Anthony (Tony) Asaro
Current Position: Choral Teacher
Department: Performing Arts Faculty
Tony Asaro, known as Maestro in his classroom, is a California native. He grew up in San Bruno, and attended Santa Clara University. Singing has always been something he loves. He says that “when you do things that people pay attention to you for, you do more of it and that’s how I started singing.” Beginning at a young age, he remembers times when his grandmother would teach him songs and have him sing for her friends. He says it wasn’t until high school that he got bit by “the theatre bug.” In his professional career, he has founded a theatre company called “Focus on Golden Gate” (or F.O.G.G.). They perform locally relevant and historical musical productions about the Bay Area. “My career has been both choral music and musical theatre and I write musicals, that’s the thing that I do outside of school.” Asaro hopes that while at Lick he can “make musical theatre and vocal music more of a draw that people come here for. That would be the ideal.”
Raul Betancourt
Current Position: Chemistry Teacher
Department: Science Faculty
Raul Betancourt grew up in California and has taught at many schools around the Bay Area, including The Bay School and East Palo Alto Academy. He also spent a few years teaching in Japan. He was drawn to Japan to further his study of Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and to continue his journey as a student of Zen. While in Japan, Betancourt ended up falling in love with the art of floral arrangements, or Ikebana. “I was in Japan, and I was looking for something to do and my friend brought me to her flower arranging class. The teacher set up some flowers, showed me what to do, and I got into it. It’s sculpture, I really liked it, and it made sense to me.” Betancourt brought this practice home with him; he’s currently working on a project where he picks flowers from beneath the bridges in Oakland and makes arrangements out of them. He describes this project as a “ symbol of resilience and beauty.”
Jared Green
Current Position: LSC Associate
Department: Learning Support Center
Jared Green is a LWHS alumnus of the class of 1994. Although he spent the past four years in North Carolina teaching English at an arts high school, he says that he’d always planned to come back to the Bay Area, as “it’s home.” When asked why he returned to Lick he says, “I came back to Lick because I’ve always had a soft spot for this place. I coached soccer here for nine years before I went to North Carolina. So when I knew I was coming back I looked for a job at Lick. I applied, and I got it––it was very exciting!” Green is one of the people on campus that has experienced LWHS as both a student and faculty member. He says, “It’s definitely different being here as an adult, but it also feels very familiar.” He says that the school has changed in some regards. “Physically the school has really changed. When I was here it was just the front, main building, the old cafeteria and the old shops. The library didn’t exist. Yet the feel of the school is pretty much the same, the people are pretty similar.” He says that his two primary role models are teachers he had at Lick. “Mr. Sanborn is one of them, he always stayed very calm and kept a controlled manner, even when he threw me out of class. And the other is the old wood shop teacher Mr. Sichi, because he was very tough, loud love.” Jared Green is excited to be back on campus.
Terry Eckhart
Current Position: Facilities Manager
Department: Operations Administration
Terry Eckhart grew up in the East Bay and is familiar with much of the Bay Area. He has a broad and diverse background; he has worked in a range of fields and occupations. He spent two years working with Guide Dogs for the Blind, a nonprofit located in San Rafael that trains highly proficient guide dogs to serve individuals who are blind or have low vision. He is also a certified divemaster; he started diving in the Marine Corps. Eckhart describes his diving experience, saying, “I worked as a volunteer rescue diver for a while for the Peace Department.” Eckhart’s passion for volunteering coincides with Lick’s emphasis on community outreach. Although he’s previously worked in other schools, he’s excited to be in a high school environment. When asked about his experience at LWHS so far he said, “Honestly, I’m amazed by the caliber of the students.” Most days Eckhart can be found in the Facilities Office, working away to maintain our school.
Antony Reyes
Current Position: Spanish Teacher
Department: World Languages
Antony Reyes worked at the Urban School for ten years prior to coming to Lick then took a year off to live in Colombia. Last year he worked in San Francisco as an independent contractor, translator, tutor and part time teacher. Reyes says he, “really loves Lick’s mission of having a private school with a public feel. I love how there are different types of people in the faculty, staff and student body. I am also intrigued by the head, heart and hands mission.” He is taken aback by how profound the diversity here is, and has really enjoyed getting to know the students and faculty. A few small fun facts about him are that he rides his bike to school everyday and coached soccer at Urban for the ten years he worked there. Although coaching soccer may not be in the foreseeable future here at Lick, Mr. Reyes is eager to find some other way to get involved in the community outside of his Spanish classes.
Tamisha Williams
Current Position: Dean of Adult Equity and Inclusion
Department: Academic Administration
Tamisha Williams joined Lick’s staff this year filling the newly created position of “Dean of Adult Equity and Inclusion.” When asked what drew her to Lick, she replied, “The position was a definite attraction to the school, seeing that the school was devoting resources to having someone come in to support the adult community, to better support the students. The school realized that rolling adults into the conversation was one of the missing pieces of the its work.” She loves the school culture (and having lots of tigers around): “There’s a nice flow and energy of people wanting to be here.” Outside of school some of her passions include African dance and she admits to loving the Disney station on Pandora. Williams grew up in Richmond, Virginia. She worked at the University of Richmond. She says, “I would have to say my student mentees at the University of Richmond served as a main inspiration, those students in general showed me how to live my truth and who I was. To be able to demand that the world see me.” Before Lick, Williams worked as the Director of Diversity Initiatives and Assistant Director of College Counseling at an independent school in New Mexico.
Erica Hill
Current Position: College Counseling Administrative Assistant
Department: College Counseling Staff
This year, Erica Hill joins Lick-Wilmerding’s college counseling team. Hill moved to Lick because she “wanted an opportunity to work in the field in which I was interested in making a career — college counseling.” She says she’s stunned by “the amount of support that is available here, the resources, the focus teachers and other staff members give to the students.” Her inspiration and role model is her “mom or just any other person of color who is doing it big in the system.” Juniors and Seniors may already be familiar with Erica Hill from their many visits to the college counseling office, but what they might not know about her is her love for scary movies.
Michecia Jones
Current Position: English Teacher
Department: English
Michecia Jones grew up in the Los Angeles area; she says she’s technically a “valley girl.” She moved up north to attend UC Berkeley and remained in the East Bay for ten years before moving to Michigan to get her master’s degree in education at the University of Michigan. As part of her master’s program she taught at a public high school in Ann Arbor. All of her teaching experiences prior to Lick have been in public and charter schools. She notes the main difference between working at a public school and working at an independent school, like Lick: “Students here are capable and want to do the work. Lick kids are eager to work and explore however much work I dish out to them. That happened to a degree in public school, but it wasn’t as universal.” She was drawn to LWHS because it was a different environment from what she was accustomed to. She says she first liked the diversity of students and staff, but then when she saw the texts that were assigned she was really excited about them, as they were texts she read in high school and college. “There was diversity among the texts, and they were books that I wanted to teach, that looked fun to teach.” Outside of school Jones admits to being an avid fan of Judge Judy.
Nikkia Willow Mintz
Current Position: Counselor and Health Educator
Department: Counseling
Dr. Willow Mintz was born in Middleton, Connecticut, but she moved to Southern California for junior and senior high school. She first became interested in working with youth when she began teaching gymnastics to little kids. “I just loved, loved, loved it! So, I did that through high school and college. And then, when I graduated college I became a kindergarten, second and third grade language teacher.” After college, she also worked as an assistant at a preschool. She says there were moments when she’d look at the preschoolers and she felt as though she could see them when they were forty years old or, she would have really clear “imaginations” about what their parents were like. She found that most times, once she met the parents, it lined up with what she guessed. “All the things I was studying and thinking about in my spare time and trying to bring into my teaching were about psychology. So I decided to go back to school and get my doctorate in clinical psychology.” She has taught many elementary and middle school grade levels, so she felt like high school was the appropriate next step in her career. “I’ve always wanted to put my generative energy into working with high schoolers, it’s where I want to make my investment in my career.” She says that working with high schoolers is particularly appealing to her because she finds the transition into the adult world “fascinating” and she’s excited to be a “supporter” for many students going through that transition.
Troy Yochelson
Current Position: Network Administrator
Department: IT
Troy Yochelson grew up in the small town of Sun Valley, Southern California. For the past 12 years he worked with the Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco, which serves homeless and low-income communities by providing them with housing, jobs, and resources to get them off the street. “At various times I served as their IT technician, a manager, a systems administrator, and the department manager.” Yochelson says he tries to take bits and pieces from every person he worked with and met through his time at the organization and integrate them into who he is. After working at ECS for so long, Yochelson felt like the amount he was able to contribute to the organization was decreasing. “I was looking for a new challenge in my professional career.” Yochelson admires how generally cooperative the faculty and the students at Lick are, “I’m used to being in an environment where people are generally more abrasive.” Outside of school, Yochelson prefers to dress in a t-shirt and kilt.
Brian Driscoll
Current Position: The Fund for LWHS Manager
Department: Development Office
Brian Driscoll grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Columbia University. While at Columbia he, “played basketball with President Obama on Friday mornings. Back then Obama was just Barry from Hawaii.” Driscoll paid his way through college by working as a sauté chef in a restaurant in Manhattan. He credits the man who gave him his first job in a candy store, when he was twelve years old as an important role model as “he treated everybody with respect.” Driscoll’s upbringing cultivated his passion for supporting low-income families and guided him to work with the organization Genesys Works, which takes inner-city high school juniors and trains them in IT and finance. These students then get a paid internship for the whole year. All of the students then go to college. Driscoll believes that without Genesys support, most of the students would have graduated from high school but would not have finished college. Driscoll was in charge of national fundraising for Genesys. He was based out of San Francisco and traveled around overseeing their other locations in Houston, Chicago, and Washington D.C.. He has spent the past decade working with organizations that have some kind of focus on social justice. Driscoll has worked at many schools, including Thacher in Ojai. He says before coming to Lick he had talked to Eric Temple a few times and wanted to work for someone who was a leader he respected and who valued diversity. Of his time at Lick so far he says, “I don’t have much experience in the arts, so it has been pretty interesting for me to see the emphasis on creativity and innovation.”
Louisa Chan
Current Position: Senior Accountant
Department: Business Office
Louisa Chan was born in China, and it wasn’t until she was 20 years old and entering college that she emigrated to America. Her parents had a large influence on the career path she’s chosen, “My dad worked in accounting and I watched and studied what he did. I inevitably got into accounting during college.” She says that her parents serve as her main inspiration in life as they “love and care for each other deeply.” Before coming to Lick she spent 15 months working as a property manager. Chan came to Lick mainly because she wanted to learn a new dimension of accounting and to work in a high school setting, rather than a company. “Lick is totally different from where I worked before. The actual accounting work is a completely different system. It’s also a shift that now I meet with the students rather than clients. But, the school has set up a lot of training sessions and meetings to make my transition here easy.”
