Board of Directors
- Angela Brannon, Co-Founder and Executive Director
- Shawn Heyl, Co-Founder and President
- Dan Fumai, Director, Treasurer
- Weston Twomey, Director
- Jerry Stevenson, Director
- Jim Plante, Director
- Anton Monk, Associate Director
- JD DeHart, Associate Director
- Alexander Salazar, Associate Director
- Jeff Schuster, Associate Director
- Jared Montoya, Associate Director
- Robert Christie, Associate Director
- Charlie Silveria, Associate Director
- Mike Somerville, Associate Director
- Jared Montoya, CPA, EA
Co-Founder and Executive Director: Angela Brannon
Angela Brannon has been a San Diego resident for over 15 years. After completing her Bachelors of Arts at Arizona State University, she began her successful journey in social services through the WIC [Women, Infants and Children] and Commodity Supplemental Food Program.
After translating federal regulations into local agency protocol and converting the distribution system to save tens of thousands of dollars annually, she went into the trenches. As a Nutrition Education Coordinator, Angela expanded nutrition classes and made a difference in the lives of over 5000 San Diego women and children.
After owning two of her own businesses, she then designed the interior theme decor for corporate events with budgets ranging from $5,000 to $250,000. In 1997, she formed Party for a Purpose as a way for her to produce holiday toy drives and other special events in her spare time.
On her birthday, April 20, 2003, Angela decided to take Party for a Purpose to the next level and become Partying For A Purpose, a charitable organization. She realized that this was the way to combine her passion for helping children and her ability to produce spectacular events.
As Executive Director, Angela is living her dream of enhancing the lives of children and those who are less fortunate and in need. In March 2004, she and Shawn Heyl formed the It’s All About the Kids Foundation. With Shawn as Board of Director President and Angela as Executive Director, the new Foundation will continue to develop the much needed programs for San Diego’s kids and create more exciting events.
Angela was nominated for the 2005 San Diego Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Award and received the Channel 10 Leadership Award in March 2006. In 2007, Angela received the prestigious Pierre Toussaint Award from Fr. Joe and St. Vincent De Paul. Also in 2007, she was chosen by San Diego Magazine as one of San Diego’s ’50 People to Watch’ and she was nominated for the Art in Living Foundation’s Heroes of Humanities Award. In 2008, she won the Molina Healthcare Community Champions Award in Education.
Angela also sits on the Board of Directors as Secretary.
Contact: Angela@ItsAllAboutTheKids.org
Co-Founder and President: Shawn Heyl
Born in the City of Madison, Wisconsin on January 19th 1960, Shawn Heyl was the eldest son and the third of seven children born to Jacob and Patricia. In 1972 at the age of twelve, Shawn’s family was transferred to Goleta, California, north of Santa Barbara where Shawn obtained his High School degree at Dos Pueblos in 1978. He followed with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Santa Barbara City College subsequently transferring to the University of California Santa Barbara where he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Economics.
While attending college, Shawn held numerous jobs to finance his education and in 1981 began a successful windsurfing business which he sold upon graduating in 1984. With a solid interest established in the world of finance and business, Shawn accepted a position with Merrill Lynch Commercial Realty in 1985 where he became a top Presidents club producer within two years. Shawn went on to start his own investment company in 1987 where he subsequently obtained vast experience in all areas of commercial Real Estate and Investment. After Marrying in 1995 and moving to Southern California Mr. Heyl accepted a position as the Director of Acquisitions and Dispositions for a Privately held real estate company called Pacifica Enterprises, LLC located in San Diego. Since accepting this position, Mr. Heyl has guided the company’s assets from approximately $100 million to in excess of $300 million. During this period, Mr. Heyl has structured successful investments totaling almost $1 Billion and obtained the reputation as a leader in his industry. Mr Heyl is now the President of 3 companies located in California (Performance Marketing and Premier Investments) and Nevada (Condo Club Las Vegas).
Shortly after moving to San Diego and having a daughter in 1998 (Alexia), Shawn discovered his love for children. After becoming a single father in 2001, Shawn developed a dream to help underprivileged children from broken families and homes who were in need of assistance. In 2003, Shawn was fortunate enough to meet Angela Brannon, who was running her own charity called Partying for a Purpose. Immediately upon meeting Angela, Shawn realized that they shared the same dream and together they formed the foundation, It’s all about the Kids where he now serves as the President of the Board of Directors.
Contact: Shawn@ItsAllAboutTheKids.org
Dan Fumai, Director, Treasurer
Dan Fumai is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ANC Sports in New York. Before joining ANC in September 2008, Dan was the Vice President and Controller of the San Diego Padres in March 2003.
Dan also spent 12 years in public accounting with Price Waterhouse and PricewaterhouseCoopers, most recently in the San Diego office. In San Diego, Dan worked with clients as QUALCOMM and the San Diego Padres. Prior to moving to San Diego, Dan was involved in numerous merger and acquisition deals and five initial public offerings for companies such as Red Hat, Lending Tree and Infinium software while working for Price Waterhouse in the Boston and Raleigh, NC offices.
Dan, a native of Floral Park, NY, is a Certified Public Accountant and received his B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University.
Contact: Dan@ItsAllAboutTheKids.org
Weston Twomey, Director
Weston Twomey was raised in Southern CA in a small bedroom community named San Marino. He was one of the youngest Certified California Drug in Alcohol Counselor (CADAC) and graduated from Loyola Marymount with a BA in 1990. He graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1990 and served several Presbyterian Churches. After moving to San Diego and the birth of his son, he owned a successful furniture company and then entered into the mortgage business in 2000. In summer 2005 he took over ownership and management of a small mortgage company (RAF Mortgage) in Encinitas, California.
In 2008, he started Home Loan Modification. Weston’s accomplishments include fatherhood and the opportunity to make an influence on people’s lives.
Contact: Weston@ItsAllAboutTheKids.org
Jerry Stevenson, Director
Jerry Stevenson is a results-oriented attorney-litigator with significant transactional and advocacy experience in matters related to taxation, business, estate planning, and real estate. Over his career he has developed a proven track record in state and federal litigation before juries and the bench. His reputation, experience and knowledge have made him highly effective at building and maintaining strong, positive relationships.
Prior to forming The Stevenson Law Group, Jerry worked in the international accounting firm, Ernst & Young, LLP where he primarily provided tax and financial services to high net worth individuals. He has had a successful and varied career. He worked on Capitol Hill as an accounting systems engineer for The Congressional Black Caucus and retired from a successful career as a U.S. Marine Corps Officer.
Jerry was responsible for the operation of a large tax and legal department which provided compliance services, tax consulting and controversy services; and civil legal services for members of the San Diego military community. During his tenure he and his office were instrumental in a joint IRS-DoD investigation and prosecution of a multi-million dollar tax fraud scheme. He also served as Senior Criminal Defense Counsel for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing comprised of almost 30,000 Marines in Southern California. He has also had the opportunity to serve as deputy general counsel of another large command and Commander of a unit comprised of over 200 Marines and Sailors. Jerry has significant courtroom experience with over 150 trials before both judges and juries in both military and civilian tribunals.
Jerry has advocated for hundreds of clients against the IRS and successfully reduced his clients’ tax burdens through various tax strategies. Additionally, he has drafted over 5,000 estate tax plans and was instrumental in the formation and legal representation of several companies in Southern California and Florida. His experience enables him to provide advice on a manifold of complex tax, business and individual issues that face his clients.
Jerry is active in the San Diego Community as a member of the American Bar Association, San Diego County Bar Association, a board member for several non-profits, and a member of the San Diego Military Advisory Council. His personal decorations include a distinguished Service Award from the American Bar Association, two Navy Commendation medals and several other military personal awards for high achievement.
Jerry and his family are avid skiers and he spends much of his free time enjoying all that San Diego has to offer.
Jim Plante, Director
Jim Plante’s interest in preventative health and technology was sparked when he worked for his father’s medical technology company at an early age. He went on to earn a bachelor of science degree from Southern Illinois University in electrical engineering. Jim founded four different venture capital backed technology companies, raised more than $150M of investment capital, and launched more than 12 new product lines and services in the consumer products, automotive technology, wireless infrastructure and road safety industries employing hundreds of high paying technology jobs in the US.
When Jim’s father died from complications related to polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disease, it reignited Jim’s interest in preventative health. Jim then started Pathway Genomics with the vision to make comprehensive genetic testing and personalized medicine accessible and affordable to all.
Pathway’s customers include Veterans Health Administration, physicians, pharmacy benefits managers such as Medco, fortune 500 employers such as Johnson and Johnson, sports nutrition companies such as PepsiCo, international medical device and diagnostics companies and foreign government healthcare systems. Jim also founded website www.pathway.com, www.smartdrive.net, and www.ebandcom.com.
Anton Monk, Associate Director
Anton Monk was born and raised in Durban, South Africa surrounded by a large extended and close family, many of whom were deeply involved in non-profit causes. In 1986 his family emigrated to the United States and he completed a degree in Electrical Engineering at UCSD. After a brief time in Los Angeles, getting a Masters degree from Caltech and working on deep space satellites at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he returned to San Diego and UCSD for his PhD and to raise three beautiful daughters, now in high school and college.
After working in the semiconductor industry, Dr. Monk co-founded Entropic Communications in San Diego, where he led the engineering development of Entropic’s coaxial cable-based multimedia networking chipset. This technology, which made multi-room DVR viewing achievable, was standardized by MoCA, the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, and is now the standard for multimedia home networking for Pay TV service providers in the United States. Entropic is now a public company on the NASDAQ. Dr. Monk is CTO of MoCA and serves on the MoCA Board of Directors.
Anton enjoys giving back to the local education and tech communities and is involved in a number organizations, including Chairman of the UCSD Corporate Affiliates Program, the Technical Advisory Boards of the UCSD Electrical Engineering Department and the USD Engineering Department and is a member of the CONNECT Public Policy Committee and a board member of Evonexus, a non-profit technology incubator. He is also proud to be involved in an incredible non-profit center in Israel started by his family (called Beit Issie Shapiro) that develops and provides services for children with developmental disabilities. Anton’s love of children, education and equal rights for all forms the basis of his involvement in non-profit organizations.
Alexander Salazar, Associate Director
Harvard alumnus, Art Critic, Historian, Collector and well-respected Art Dealer in La Jolla, CA and Boston, MA for many years, Alexander Salazar opened three locations in 2010 in Downtown San Diego designating over 7,000 square feet to art. The corner of 7th and Broadway in San Diego, was transformed into a 2,000 square ft high-end fine art salon featuring the works of national and international mid-career and emerging artists. Just 2 doors down on at 635 Broadway, he offers an Artist in Residency Studio for an Emerging San Diego Artist each month of the year. Head north to 1040 7th Avenue and be amazed at the 5,000 square foot open gallery exhibition space of Modern and Contemporary Art. His credentials are rock solid: He holds a Masters Degree in Theology and Art from Harvard University and a second Masters in Sociology and Art from Boston College. Whilst an undergraduate at the Colorado College, he lived in London where he studied Modern and Contemporary Art before moving to Florence, Italy to pursue research on Masters such at Bernini and Botticelli.
With over 13 years experience as an Art Dealer around the country, Alexander Salazar continues to build museum-quality private, corporate, and celebrity collections worldwide. Alexander supports many San Diego charities and holds art auctions and fundraisers at his galleries on a regular basis.
Jeff Schuster, Associate Director
Jeffrey Schuster is the Chief Financial Officer and Co-Founder of Logicube, Inc, which is the recognized world leader in hard drive duplication and computer forensics systems. Since 1999, Logicube’s hard drive cloning systems have been used throughout the world in thousands of IT departments, as well as by the largest law enforcement agencies and the US military. These hard disk drive duplication systems offer high-speed solutions for copying hard drives, drive formatting, data recovery, and disaster recovery. Jeffrey received his BA in Finance from Tulane University in 1991 and moved to San Diego after graduation.
When Jeffrey is not working he is most likely in the air. Being an avid pilot he has parlayed this passion into a successful aircraft charter brokerage. Schuster Aviation owns and operates several aircraft including a modern Russian fighter jet. Along with flying, Jeffrey and his family enjoy spending time relaxing on the bay.
Robert Christie, Associate Director
With more than 30 years of executive management experience, Mr. Christie joined 3E in 2004 as a seasoned CEO with a successful track record as a leader of information service providers. In his role, Mr. Christie has built on 3E’s success and has created a global information business. As part of this success, 3E Company became part of Verisk Analytics, a public company, at the end of 2010. Mr. Christie has remained with 3E as its President and CEO.
Mr. Christie has served as the President and CEO of Thomson Learning, the second largest global education and learning company. While at Thomson Learning, Mr. Christie built a world class management team and grew the learning business from $500 million to over $2.4 billion in three years. Prior to managing Thomson Learning, Mr. Christie also served as the President and CEO of Thomson and Thomson while employed at the Thomson Corporation.
Prior to being employed at Thomson, Mr. Christie served in various positions throughout his career at McGraw-Hill for 18 years where he served as the President of Higher Education, Group VP of Standard & Poor’s Equity Group, Group VP of the Commodity and Information Group as well as various positions within the magazine publishing division. As part of his role at S&P, Mr. Christie chaired the S&P 500 while also creating the S&P mid-cap as well as the S&P completion index.
Prior to working at McGraw-Hill, Mr. Christie was employed as the President of Pubex Publishing.
Mr. Christie is Chairman of the Board for BrightStar Education and serves as a Trustee for Rider University as well as a board member for Alternative Technologies.
Mr. Christie has a B.S. in Management of Organizational Behavior with a minor in Marketing from Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ.
Charlie Silveria, Associate Director
Born on August 29th, 1968, Charlie is a fourth generation San Diegan, born and raised in San Diego and lived in the Kensington area. He attended Herbert Hoover High School, class of 1986. After high school, he attended Mesa Community College.
In May, 1987, he took a job as a deliver driver at Interim Printing and Mailing quickly learning the ins and outs of the printing industry. In May 1988, he changed jobs and went to work for A Copy World in Pacific Beach, as a sales rep. Charlie was then promoted to Regional Sales Manager. In December 1999, he left A Copy World to start his own company, Any Budget Printing & Mailing.
In 1992, he was invited to join the Pacific Beach Lions Club elected to President in 1994-95, at 25 years-old. In 1999, Charlie transferred to the San Diego Downtown Lions Club, where he has been elected to many positions on the Board of Directors, currently serving as First Vice President, in preparation for his term as President which will begin on July 1, 2012. Lions Clubs International (LCI) is a secular service organization with over 44,500 clubs and more than 1.368,683 million members in 191 countries around the world. The Lions motto is “We Serve.” Focal Lions Club programs include sight conservation, hearing and speech conservation, diabetes awareness, youth outreach, international relations, environmental issues, and other programs.
During his time as a member of the Lions Club and with the distinction of being a past-president, Charlie has had the honor of serving as a Lions Club District Officer. Twice as Zone Chairman, over-seeing the operations of five different Lions Clubs, and once as Lion District Tailtwister, a fun position which is in charge of internal fund-raising.
In addition to his work with the Lions Club, Charlie has also been very active with The Navy League of the United States. He currently sits as a member of the Navy League Board of Directors. The Navy League of the United States, commonly referred to as The Navy League, is a national association made up of former members of the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Merchant Marine, and civilians interested in supporting the sea services. This organization supports the community, two youth organizations (United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps and the Navy League Cadet Corps), and armed forces veterans groups.
It was founded, at the suggestion of Theodore Roosevelt, in 1902. The Navy League describes itself as “a civilian organization dedicated to the education of our citizens, including our elected officials, and the support of the men and women of the sea services and their families.”
Charlie has 2 children. Ryan, 20 and Katie, 14.
Mike Somerville, Associate Director
Mike Somerville is a results driven leader that excels is his ability to see the positive aspects in all situations. This attitude provides a fuel in teammates that sets a standard of excellence that even casual observers want to participate in. Mike’s passion for helping others has driven him to be one of the most effective and compassionate Executive Business and Life Coaches in southern California.
As CEO and Founder of AMAZING, LLC : Coaching & Consulting, Mike brings a laser-focused, simple clarity to his offering that allows even seasoned executives and business owners, as well as high-profile entertainment industry individuals, the ability to improve on their already top-notch abilities and become truly World-Class.
Mike’s ability to be anonymous with clients as well as visible in the community has made him “the best executive life coach you’ve never heard of”. This provides highly recognized business and entertainment individuals a guaranteed safe environment, catapulting them to a sustainable solution quickly.
Mike earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from San Diego State University and this foundation allows for a quick understanding of all the technical and logical aspects of any project and a problem solving skill-set that exceeds clients’ expectations. Mike received his Master of Science in Executive Leadership (MSEL) from The University of San Diego in May of 2010, graduating with honors, Mike was inducted into the National Business Honor Society, Beta Gamma Sigma as a life-member Mike is a certified DISC facilitator and trainer, receiving his training from the founding partner of The Ken Blanchard Companies, Drea Zigarmi, Ph.D.
He currently works at the University of San Diego (USD) in the Information Technology Services department as the Manager of Systems Support and Chief Cloud Evangelist where his team is responsible for the architecture and administration of the entire IT infrastructure on campus including all servers, datacenters, network storage, etc…
Prior to USD, Mike owned his own IT consulting company that had offices in San Diego, CA and San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico, where they provided high-speed wireless Internet to families living in 100% Solar powered communities. Prior to owning his own company, Mike worked in the Radio industry for 20 years; early on as an on-air personality and then becoming Director of Engineering for several major (top 20) market radio stations and was known for his ability to provide systems with an uptime of 99.995% or greater.
Mike is on the board of directors of several profit and not-for-profit organizations and is a guest speaker for bachelor and masters classes in information technology, business, entrepreneurship and leadership.
Jared Montoya, CPA, EA
Jared Montoya is a San Diego-based Tax Accountant who specializes in government incentive programs for business owners and is co-founder of Incentive Advisory Group, LLC and owner of Montoya, CPA, EA, APC. Jared is a native to San Diego earning his Bachelors of Business Administration with a focus on Accounting from San Diego State University.
