Gretchen Milligan and Rob Skinner were recently elected to the board of trustees of the Santa Barbara Foundation. They each begin a three-year term this month.
Milligan graduated with distinction from Stanford University, and she received a master’s degree in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She joined Wells Fargo Bank in corporate lending in San Francisco followed by Orange County and Ventura County before she left to raise a family.
In 2005, she founded Board Focus, a consulting practice working with nonprofit boards in the areas of governance, planning, training and retreats. Milligan is also the newly elected chairwoman of the Cottage Health System board of directors.
Other volunteer activities include the board of directors of the Marlborough School, Crane Country Day School and the Hospital Association of Southern California. She has served on the Trustee Committee of the California Association of Independent Schools and has been a volunteer leader at Stanford since graduation. She served on the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Finance Committee from 2004 to 2008.
Skinner earned his juris doctorate from USC. He is a managing member of Towbes Capital Partners, and executive vice president and general counsel of Towbes Group Inc.
Skinner is also the chief executive officer of Agility Capital LLC, a venture-debt fund he co-founded in 1999. He serves on the board of directors of Montecito Bank & Trust and Barrister Executive Suites Inc.
Before moving to Santa Barbara, Skinner was an attorney with the international law firm of White & Case, where he represented such clients as Tokai Bank, Swiss Bank and Wells Fargo Bank.
Skinner serves on the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Finance Committee.
— Jessica Tade is a communications and marketing project coordinator for the Santa Barbara Foundation.