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The leadership for CIR consists of a full-time Director, President and Board of Directors. The Director is located on-campus in the school’s career center and works full-time Monday to Friday during school hours and after school. The bio for the Director is below. The CIR president oversees the Director, sets goals for the program, develops strategy and has primary responsibility for fundraising. The President’s bio is below. The board is comprised of the President and four outside directors, all of whom are also involved in the program as mentors and donors. Bios for the board members can be clicked on below.

Stephanie Puentes was born and raised in Salinas, California, and recently graduated Cum Laude from the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Psychology with a minor in Public Policy. She is the first in her family to attend and graduate from a four year university and is extremely passionate about education issues. Before College is Real she was involved with student issues at varying capacities. Last year she was an intern in the Office of Congressman George Miller where she was exposed to the legislative process. Throughout her undergraduate career at Berkeley she was dedicated to demystifying higher education in order to improve the number of Latinos in higher education as well as retain those already on the Berkeley campus. Stephanie plans on pursuing her masters in Public Policy in order to one day shape and develop education policy that provides equal access to education for all students.

Brad Blake is founder and president of “College is Real.” The program was founded in the fall of 2005 at Richmond High School.

Mr. Blake is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Blake Hunt Ventures (www.blakehunt.com), a private commercial real estate development, investment and services company based in Danville, California. Blake Hunt Ventures has developed over $400 million of retail projects in the Bay Area since 2001. Mr. Blake also is co-founder and managing partner of Quattro Realty Group, LLC (www.quattrorealty.com).

Mr. Blake was the former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Western Properties Trust from February, 1998 to November, 2000. Western was a publicly-traded real estate investment trust that merged with Pan Pacific Retail Properties in November of 2000. Western owned and operated 55 properties, mostly grocery-anchored shopping centers, encompassing 5.5 million square feet in California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada. Mr. Blake was also formerly Managing Director of Pacific Retail Trust and President of PRT Development Corp. (1996-98), Senior Vice President of Spieker Properties (1993-96), Partner with Spieker Partners (1988-93), and a Project Director with Trammell Crow Company (1985-87). Prior to that he worked for IBM and McKinsey and Company.

Mr. Blake holds a B.A. from Stanford University (1980) and a M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (1985).

Mr. Blake is a board member of Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation, a director of Bailard’s REIT’s, a former member of the Young Presidents Organization and a former Trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers. He has coached youth soccer for sixteen years and participates in a variety of sports.

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