Jeffrey Haight, Salvador Güereña, Andrea Steward and Kai Tepper have been elected to the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP) Board of Directors for three-year terms. The election took place at the SBTHP 58th Annual Meeting and Community Awards Presentation.
Haight is the president of Ehlen Spiess & Haight, Inc. Structural Engineers in Santa Barbara. He joined the firm in 1992 after working in Newport Beach upon graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering in 1988.
He is particularly interested in emergency preparedness as a member of Goleta’s Community Emergency Response Team and was deployed to St. Bernard Parrish Louisiana to evaluate damaged structures after Hurricane Katrina as a volunteer engineer with California’s Office of Emergency Services.
Güereña is an archivist, librarian, and writer and was director of the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives from 1988-2019 in the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB Libaray. He is a native of Santa Barbara, earning his B.A. degree from Westmont College and his MLS from the University of Arizona.
He is past president of REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking, and has served on the governing Council of the American Library Association and Board of Directors for the Society of California Archivists.
He has published articles and edited and co-authored several books in the field of library science, bibliography, and archives. Locally, he has served as president of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation, Children’s Creative Project, and since 2008 has served as volunteer executive director for United Parents/Padres Unidos.
Steward was born and raised in Santa Barbara, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Educated locally at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Bishop Garcia Diego High School, she attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and after graduation worked in the fashion industry.
Upon returning to Santa Barbara, she worked alongside her parents at the family business Rudy’s Mexican Restaurants. She and her husband Neal opened their own Rudy’s in the Presidio neighborhood three years ago.
Tepper is the outreach program manager for the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation, previous executive director for The Arts Fund, and founding board member of the Santa Barbara School of the Arts.
She received a BA from California State University Channel Islands with an emphasis in studio art and art history, where she developed a love of arts nonprofits.
Tepper is active in community organizations including the Santa Barbara Arts Advisory Committee, Asian American History Committee at the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, Santa Barbara County Alliance for Arts Education, Leni Fund Outreach Committee, Visual Arts and Design Academy at Santa Barbara High School, and the Community Arts Workshop’s Artist Residency Panel.
Board members re-elected to three-year terms are Deborah Aceves, Cody A. Makela, Kyle Slattery and Leslie Zomalt. Elected to one-year board terms are Anthony Grumbine, president; Michael Neal Arnold, first vice president; Tara Wood, second vice president; Cody A. Makela, secretary; Kyle Slattery, treasurer; and Deborah Aceves, immediate past president.