Stacey Byers and Dr. Steve Windhager have been elected to the Santa Barbara Beautiful Board of Directors.
Byers is a professional photographer and small-business owner. Originally from the East Coast, she received her bachelor of fine arts degree from Temple University and began her career as gallery director for a contemporary art gallery in Philadelphia, Penn. She then worked in the film industry — first as art department coordinator and later as a set designer for feature films in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
After leaving the film industry, she coordinated public programming at the Getty Center, which included project management for the Getty’s major arts initiative — Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980.
In 2011, after pursuing a life long interest in portrait photography, Byers launched her business, Captured Spirit Photography, in Los Angeles. She and her husband relocated to Santa Barbara in early 2013 and Byers opened the doors to her new studio later that year.
Since coming to Santa Barbara, Byers has also focused attention on two human rights issues; human trafficking and homelessness. She is a volunteer at the Casa Esperanza Homeless Shelter and she is a member of the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office Human Trafficking Task Force.
Windhager is the executive director of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, on the editorial boards of Restoration Ecology and Environmental Ethics, a past board member of the Society for Ecological Restoration International, and former president and founder of the Texas Society for Ecological Restoration. The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, one of the nation’s oldest native plant botanic gardens, is an educational and scientific institution fostering stewardship of the natural world through an understanding of ecology and native plants.
Windhager is also on the Technical Core Committee and past director of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, which is a joint project of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden to create sustainable design guidelines and rating system assessing the sustainability of landscapes.
He has a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Texas A&M as well as a master’s degree in environmental ethics and a Ph.D. in environmental science from the University of North Texas.
— Jacqueline Dyson is the vice president of public relations for Santa Barbara Beautiful.