Child Advocates

Board of Directors

Our Board, staff and volunteer committees spearhead our efforts to provide stability and hope to abused and neglected children in Santa Clara County.

We have a diverse, active Board of 18 people representing a range of professional expertise in education, economic development, law, business planning, accounting and fundraising.

Officers

Kathryn J. Williams (Chair) Kathryn Williams has been a longtime Advocate for women and children. She is a well-known lecturer on domestic violence education and prevention and has spoken regularly to police officers, healthcare professionals, cosmetologists and students at numerous colleges and universities since 1994. Additionally, she has developed and implemented a state-mandated domestic violence training sequence for Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Kathryn has served as a Child Advocate since 1997, Board Treasurer, Vice Chair and is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley.

Mike Byrd (Vice Chair) is a certified public accountant with more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience at high-tech companies, such as Ernst & Young and Maxim Integrated Products. Most recently, he was president and COO of Brocade Communications, responsible for operations, sales, services, and marketing.

Howard Slayen (Treasurer) has over 35 years of experience in tax, merger and acquisition, and financial advisory services. He was a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers for 23 years, prior to being CFO of a number of start-up enterprises. He is both a CPA (inactive) and an attorney (inactive). He now spends his time as a professional board member for a variety of nonprofit, and publicly and privately held corporations.

Vickie Scott Grove (Executive Director) is responsible for strategic direction, organizational management, fundraising, Board relations, program development and supervision of 23 staff and 450 volunteers. She has been an active Education Advocate since 2006. Vickie is also the Director of Development and oversees all aspects of fund development, public relations and communications. She has more than 28 years of finance, fundraising and nonprofit management consulting experience.

Directors

Lenny Alugas is vice president of Worldwide Consumer Support at Symantec Corporation. He has over 25 years of experience in high-technology companies including several senior level management positions at Multitude, Excite@Home and Hewlett-Packard. Lenny is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana and holds a degree in Physics and Mechanical engineering.

Shelley Brown is a retired human resources executive with more than 25 years of experience in high-tech companies including Hewlett-Packard, Aspect Communications, and Ariba, Inc. Shelley is also a board member of the Palo Alto Area Chapter, of the American Red Cross, the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits (CEN) and chair of a family foundation with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation . She also serves as a mentor with the Mountain View/Los Altos High Scholars Program.

Laurence E. Burns retired from ITT, in 1994, as President of the worldwide Electrical Systems, Inc., a $3.5 billion parts supplier to the Automotive Industry. Prior to that, he managed several companies for ITT and was a CFO of ITT’s defense company. More recently, he has been involved in several smaller startups in Silicon Valley. He is active in the community as a board member and former board Chair for Momentum for Mental Health and has been instrumental in staging several charity golf tournaments for the benefit of Momentum and Child Advocates.

Xavier Campos is Chief Operating Officer of the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA). He also serves on the Board for the Greater San Jose After School All-Stars and is the current chair of the Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum, an affiliate of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee. Xavier is starting his fourth year as an appointed member of the San Jose Planning Commission.

Shirley Cantu is a retired Deputy Chief Probation Officer with 32 years of service. As a volunteer Shirley Cantu has been actively involved with programs that provide services to youth in our community. This includes volunteering with Eastfield Ming Quong, The United Way of Silicon Valley, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Bay Area. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Crystal Bowl Award presented by the Junior League of San Jose at their 37th annual Volunteer Recognition Luncheon.

Lieutenant Robert Dominguez has served with the San Jose Police Department for over 24 years. Currently, he is the Day Shift Commander for the Foothill Division, with borders from Milpitas to Morgan Hill and East of Highway 101. Previously, he was the commander of the Domestic Violence Unit and worked as a supervisor in the Sexual Assaults Unit. He has been married for 35 years, has two children, and three grandchildren.

Kevin Gardner is a marketing consultant with 25 years of experience in product marketing and marketing communications in semiconductors, networking and computing. He has previously served on the Child Advocates board for 7 years, including Chair of the Board of Directors. He is also a board member of the California CASA Association, and serves on the steering committee of the Outlet Program in Mountain View.

Paul Hammond is CEO of VirtualPBX.com and has over 25 years of strategic, operational, sales and marketing management experience in enterprise software and telecommunications industries. He has also held senior level management position at BEA, Silicon Vision, Specialix and Siemens/Pyramid.

Lisa Norcia has over 20 years of experience working in the medical device industry and currently holds the position of Vice-President, Clinical Affairs at BioForm Medical Inc., a San Mateo-based company. Prior to joining the Child Advocates board, Lisa has volunteered with other nonprofit organizations including Special Olympics of Northern California, English as a Second Language Program, and the American Red Cross. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters of Public Health from Boston University.

James Otieno has over twenty years of experience in Compensation, Benefits, and Human Resources. He recently retired from Hewlett-Packard where he was the Vice President of Executive Compensation and Services with responsibility for the worldwide management, design, development and implementation of Executive Compensation. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, a member of the Conference Board Council on Executive Compensation, and serves on the board of World at Work.

Toni Paterson holds a JD from Hastings Law School. Her background includes corporate governance and fundraising for several educational nonprofit institutions and the Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. She currently is a stay-at-home mom with three teenage children.

Jeff Richardson has almost 20 years experience in various Sales and Marketing capacities in the Silicon Valley, most recently as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Airtronics Metal Products, Inc. For the past few years, Jeff has been immensely involved in his most challenging job yet as a stay-at-home Dad for their first child, Kaitlyn. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Jeff is a graduate of Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, and holds a Social Economics Degree from the University of Southern California.

Shelly Marie Sarkisian has been an active Child Advocate for 4 years. For over 10 years, Shelly's been active with other community organizations including the Saratoga Federated Church Women's Fellowship, City Team, and Humane Society. Shelly holds a degree in Japanese regional studies and was a professional photographer.

Linda Schiefelbein began her career as an elementary school teacher and then worked for United Airlines for 20 years. Most recently, she served as a board member for Sacred Heart Community Service, where she focused on funds development and donor events. At San Jose State, she worked as an academic advisor and counselor and she also has been a volunteer and mentor for the Girl Scouts of America, St. Mary’s School, Los Gatos High School, and Bellarmine College Preparatory High School.

Elaine Sulzberger is the controller of the North American Sales Organization at NXP Semiconductors. With more than 25 years of experience in high-tech finance, her expertise includes budgeting, analysis, revenue recognition, compensation, and restructuring. For the last three years, Elaine has also been an Advocate for a teenage girl. Her other volunteer activities include fundraising to fight breast cancer.