Our Trustees
- Richard Ravel, Board Chair
- Chantal Adam
- Brad Baron
- Michael Carter, Class of 2002
- Gene Cook
- Jean Delwiche
- Rouviere De Waal, PhD
- Jeff Fisher
- Karen Greene
- Dave Matsumoto
- Sandy McMaster
- Jennifer Miller
- Theresa Remaker
- Zachary Roberts, EdD
- Jay Walstrum
Richard Ravel, Board Chair
Richard Ravel attended UC Berkeley and went on to hold various engineering positions at Hewlett Packard and several startup companies in Silicon Valley. Richard spent 15 years at Xilinx Inc. and retired in 1999 from a senior management position, where he was responsible for customer training and electronic marketing. Richard joined the ACDS Board of Trustees in 2000 and has been the ACDS Board Chair since 2007. Richard and his wife Susan have lived in Almaden Valley since 1991. Their two children started at Almaden Country Day School in 1995 in the 4-year-old class and JK and graduated in 2005 and 2006. Richard has served on committees at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, and his passions include collecting muscle cars, driving race cars, and playing blues harmonica.
Chantal Adam
Chantal Adam is an Audit Partner at KPMG LLP with over 20 years of experience in the United States and Canada, primarily working with software and technology companies at critical points in their lifecycle. Chantal also serves as President of the Accounting Advisory Board at the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business. Chantal holds a graduate degree in Public Accounting from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales of the University of Montreal. Chantal lives in San Jose with her husband, Christian, and their children, Amelie and Thomas, who have been attending ACDS since joining in Kindergarten. She has volunteered for Almaden Country Day School as a Parent Ambassador during open houses, helped organize the Thanksgiving Feast, and supported many a book fair. Chantal joined the Board of Trustees in 2017 and is currently the Chair of the Finance Committee.
Brad Baron
Brad Baron is a Senior Vice President and Financial Consultant at RBC Wealth Management and has served on the Board of Trustees since 2008. Brad is an active volunteer in the community and has served on many boards, including the Board of Trustees of the Health Trust, VIA Services, the SJSU College Business Alumni, RotaCare Bay Area, the Rotary Club of San Jose Endowment and the Rotary Club of San Jose. Brad was born and raised in San Jose and resides in Willow Glen with his wife, Marget, and their three daughters; Samantha graduated from ACDS in 2015, and Sabrina and Savannah are both ACDS students. Brad has been on the Board of Trustees since 2009 and is the chair of the Development Committee.
Michael Carter, Class of 2002
Michael J. Carter is a proud alumnus of Almaden Country School (Class of 2002). Michael founded Strive for College while a freshman at Washington University in Saint Louis where he received a full-tuition merit scholarship as an Annika Rodriguez Scholar. While there, Michael taught at-risk middle school youth, founded and ran Strive for College, interned at Google and a venture capital firm, and conducted public policy research and analysis at American Enterprise Institute. During these years, he also studied at Oxford University in England, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and wrote his senior honors thesis on a history of admissions to elite universities in the U.S. and UK. Michael graduated cum laude in 2010.
His work with Strive for College has been featured in Forbes, Education Week, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He has spoken on various panels, including at the Brookings Institution, Chicago Ideas Week and as a featured speaker at the Points of Light National Conference on Volunteering and Service. Michael was named a 2011 Echoing Green Fellow, a 2012 Bluhm Helfand Social Innovation Fellow, a 2013 Global CNN Hero and a 2015 Forbes ’30 Under30′ leader in Education.
Michael is also the founder of UStrive Inc., a virtual mentoring technology company. He is active in technology ventures and investing in Silicon Valley.
Gene Cook
Previously the General Manager for Emerging Verticals at eBay, Gene has been on the Board of Trustees since 2013. As the Chair of Strategic Planning, he has been working with our extended team to develop vision and approach to integrating advancements in curriculum, facilities and teaching support. He’s focused on fueling our students' curiosity, creativity, confidence and opportunities in a rapidly changing environment. Personal interests include old cars, the arts, architecture, science, space exploration, government and education. Gene has one son, Dylan, who is a student at ACDS.
Jean Delwiche
Jean Delwiche was a founding teacher at Almaden Country Day School in 1982. She became the Principal in 1988 and the interim Head of School for one year in 2007. Following her retirement in 2008 she has remained affiliated with the school and has served on the Board of Trustees since 2010. Jean is the Chair for Board Development and serves on the Development Alumni sub-committee; she particularly enjoys reconnecting with past ACDS students, parents and teachers. Jean resides in Almaden Valley with her husband, Dave. Her personal interests include exploring along the ocean, time with her dog and her grandchildren, reading, being active and following her favorite sports teams.
Rouviere De Waal, PhD
Rou De Waal has been with Almaden Country Day School since 2007 and has served on the Board of Trustees since 2015. She has served on the Parent Service Auxiliary Board for two years as Service Coordinator and has chaired several departments including Hospitality, Thanksgiving Feast and other service related areas. Rou is from South Africa and has lived in the United States for 20 years. She has a PhD in Audiology from the University of Pretoria. In her free time she keeps bees and creates ceramic art. Both her daughters, Melissa (6th grade) and Maia (3rd grade) attend Almaden Country Day School.
Jeff Fisher
Jeff Fisher is the Senior Vice President of the GeForce Business Unit at NVIDIA. Jeff has served on the Board of Trustees since 2002 and is currently the chair of the Trustee Committee. He and his wife Edie both grew up in Indiana and are graduates of Purdue University. They have three children, all Almaden Country Day School alumni.
Karen Greene
For many years, Karen worked with California Business Law Group, PC successfully litigating cases involving real estate, business, intellectual property, and trust and estate disputes. Prior to joining the Board of Trustees in 2015, Karen served as a member of the PSA Board for three years as the Volunteer Coordinator. She has also served as a room parent, event chair, and auction committee member. Karen lives in San Jose with her husband, Dan, their three children, (Dylan, Rachel, and Jack) and their dog, Scout. Karen is a graduate of Loyola Law School.
Dave Matsumoto
Dave Matsumoto is a Software Engineer at BioNex Solutions, a small laboratory automation company. He has three children at ACDS who each have had the privilege of growing up in a nurturing environment, starting from preschool. Dave has served on the Board of Trustees since 2015. Dave enjoys taking time off from work to engage with the kids in the classroom and help out with extracurricular activities. If there were 36 hours in a day, he would transform into a true Maker and design 3D printables, PCBs, and write firmware and application software.
Sandy McMaster
Sandy is a parent to 4 alums (Anna'05, Keir'09, Scot'11 and Eryn'16). Sandy has served on the Board of Trustees since 2011 and is on the Development, Executive and Alumni Committees. She has been working as a College Admissions Consultant with My College Hunt, LLC since 2010. Prior to that, Sandy has 20 years of high tech finance management experience. Her last position held was Director of Business Operations & Infrastructure at Xilinx.
Jennifer Miller
Jennifer is a parent of Katie and Trent. She has been active at the school since joining when her son entered in 2nd grade. Jennifer has been a contractor for Sales Operations high tech sales for Selectica for the past 5 years. Prior to that Jennifer worked in high tech sales for Rational Software and Interwoven. In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys trail running and obstacle races. Jennifer is a graduate of University of Southern California with a business degree in Marketing and Real Estate Finance.
Theresa Remaker
Theresa Remaker has been part of the Almaden Country Day School community since 2001 and has been on the Board of Trustees since 2013. Theresa has served in a wide variety of volunteer and leadership positions, including president of the Parent Service Auxiliary and chair of the Marketing committee. She has a BA in psychology from Drew University and an MBA from Santa Clara University. Theresa is on the Development Alumni sub-committee and has two alumni children, Matt '11 and Valerie '13, who attended ACDS from Jr-K through 8th grade.
Zachary Roberts, EdD
Dr. Zaq Roberts is Head of School at Gateway School in Santa Cruz. Prior to this role, Zaq served as the Associate Head of School at The Berkeley School, following assignments there as a teacher, elementary head, and middle school head; he was at Berkeley for 13 years total. Zaq has also served as an assistant professor of education at Mills College, and has published and presented widely in the field, most recently in a session with Al Adams at the Trustee/Heads Conference in San Francisco earlier this year. Zaq completed his undergraduate degree in English at Stanford and his doctorate in educational leadership at Mills College.
Jay Walstrum
Jay is a Senior Systems Architect at Micron Technology and worked previously at Xilinx from 1999 to 2012. Jay has broad experience in technology marketing and product management. Jay has been on the Board of Trustees since 2012. He is the chair of the Campus Committee and is on the Executive Committee. Jay has three children, and his daughter Maddie is an ACDS graduate.