Kyle Holder- Board Chairperson
Kyle Holder is a co-founder of Austin Discovery School, and owns The Children’s Discovery Center pre-schools. Through the families that graduated from the preschool, Kyle and co-founders saw a need for an alternative to public schools. They envisioned creating an elementary school that children would be excited to attend, and that could educate children in a way that was relevant, interesting, and personally fullfilling.
For over two decades, Kyle has worked with young children in Austin and Santa Fe pre-schools, and in 1991 he took over The Children’s Discovery Center. In 1997, he expanded the pre-school by adding a location for 4 and 5 year olds off of Spicewood Springs Road on 6 acres of hill country forest. That location is named The Discovery School, and inspired the name for Austin Discovery School.
Kyle is currently the Vice-Chair of the Austin Early Childhood Council, helping the young children of Austin by making recommendations to the City Council on how to make better family friendly policy. Kyle is active on the Austin Discovery School Board of Directors and has participated on all of the Board Sub- Committees as well as the PTO Grounds Committee. Kyle currently has twin daughters who attend ADS.
Vicki Little- Board Treasurer
Vicki joined the board in June of 2009 and will take the role of Treasurer in September of 2009. Vicki brings a strong business and financial background to the board. She is currently Senior Vice President/Chief Financial Officer for a local research and consulting firm. Her experience and background include business analysis and strategic planning; accounting and management reporting; financial and general management.
Carol Gittinger, Secretary
Currently a Program Manager at Dell, Inc, Carol brings over twenty years of experience in managing complex, cross functional technical programs. In this role, Carol is responsible for leading teams with diverse professional and technical expertise to define, plan and execute new products. Previous to Dell, Carol had fifteen years of experience at Austin Energy working on a variety of electrical and telecommunications programs.Carol is both a graduate of Texas A&M University with a BS in Electrical Engineering and of the University of Texas at Austin with a Masters in Business Administration.
Brook Son, Chair of Grants & Development Committee
Brook is a Planner for the Travis County Health and Human Services Department, Research and Planning Division. In her current work Brook’s primary focus is building the local community-capacity to solve system-level problems through cooperative, inclusive processes.In eight years of direct social service, Brook worked with populations in the following issue areas: childhood abuse and neglect, drug addiction and alcoholism, teen parenting, adult literacy and ESL, early education, and family poverty.
Brook has particular expertise in early education. From 1999 to 2001 Brook was Center Director at Mainspring School , an accredited preschool licensed for up to 60 children. Brook currently offers planning support to the City of Austin ‘s Early Education and Care effort, and serves on the Work Force Solution Child Care Advisory Board. Brook holds an MSSW with a focus on Administration and Planning from the University of Texas at Austin . Brook and her husband Ken have two daughters, Abby and Cora.
Deke Foxhoven- Chair of Policy & Governance Committee
Deke graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law and is currently working on establishing himself in Austin’s legal market.Prior to attending law school, Deke worked for seven years as a kindergarten teacher and assistant director (1998 to 2005) at the Discovery School. In these roles, Deke actively participated in ongoing development of the curriculum, community and event organization, and fundraising. He also watched the initial formation of the Austin Discovery School with much anticipation and is excited to rejoin the community and help the school move forward with its exceptional vision. During the same period that Deke was teaching, he was also an active participant in Austin’s live music scene. He organized and/or helped to organize numerous benefits in support of local, state, national, and international causes. This dedication earned him the prestigious Miami Scholar’s scholarship for his years of public interest work. Deke and his wife, Stacy, have an daughter named Andelin.
Madge Darlington- Board Member
Madge joined the board in June of 2009. Madge is a Founder and Co-Producing Artistic Director of Rude Mechanicals Theatre Collective. For six years Madge was the Program Coordinator for the Shakespeare at Winedale Program at the University of Texas at Austin, where she worked on more than twenty-five Shakespeare productions. Madge is currently the Co-Director of Grrl Action, Rude Mechs’ program for teenage girls in autobiographical writing and performance – a year-round program in arts education and appreciation for girls.
Madge and her partner Lisa Moore have two sons – Max and Milo – who currently attend ADS.
Lenny Zwik- Board Member
Lenny is currently retired from a 30 year career managing large development organizations at IBM and Dell. At IBM, he was a member of the original IBM PC development team where he lead teams responsible for architecting and developing software to support new manufacturing processes. Lenny held several subsequent assignments in operating systems development and represented IBM on a Microsoft Windows steering committee.
Following his tenure at IBM, Lenny joined Dell in 1994 where he put his “startup” experience to good use forming new software development teams and leading the architecture and implementation of a new workflow process that continues in use today.
After retiring from Dell, Lenny obtained his teaching certificate in Texas and is currently a certified Math and Science teacher in grades 4 through 8. Lenny taught 8th grade math for a year before deciding to continue his involvement in education as a member of the ADS board.
Lenny holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Ohio Institute of Technology.
John Thoms- Board Member
Bio and pic to come…
