Meet Your New School Board: Brad Waller

On March 5, Redondo Beach voters elected three new members to the Redondo Beach Unified School District Board of Education to replace termed-out members Jane Diehl, Todd Loewenstein and Drew Gamet. Because only three people—Michael Christensen, Brad Serkin and Brad Waller—ran for the spots, all three were automatically elected.

Each of the three new school board members filled out a brief questionnaire from Redondo Beach Patch. Here are Waller's responses.

Patch: Why did you run for a spot on the Redondo Beach Board of Education?

Brad Waller: I have been volunteering with schools since my daughter started in preschool with the Parent Committee there, and the PTA and PTSA as she moved along at the elementary and middle school levels. I have been very active as a board member in multiple levels of the PTA (unit, Redondo Beach Council and 33rd District), and I see becoming a member of the school board as an extension of that work.

I want to make sure we are doing what is best for the students in Redondo Beach. I love the PTA and what it can do, but I also think that I will be able to make a bigger impact through the school board. We have a great district that has been moving the right direction, and I want to make sure we continue in this direction while also being fiscally responsible. I believe that my experience and background is well suited to make an impact and keep the district moving along the right path.

Patch: What is your background?

Waller: I'm a product of the Los Angeles Unified public education system, having grown up in Woodland Hills, where I attended El Camino Real High School. I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in physics. After that, I worked for 13 years in the aerospace industry as a system engineer doing things I can't talk about working in advanced infrared technology, project management and marketing.

In 1995 I joined my present company, EPage Inc., building one of the first thousand "dot com" businesses. We started out with an online classifieds site, which is still active today.

I was also a pioneer in the online affiliate marketing industry, creating one of the original programs that pre-dated Amazon's own program. A few years back, I was on the formation team that helped start up the nonprofit trade association for the online affiliate marketers—the Performance Marketing Association—where I served on the inaugural Board of Directors.

Currently our business focuses on the mobile market, building mobile apps for iOS and Android. We have developed technologies that allow others to build apps affordably through a simple web-based interface, and we also build fully custom apps. All told, we have built and released somewhere near 200 apps.

Patch: What are your top three priorities as a member of the Board of Education? Explain.

Waller: I'm not sure if I have a top three list. Thinking on the fly, my first priority would be to build up the reserve to a more reasonable level. I think each person has a different definition of reasonable, but nobody thinks staying on the precipice at 3 percent makes sense. I also don't think it is something that will happen overnight. But it would be smart to build it up over the next few years, assuming the state follows through on its promises to increase our funding over the next seven years.

Next would be to make sure all employees are compensated fairly for their contributions. Everyone has taken a hit with the budget reductions the district has weathered, and everyone deserves to gain some of that back as our funding recovers. Exactly how that works out remains to be seen.

I guess the third priority would be to make sure that the Southern California Regional Occupation Center remains open. The governor's budget does not include any money for the two ROCs in California. There is nowhere else kids can learn the skills taught there it in our schools. It would be a huge loss; it is a unique institution in our area that needs to be funded.

Patch: In your opinion, what is the biggest issue facing RBUSD in the next few years?

Waller: The budget. The governor's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) is based on good ideas of letting us control what we spend our money on, but combining the slow recovery of funding (about seven years) to get us to where we were five years ago with the formula that disproportionately favors some districts over others will cause problems. Left as it is, our district will be at a disadvantage compared to the large urban districts like LAUSD and LBUSD, which will get far more funding per student. I would hate to lose our top teachers to these other districts because they would be able to earn more money there. All districts need to recover at the same rate.

Patch: Do you have children in Redondo Beach schools?

Waller: Yes, I have a daughter, Mari, who is currently an eighth grader at Parras Middle School. She really is looking forward to attending Redondo Union High School next year.

Patch: Is there anything you'd like to add?

Waller: I think a big theme for me is open communication. I want both employees and residents to be able to reach out to me and tell me about their concerns and what they like. The best way to make sure that we do our best on the board is to know what everyone thinks and make informed decisions. The bottom line is that I will do what is best for the kids.

For more information on the new school board members, see the profiles for Brad Serkin and Michael Christensen.