Development Collaborative, a non-profit organization serving more than 51 independent schools from Sacramento to Saratoga, now in its tenth year. In her non-professional life Janet is a horsewoman, and she enjoys competing in cutting and reining. Janet is married to Craig McGarvey and is the mother of Tessa; she lives in San Francisco.
Helen Meyer, Vice-Chair
Helen is Executive Vice President of Meyer Sound Laboratories, Inc. In 1979, Helen and John Meyer founded Meyer Sound Laboratories, where they have been producing world-class professional audio products for 30 years. In 2008, the Berkeley Community Fund presented Helen and John Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal and Helen was named a 2008 Woman of Distinction by the “East Bay Business Times.” A long-time Berkeley resident with two children and three grandchildren, Helen is actively involved with numerous arts organizations including Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre and Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and is a board member of Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Brooklyn’s Mark Morris Dance Group. She is also a member of the Alameda County Workforce Investment Board. Meyer Sound is a corporate sponsor of the San Francisco Opera and California Shakespeare Theatre.
Alan Saldich
Alan has served on The Berkeley School Board of Trustees since 2008, and also served a prior term from 2003 to 2005. He has two TBS kids; one is a seventh grader, and the other graduated in 2009 and is now a freshman at Berkeley High School. Both of his children started at the school in 2000. Professionally, Alan has worked at a half-dozen technology companies over the last twenty years, most recently as the vice president of product marketing at Riverbed, a 1,000 employee public company based in San Francisco, from which he recently retired. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. For fun, he does lots of skiing, plays and coaches soccer, and drinks lots of Peets coffee.
