| Paul Merage is the Founder and President of the Merage Foundations. He is Chairman of Falcon Investment Management, a private investment management firm; Stoneridge Capital Partners, engaged in commercial real estate investments; and Silverpoint Investments, a private-equity capital company. Paul was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Chef America, a major manufacturer of frozen food products, best known for Hot Pockets®. He is active in a number of philanthropic endeavors, including the Merage Foundations. Paul is also a Trustee of the University of California, Irvine, and he serves on the Boards of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Pacific Symphony. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics and master's degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Marshall Kaplan is Executive Director of the Merage Foundations. He is the former Dean of the University of Colorado's Graduate School of Public Affairs, where he also headed the Wirth Chair and Institute for Public Policy. Marshall was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a principal in the policy advisory firm Marshall Kaplan, Gans & Kahn. He has written widely on urban policy, the environment, infrastructure financing, and poverty. He holds BA and MA degrees from Boston University and the MCP degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alejandro Tovares is the Program Officer for Children First. He joins us from the Oak View Renewal Partnership (The One Square Mile Community Development Model) where he served as Vice President of the Board of Directors and first executive director. Alejandro also held the position of Managing Director, INROADS/Southern California, Inc., an international career development organization for talented minority students interested in Corporate and Community Leadership. He managed satellite offices in Fresno, Bakersfield, Los Angeles and San Diego/Tijuana, Mexico. He was appointed member of INROADS de Mexico, Inc. Executive Training Institute as a guess lecturer. His affiliate organization under his leadership received the National Diamond Award for Affiliate Growth and Broad Shoulders Recognition for Corporate Expansion. Alejandro holds a Masters of Science degree in Community Clinical Psychology from California State University, Long Beach.
Yesenia Velez Ochoa is the Program Officer of the Merage Foundation for the American Dream. She joins us from Orange County United Way where she was the Community Development Director forging partnerships to financially empower low-income neighborhoods. Previous to that, she was Director of Stepping UP with Orange County Community Housing Corporation, a permanent housing provider for extremely low-income families. She holds a BA degree in Human Services from California State University, Fullerton, and MA degree in Higher Education and Adult Development from Claremont Graduate University.
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