The Santa Barbara Foundation is pleased to announce that Jennifer Murray, Polly Firestone Walker and Michael Mayfield were recently elected to the foundation’s Board of Trustees. They each begin a three-year term in January 2012. In addition, Peter MacDougall will take the helm as the new board chairman.
“Each of these individuals brings distinguished and unique expertise to our board in the areas of financial stewardship, community leadership and hands-on experience in the nonprofit sector,” said Ron Gallo, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Foundation. “Together they strategically and expansively add to the collective skill set of the current trustees. We are honored to have them on board.”
Murray is a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Global Wealth Management Group. Before joining Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, she worked as a principal consultant for Price Waterhouse. She has also worked as a senior auditor for Arthur Andersen.
Murray has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from California State University-Fresno and is a certified public accountant and certified financial planner.
She is on the Investment Committee of the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum and is a member of the Women’s Fund of Northern Santa Barbara County. She is a volunteer at the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara and St. Louis de Montfort School.
Murray has also been a Youth Making Change mentor. She was part of the 2003/4-2005 class of Katherine Harvey Fellows and was a Santa Barbara Foundation Santa Maria Affiliate member for six years.
After living in Dallas, Texas, for several years, Murray relocated to Santa Maria in 2002, where she lives with her husband, Eddie, and two children.
Walker grew up in the Santa Ynez Valley before moving to New Hampshire for a short period of time. She came back to California to attend Stanford University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in English and drama. She then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in its three-year Actor Training Program. After marriage and work at various theaters around the country, she returned to Santa Ynez to raise her family.
For the past 16 years, Walker has served as chairwoman of the Ballard School Auction Committee and president of the Friends of the Solvang Library. She served for nine years on the board of the Solvang Theaterfest, including two years as chairwoman for the Stage for All Reasons Capital Campaign; spent 10 summers running the Solvang Theaterfest Youth Theater Summer Shakespeare workshops in addition to teaching Shakespeare workshops at Dunn Middle School; ran the backstage operations for Los Olivos Dance Gallery’s Center Stage production for 12 years; is a previous member of the Direct Relief WOMEN Executive Committee; and served for three years on the Santa Barbara Foundation Arts and Recreation Grants Committee and Creative Writing Committee.
Walker is currently the junior warden for St. Mark’s-In-The-Valley Episcopal Church, president-elect for the Cate Parents’ Organization and a member of the Santa Barbara Foundation Grants Committee.
Mayfield is CEO and co-CIO of Santa Barbara Asset Management (SBAM), where he has directed the firm’s growth in assets to $3.4 billion.
Before joining SBAM, he was in New York with NatWest Markets, the investment banking arm of National Westminster Bank, Plc. While at NatWest, he led the structuring and initial funding for The Scudder Latin American Trust for Independent Power, which financed independent electric power generating facilities in Latin America. In 2011, he was named Executive of the Year by the South Coast Business & Technology Awards.
Mayfield serves on the Board of Trustees at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and Lotusland, where he also acts as treasurer. Additionally, he serves on the Investment Committee for the Santa Barbara Foundation as well as chair of the Advisory Board for UCSB’s Center for Research in Financial Mathematics and Statistics.
In past years, he has served on the Board of Trustees for Girl’s Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara and Cold Spring School Foundation. For a number of years, Mayfield and his wife, Amy, have underwritten the annual Mayfield Family scholarship to local students through the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in finance and business economics from USC.
MacDougall served as superintendent/president of SBCC from 1981 to 2002. His extensive background in education includes positions at Los Angeles Community College District, Los Angeles Pierce College, Rutgers College and Pennsylvania State University.
In addition to his many professional accomplishments, MacDougall also has an impressive record of community involvement. He has served on the boards of Channel City Club, Cottage Health System, Santa Barbara Partners in Education, United Way of Santa Barbara County, Fighting Back; Beyond Tolerance, the Santa Barbara Region Chamber of Commerce, the Private Industry Council and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He has been on the Santa Barbara Foundation Board of Trustees for four years, serving as vice chair for the past two years.
In recognition of his tremendous contributions to the Santa Barbara community, MacDougall has received the Santa Barbara Foundation Man of the Year Award (2000), the Association of Fundraising Professionals Volunteer of the Year Award (1996) and the Santa Barbara News-Press Lifetime Achievement Award (1992). He resides in Santa Barbara with his wife, Leslie. They have three children and five grandchildren.
— Jessica Tade is a publicist representing theSanta Barbara Foundation.