Don Paris, Founder, Chairman & CEO
Don began his career as a highly-successful entrepreneur over thirty years ago, after serving in the United States Marine Corps as a Marine Aviator. The successful sale of his first company, a medical device manufacturer, allowed him to move into the high tech world where he helped pioneer the development of a mobile credit card processing platform. This project led him to start a group of credit card processing and payments companies that have processed more than $8B in credit card transactions over the last ten years. As a father of four, Don is keenly aware of the importance of schools in the lives of our children. The death of his wife’s parents on 9/11 set in motion School Spirit Pays as a legacy for these two selfless individuals who dedicated their lives to educating children for more than thirty years.

David McKay, Founder & President
David has spent almost 30 years in the technology world, serving in leadership roles in sales, marketing, product marketing and product management organizations for several hardware and software companies. After developing a passion for brand building and product strategy development, David moved into executive leadership for major technology leaders including The Baan Company and WebEx. Prior to co-founding School Spirit Pays, David served as an executive communications consultant for firms ranging from startups to Silicon Valley titans such as Cisco Systems. David has volunteered his marketing expertise for a number local and national charitable organizations’ fundraising events, including the Human Rights Campaign, where he is currently the marketing co-chair for HRC's Dallas/Ft. Worth Steering Committee.

Chris Butcher, Vice President, Business Development
Chris comes to School Spirit Pays with over 20 years of successful sales leadership, training and coaching in several different companies and arenas. After spending eight years as a high school physics and chemistry teacher and coach, Chris left teaching to pursue a career in sales. He quickly became a sales leader and innovator, winning awards and setting the standard at his companies. His combination of private and public sector work allows him a unique perspective that is critical to our business. His experience as a teacher and coach provides an excellent backdrop for our company's mission and his work with such charities as Relay for Life, Children's Miracle Network and The Challenged Athlete's Foundation has given him fantastic exposure to the non-profit sector. Chris' main focus is to drive growth by creating win-win situations with each of our partner foundations. He is very active in the community and is involved with the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, Irvine Rotary, Irvine Little League, Irvine Girls Softball, Irvine Youth Basketball, Irvine Relay for Life and Give Blood Play Hockey.

Harvey Garte, Vice President, National Accounts
Harvey has spent the majority of his career as an investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions for public and private companies. In this role, he was personally responsible for transactions in excess of $600MM. He has worked closely with CEO’s and CFO’s of major corporations throughout America. Prior to his investment banking career, Harvey was as the CFO of a publicly traded company in the textile and apparel industry. Harvey joined School Spirit Pays as someone who recognizes the critical funding shortfall in our education system and the part corporate America can play in its solution. Harvey earned his MBA from Lehigh University and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Board of Directors

Don Paris, Founder, Chairman & CEO

David McKay, Founder & President

Denise Senter, Founder
Denise started her career in marketing and sales support with the Banking Systems division of EDS more than 25 years ago. She has served as an officer in three public companies as VP of Marketing: Indus International, Accrue Software, and Alterian. Denise was a Partner in the strategic management-consulting firm, CSC Index, where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies such as DuPont, Samsung and Enbridge Energy Partners in product development and marketing. She has spent the past five years in payment processing where she served as COO for two merchant services providers prior to her role in founding School Spirit Pays. She has focused on balancing her career with giving back, and has volunteered and led volunteer development for several organizations, including the March of Dimes, Girls on the Run, and Literacy Volunteers of America.

Gaylon Neustel, Vice President, Lomas Santa Fe Group
Gaylon has been with the Lomas Santa Fe Group for over fifteen years. Some of the projects that he has been involved in are the development and construction of 47 single-family homes, an 18-acre industrial park facility, and the repositioning of a 10,000 sq. ft. restaurant site into a surgery center. He is currently responsible for the management and day-to-day operations of the Lomas Santa Fe Group's portfolio of properties, including lease negotiation, tentant improvements, and acquisitions and dispositions.

Kelsey Bruso, Ph.D., Distinguished Engineer, Unisys Corporation
Dr. Bruso has more than 30 years of experience architecting, developing, and deploying mission critical software and systems. He holds more than 40 patents in Database Processing, Internationalization, and mobile computing. On behalf of Unisys, Dr. Bruso works with some of the world's leading banks, insurance companies, airlines, and credit processing companies to help solve their complex enterprise applications challenges. Coming from a family of educators, Dr. Bruso believes passionately in education and supports the mission of School Spirit Pays.

Advisors

Mr. Tang Tang, Founder, BitsCube
Mr. Tang is a self-made, serial entrepreneur with CTO experiences ranging from founding small companies and startups to working with distributed teams in large, multinational corporations. He brings a wealth of experience in both business and technology disciplines, with specialties including e-commerce, payment processing, web/mobile applications, and cross-platform development.In a business development, Mr. Tang has an uncanny strength for simplifying processes and requirements, and communicating with business users and stakeholders to further their interests. In a technical environment, ne balances solid software engineering principles against the agility required when dealing with cutting-edge technology. He consistently delivers on both. With BitsCube, the company he founded four years ago, Mr. Tang has created an environment dedicated to innovation, and shaped his vision into a start-up incubator powerhouse.

Brett S. Kilpatrick, Executive Vice President of Sales, ID Systems
Mr. Kilpatrick has over 20 years of executive management, sales leadership, operations management, and sales experience. Prior to joining ID Systems, Mr. Kilpatrick was the Managing Partner and CEO of AnalytiCare, LLC, a company that provides business intelligence, analytics, and data licensing to the Healthcare Market. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Panoratio Worldwide from 2005 to 2008. Mr. Kilpatrick has also served as the Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Determine, Inc. (acquired by Selectica). Mr. Kilpatrick has held executive and management positions with several public companies over his career: Avantgo, Oracle, Accenture, IONA and Versant. Mr. Kilpatrick earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Purdue University in 1980

Ken Druck, Ph.D., President, Druck Enterprises, Inc.
Dr. Druck is one of the nation’s pioneers in personal transformation, having broken fresh ground in male psychology, executive coaching, organizational consulting, parent effectiveness, healing after loss, and, most recently, the art of turning adversity into opportunity. Druck Enterprises, Inc. (DEI) is a leading coaching, consulting, and team-building firm with a broad base of clients including Microsoft, Pfizer, IBM, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the YMCA.