Friends of VADA

Andy is co-founder and Chief Scientist at WorldViz, a leader in professional virtual reality solutions. With his vision for cutting-edge technologies and how they connect to people, WorldViz has provided services to Fortune 500 industrial customers as well as numerous government agencies since 2002. Prior to that, Andy completed his B.A. in cognitive science at Brown, Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and post-doctoral program at MIT. 

Andy served on the Peabody Charter School board of directors for nearly 5 years during the time his children attended school there. His daughter graduated from the VADA program in 2024 and his son graduated from the DPHS Engineering Academy.

Ruben is the owner of M4 Interactive, a Santa Barbara based web design and development agency with clients in a variety of industries from museums, tech startups, eCommerce, nonprofits and universities. He has led the planning, design and development of nearly 100 websites involving custom eCommerce solutions, Content Management Systems, Search Engine Marketing, and complex 3rd party integration. Some notable clients (past and present) include Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Huntington Library, Cal-Poly SLO, Dollar Shave Club, UC Riverside, LA Lakers and many more.

Ruben is a Santa Barbara High School and UCSB Alumni. He and his wife, Jennifer have four children, a current VADA student, a future VADA student, and two are VADA Alumni classes of '20 and '22. His oldest daughter is a recent UC Santa Cruz grad who is planning on attending graduate school for a Master in Library Science. 

Michele has a BA in Psychology from Humboldt State University and attended the University of Delaware as an exchange student. With an interest in enriching her community, Michele has spent over a decade working for nonprofit organizations both in Hawaii and California and is currently an Intake Coordinator at Hospice of Santa Barbara. 

She has also worked in operations and management as a small business owner for over 20 years with her husband and has spent time earlier in her career as a preschool teacher, elementary school substitute teacher and as a teacher’s aide in the ESL program at SBCC. 

Michele values creativity in education and appreciates the benefits of participating in our academy programs. She has a son who graduated from SBHS’s Computer Science Academy and a daughter who graduated from the VADA program in 2024.

Michele currently serves as the Database Manager for the Friends of VADA board of directors.

Bryan Powers

Ian Smith