The duties of chair of Laguna Blanca School’s board of trustees were recently passed from Alixe Mattingly to Alison Wrigley Rusack.
Rusack — who has been a Laguna parent since 1996 — co-owns Rusack Vineyards; serves as vice chairwoman and first vice president of the Santa Catalina Island Co., which handles commercial real estate, hotel and sightseeing operations on Catalina; and is a lifetime member of the Benefactor Member Board for the private, nonprofit Santa Catalina Island Conservancy.
She and her husband, Geoff, who served as chair of the LBS board of trustees from 2006 to 2008, have three sons. Austin, class of 2011, and Parker, class of 2016, attend Laguna Blanca, and Hunter, class of 2009, is starting his second year at Bowdoin College this fall. All three boys attended Laguna since kindergarten.
Rusack graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in film and broadcasting, after which she worked in the entertainment industry in Southern California, most notably for Disney Consumer Products in Burbank.
While at Disney, she served in both business and creative capacities, including managing the international publishing program and the licensing program in Latin America, and working as a writer/editor for the creative development department of Disney Publishing, Consumer Products Corporate Communications, and Consumer Products International.
Rusack currently serves on the advisory boards for Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at USC. She is also a director of the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara.
“We’re honored to have Alison at the helm,” Headmaster Paul Slocombe said. “Her extensive experience in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, combined with her passion for Laguna Blanca School, is an ideal formula for excellent leadership.”
— Tara Broucqsault is the director of communications for Laguna Blanca School.