It is the trustees who - in consultation with others - determine, reaffirm, or change the College's purposes and mission. They approve all major institutional policies including decisions concerning the addition or discontinuation of major academic programs and major services, consistent with Whittier's mission and financial capacity.
The duties of the Board includes appointing, supporting, and assessing the president and other officers of the College, as well as approving procedures for the granting of tenure to faculty and earned and honorary degrees. Additionally, trustees must lead planning initiatives, assess outcomes, and monitor progress against goals. They ensure that the College has adequate resources to fulfill its mission by approving and monitoring the annual budget, protecting financial and capital assets, and prudently investing restricted and unrestricted funds.
Elected for up to five, three-year terms before a required hiatus year, Board members set an excellent collective example in personal philanthropy. They lead special fundraising initiatives for capital and endowment projects, and are typically the College's top donors to the Whittier Fund with their generous annual support for scholarships. Guaranteeing that Whittier serves as a good citizen in its relationships with other social, educational, and business enterprises through appropriate collaborations and partnerships, trustees are key ambassadors for the College in the United States and abroad.
The Board of Trustees is committed to the College’s values of diversity, equity and inclusion, and to governing by fostering an environment of mutual respect as established in the Board’s Code of Conduct.
He has over 30 years of experience leading numerous fiscal, legislative, political, and community issues. Santana served as president and C.E.O. of Fairplex, a nonprofit community benefit regional organization based in Pomona, CA, from 2016-2020. Previously, he was the city administrative officer for the City of Los Angeles, where he oversaw the City’s $9 billion budget and designed the City’s first comprehensive homeless strategy, resulting in a $1.2 billion voter-approved housing bond and a doubling of the City’s general fund investment on programs to end homelessness. Prior to joining the City, Santana served as one of five deputy chief executive officers for Los Angeles County, overseeing all social service programs supporting children, families, veterans, and persons experiencing homelessness.
Santana engages in numerous civic efforts to create a more equitable Southern California region, including serving as chair of the Committee for Greater L.A. He has also served on numerous nonprofit boards and been on the Whittier College Board of Trustees since 2016.
Santana has a B.A. in sociology and Latin American studies from Whittier College and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University.
As president and founder of Marathon Communications, he and his team provide these professional specialties to major national corporations, real estate developers, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, forging paths to achieve their goals.
Mr. Lichtenstein received a B.A. from Connecticut College, a master’s degree in urban studies from Occidental College, and a J.D. from Loyola University Los Angeles. He currently serves as co-chair of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association board of trustees, sits on the Fuller Avenue Senior Housing Board, and is a board member of the Coro Foundation. He and his wife, Melanie Cotton, are the proud parents of Poet Daniel Lichtenstein ’16.
He has testified or been deposed on a variety of proceedings including federal and superior courts, arbitration, and has served as special accounting master to the California Superior court on motion picture accounting matters. Mr. Parks has served as a tax expert for the U.S. Department of Justice and has extensive experience as an expert witness in entertainment, marital dissolution, trust accounting and real estate related legal proceedings; valuation of partnership interests in real estate partnerships; bankruptcy proceedings; creditor work-out plans; and bank credit negotiations. Mr. Parks has performed valuation work on motion picture films for litigation proceedings and federal and state income and estate tax purposes.
In the entertainment and media industry, besides representing numerous individuals, Mr. Parks has provided accounting services to corporate entertainment/media clients including MGM, Miller Publishing Group, LLC, Twentieth Century Fox, and Hanna Barbara. In the real estate industry, Mr. Parks, over the years, has been involved in the acquisition and disposition of over two billion dollars of real estate. Mr. Parks has provided professional services to the real estate industry in every phase from property acquisition analysis, leasing, financing and disposition. Mr. Parks is Chairman of the Board of Realty Center Management, Inc., a privately held real estate management and development company which manages and through its affiliates owns an interest in over nine thousand apartment units and approximately two hundred thousand square feet of office and commercial properties.
Allen is an enthusiastic supporter of Whittier Athletics. He currently serves as chair of the Purple & Gold Hall of Fame committee and regularly attends the annual Purple & Gold Golf Tournament. Most recently, Allen co-founded the new Whittier College Black Alumni Association to help current Black students succeed and graduate from Whittier. Allen is also a member of the Sachsen Society.
Allen has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Whittier College. Originally from San Diego, he and his wife, Allyson, currently reside in Los Angeles, California.
Anderson has extensive operating and financial experience as a senior executive in the technology industry. From 1996-2004, he was the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Apple, and made major contributions to Apple’s turnaround and re-emergence as an industry leader, resolving a major liquidity crisis, executing a massive restructuring that returned the company to sustainable profitability, and working with the company’s executive team to re-energize Apple’s revenue and profit growth.
As a senior financial executive of several public companies, Anderson has been involved in numerous acquisitions and a wide range of other corporate finance transactions, including complex equity and debt financings, and recapitalizations. He previously served on the boards of directors of Apple, Move, Palm, Crystal Decisions and 3COM, and on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council. He currently serves on the boards of directors of eBay, Yelp, and Sonos.
Anderson earned his B.A. in business at Whittier College in 1966. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Orthogonian Society and played on the baseball team. After graduation, he served as a captain in the United State Air Force before earning his MBA in accounting from UCLA in 1972. He and his wife, Marilyn, reside in Menlo Park.
Cross also serves as a distinguished senior fellow with the Education Commission of the States and is a consultant to the Broad Foundation and the C.S. Mott Foundation. Previously, he was a senior fellow with the Center for Education Policy.
Cross has written extensively on education and other public policy areas and has been published in numerous professional journals and newspapers. He has written two books, Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age and Political Education: Setting the Course for State and Federal Education Policy.
Cross holds a B.A. from Whittier College and an M.A. in government from California State University, Los Angeles. During his time at Whittier, Cross was a member of the William Penn Society, Quaker Campus, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Pi Sigma Alpha (political science). Cross previously served as a Whittier trustee (2000-2011) and Poet Council member. He’s a long-time member of the John Greenleaf Whittier Society and has been a faithful supporter of other major Whittier campaigns.
She and her husband David have been residents of the seaside community of La Jolla since 1965. Now retired, Groce taught students at Pacific Beach Junior High, La Jolla High School, and the University of San Diego. She has also volunteered with a number of nonprofits, including a long-time involvement with the San Diego Foundation and the Girl Scouts of America.
Groce received her bachelor's degree in sociology from Whittier College and a master's degree from the University of Southern California. She has been on the Whittier College Board of Trustees since 1992.
Previously, Helen worked as a journalist and writer at Ladies’ Home Journal, TV Guide, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Magazine. She has co-authored three cookbooks with local chefs. Her research into environmental and sustainability issues for magazine articles led her to pursue professional certification in horticulture from UCLA and begin a second career. Helen received a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.A. in English from Columbia University. Her youngest son, Kipp, is a graduate of Whittier College.
Halio has been at Goldman Sachs for over 20 years. She chairs the Goldman Sachs Bank USA Management Committee and serves on several other committees, including the Firmwide Asset Liability Committee and Firmwide Enterprise Risk Committee.
Previously, Halio was chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs Bank USA and also had oversight of the Bank Management team. Prior to that, she was head of the Americas Financial Institutions team in credit risk. She was named managing director in 2009 and partner in 2016.
Halio graduated from Whittier College with a degree in business administration, and she then went on to earn an MBA from Columbia Business School. Before joining the Goldman Sachs team in 2000, Halio served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, focusing on microfinance for women. She is a current member of the Whittier College Board of Trustees and serves on the audit and finance committees.
Under Hayashi's leadership, Osato International Inc. has grown into three entities: Osato Laboratory Inc., manufacturing plant; Osato Research Institute (ORI), a non-profit organization dedicated to scientific research and development; and Osato Distribution World Ltd in charge of worldwide distribution. Headquartered in Gifu, Japan, some 250 miles west of Tokyo, Osato International Inc. has distribution centers in the United States, Europe, and French Overseas Territories.
In his role, Kaykas-Wolff oversees the company’s operations including sales, marketing, and product. Lytics’ award-winning Customer Data Platform serves prominent brands such as P&G, Nestlé Purina, Live Nation Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Yamaha, and more.
Kaykas-Wolff previously served as chief marketing officer at Mozilla, where he helped create millions of new customer relationships and grow revenue with its flagship product, Firefox. Prior to Mozilla, he served in leadership roles at BitTorrent, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. In addition, Kaykas-Wolff is the author of Growing Up Fast: How New Agile Practices Can Move Marketing and Innovation Past the Old Business Stalemates and serves as the producer and co-host of the popular podcast This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley.
Kaykas-Wolff has a B.A. in psychology from Whittier College and has been on the Board of Trustees since 2017.
Previously, from 2000 until 2008 Knight worked for Jerry Perenchio, the CEO and controlling-shareholder of Univision Communications, at both Perenchio’s privately held Chartwell Partners LLC and at Univision. At Chartwell and Univision Knight was part of the executive team that executed the strategy which saw Univision grow from a single network with 12 television stations to a media conglomerate with two broadcast networks, 36 full-power TV stations, the #1 Spanish-language website, and the largest Spanish-language radio group. Univision was sold to a private equity consortium for $13.7 billion in early 2007.
Prior to Chartwell, Knight spent 11 years at Paramount Pictures in various capacities, including serving as CFO of the Paramount Stations Group from 1994 to 2000. From 1989 until 1994 he was in strategic planning at Paramount. Knight began his career at Times Mirror, parent of the Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers, magazines, professional book publishers, TV stations, and cable systems.
Knight received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
She received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and worked in student affairs at three universities before pursuing an MBA at New York University. She subsequently worked in international consumer marketing at AT&T for seven years.
After the birth of her two children, she became a full-time homemaker. Morrissey served in various capacities on the PTA and was an active board member of her local National Charity League chapter, volunteering countless hours alongside her daughter.
The Morrissey family has made gifts supporting a number of areas on campus including the music department and the office of disability services.
Mujumdar has experience in the fields of software-as-a-service, consumer Internet and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to her current role at Intuit, she served as Vice President, Corporate Development for Lynda.com, an online learning platform, up until and through the sale to LinkedIn for $1.5B. Additionally, Mujumdar has held various strategy, corporate development and financial advisory roles at QuinStreet, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, Goldman Sachs and Deloitte.
She holds a B.A. and M.A. in economics from the University of Southern California and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business.
She is passionate about engaging end-users in understanding how security is everyone's job and has built a successful security steering team of business operators. She has an extensive background in building, implementing, and successfully delivering solutions to business units and end-users.
Prior to joining Stanford, Muller worked at MediaFlex.Com in overseeing the CRM Department and with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Santa Clara County as the director of fundraising and community development.
Muller has been an active alumna and has served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors for a number of years. As a student, she was a member of ASWC, the Poet women's soccer and softball teams, and is a member of the Thalian and Sachsen societies. Muller holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Whittier College, an MBA and master's degree in information systems from American Sentinel University, and is CISM, PCIP, ITIL, and GSTRT certified.
O’Donnell facilitates the UCSD Chancellor’s CEO Dinner series and has developed some innovative partnerships that rely on teaming with Campus Procurement. O’Donnell served over 15 years at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering building corporate engagement programs, first launching the Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP) with 75+ high technology and life science member companies for custom access to faculty, research, students. Later, she continued to build new corporate engagement models as the executive director, corporate research partnerships where she built the first seven of the Dean’s Agile Centers of Excellence—multidisciplinary faculty teams focused on technologies that are highly relevant to industry. Under O’Donnell, CAP ran the Team Internship Program and started Executive Education Engineering degree programs. O’Donnell is an active member of the UIDP Board of Directors, part project leader, and current co-chair of the UIDP Membership committee which developed new member guidelines and actively recruited several companies to UIDP this past year.
O’Donnell earned a bachelor’s degree at Mount Holyoke College and master’s degrees in public policy and theology from Harvard University. O’Donnell serves on the board of Catholic Charities of San Diego and is an ICF-certified professional leadership coach. O’Donnell is married and a mother of five children, ages 17-29.
Raised in the hospitality industry, Patel’s father bought his first hotel, the original Peter Pan Motor Lodge, in the mid-70’s. The family later built the Castle Inn & Suites across the street from Disneyland Resort.
Bharat was on the Poet Council from 2012 to 2014 and serves on the Board of Directors for the Anaheim Family YMCA.
He and his wife Ragini are the parents of recent Whittier graduate Rakesh Patel ’16. They live in Villa Park, Calif.
Appointed chancellor of the District in 2014, Rodriguez has worked to raise the District's profile and improve its reputation as the best urban community college district in the nation. To accomplish this, Rodriguez has charted a course that includes well-prepared and innovative faculty, state-of-the-art facilities and instructional equipment, superbly trained and professional support staff, and business and community engagement. During his tenure, Chancellor Rodriguez led the efforts to pass a $3.3 billion local facilities bond in 2016 and the hiring of close to five-hundred full-time faculty.
A noted scholar and education activist, Rodriguez has 30 years of experience as an educator, faculty member, and administrator within California public higher education and has dedicated his career to high quality public education and championing diversity, equity and inclusion, and outreach to underserved communities. In particular, Rodriguez has focused his career on educational policies that expand access to higher education and financial aid, tireless advocacy for undocumented students and student-veterans, and the leadership development of young Latino and African American males. He frequently speaks on the topics of higher education, student access and success, governance and governing boards, workforce development, fundraising and philanthropy, and community.
Rodriguez serves as chair of the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for the Directorate of Education and Human Resources; director of the Board of Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; president of the California Association of Latino Community College Trustees and Administrators Association (CALCCTA); and is an appointee of California Governor Jerry Brown to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). He is also the past president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (U.C. Davis) and director of the U.C. Davis Foundation Board.
Rodriguez earned a bachelor's degree in Chicano studies and his master's degree in community development from University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in education from Oregon State University and serves as a lecturer in the doctoral education programs at Sacramento State University and at San Diego State University.
Prior to joining Rice, she earned widespread recognition as vice dean and director of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, where she set national standards for strategic planning and evaluating applications.
Romero da Silva is well known for her innovation in the field of higher education enrollment management. In her nearly 25 years of experience in college admissions and recruitment, she has impacted higher education initiatives through leadership roles with various organizations and institutions, and through numerous presentations and engagements for the National Association for College Admission Counseling. She has deep knowledge of national educational issues and trends for both the K-12 and higher education markets with particular expertise in enrollment management, admissions and recruitment, secondary and post-secondary assessments, and professional development. In addition to her roles at Rice and University of Pennsylvania, Romero da Silva served on the admissions board at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and headed up strategy for the College Board.
Romero da Silva holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MIT, a master’s degree in education from Harvard, an MBA from Stanford University, and an Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She is originally from Riverside, California, where her parents and family still reside.
Promoted to AVP in 2019, Vigil oversees various departments at CSUF including counseling and psychological services, disability support services, health services, housing and residential engagement, student life and leadership, and Title IX. Vigil previously served as interim director for CSUF’s Diversity Initiatives and Resource Centers, which includes the five identity-based centers: African American Resource Center, Asian Pacific American Resource Center, Chicana & Chicano Resource Center, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Resource Center, and Titan Dreamers Resource Center. Prior to that role, he worked as the director for student life and leadership at CSUF. Before beginning his tenure at CSUF, Vigil served as director for campus organizations at the University of California, Irvine as well as the inaugural director for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center at USC. Under his leadership at USC, the LGBT Resource Center was named among the Top 20 Best of the Best LGBT-Friendly Colleges and Universities, received a “five-star rating” from the Campus Climate Index, and an Achievement Award from the Los Angeles City Pride Heritage Month Celebration. Vigil also has taught several courses in educational counseling and education for the master's and doctoral programs at USC, and the master's of higher education program at CSUF. He is a first-generation college student from Pico Rivera, CA. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Whittier College and his master’s degree in postsecondary administration and student affairs from the USC Rossier School of Education. In 2007, Vigil graduated with his doctorate degree in higher education administration from USC.
As Metro’s CEO, Wiggins manages a budget of nearly $7 billion, oversees up to $20 billion in capital construction projects, and oversees an agency with 11,000 employees that transports more than a half-million boarding passengers daily on a fleet of 2,200 buses and six rail lines.
Prior to leading Metro, Wiggins was CEO of Metrolink, an agency that operates a commuter rail network on seven routes across a six-county, 538 route-mile system. Wiggins has held high-level positions at three of the five-member agencies that comprise Metrolink and is well-known as a customer-focused leader who finds solutions from a regional perspective.
Wiggins previously served as Deputy CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) where she assisted the CEO in providing leadership and formulating and achieving strategic public transportation objectives. During her initial tenure at LA Metro, Wiggins also served as the executive director of vendor/contract management and executive officer and project director of the Congestion Reduction/ExpressLanes Program. Prior to Metro, she served as regional programs director for the Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) and oversaw transit, commuter rail, rideshare, goods movement and rail capital projects. Wiggins began her career in transportation at the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority.
Wiggins is the founding president of the Inland Empire Chapter of Women’s Transportation Seminar. She is the recipient of many awards including the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials 2018 Women Who Move the Nation Award. She is a Board Member of the Los Angeles Chapter of Friends of the Children. Wiggins has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Whittier and an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business.
She currently serves as the trademark enforcement counsel for Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., a U.S.-based provisioner of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software and services to healthcare, life science, and other laboratories in academia, government, and industry, Previously, Williams was trademark attorney for Arent Fox.
Williams is skilled at devising global branding strategies, providing trademark clearance advice, and enforcing trademark and other intellectual property rights worldwide for small, mid-size and large multi-national companies. She also has a considerable amount of transactional experience drafting and negotiating agreements related to intellectual property transactions and other areas of law.
Williams enjoys mentoring law students and young lawyers and is an active member of the Whittier Law School Alumni Association. She has a B.S. from Stanford University, a master’s degree in public administration, health administration, and planning from Tennessee State University, and a J.D. from Whittier Law School. Williams has been a member of the Whittier Board of Trustees since 2016.
Yamauchi has more than 30 years of experience in strategy development, business innovation initiatives and capital sourcing. He has taken a leading role in several successful start-ups and early stage companies. Additionally, Yamauchi has been involved in a number of social enterprises in both “C-Level” roles and board of director capacities. Notably, he served as executive vice president for PRIDE Industries, one of the largest employers of people with disabilities in the country and the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, a leader for diversity in economic development.
Yamauchi is a senior fellow of the Mountain Valley Chapter of the American Leadership Forum and was selected as the 2009 CFO of the Year by the Sacramento Business Journal. He is also a certified public accountant with previous experience at a “Big Four” accounting firm, now PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Yamauchi is active in higher education, having served on the advisory boards for California State University (CSU) Sacramento, San Francisco State University, and Drexel University. He has also been a guest lecturer at University California Davis and CSU Sacramento.
Originally from Whittier, California, Yamauch holds an MBA from Harvard and is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles.
Zemsky's research focuses on assisting institutions of higher education in balancing a commitment to their mission with market success, and he pioneered the use of market analyses in higher education. He is perhaps most famous for his reform efforts that encourage colleges and universities to move to a three-year bachelor's degree program, though he is often cited as a strong voice on college reform, addressing issues such as college cost and quality.
Zemsky was named one of higher education's top 40 leaders by Change magazine in 1998. He is a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and in 2005 he was a member of Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education. He has also served as the co-director of the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, as a senior scholar with the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement, as chair and convener of the Pew Higher Education Roundtable, as senior editor for Policy Perspectives, and as a founding member of the National Advisory Board for the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
Zemsky earned a bachelor's degree at Whittier College and a Ph.D. in history at Yale University. He has received two honorary degrees: a Doctor of Humane Letters from Towson University and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Franklin and Marshall College.
Richard H. Deihl ’49, D.B.A. ’84 Richard I. Gilchrist ’68, P’06 ’07 Alfred J. Gobar ’53, M.A. ’55, L.H.D. ’05, P’88 ’96 Willard V. Harris, Jr. ’55 L.H.D. ’02, P’80 ’87 Donald J. Herrema ’74 Sharon (Ettinger) McLaughlin P’85 ’88 ’90 R. Chandler Myers, LL.D. ’88 Ruth B. Shannon, L.H.D. ’92 Elden L. Smith ’62 Donald E. Wood, L.H.D. ’98
Updated May 2021
