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Leaders in the San Ramon Valley looked to the future last week and honored local rising stars during the State of the School District event.
Their second annual “30 Under 30” recipient list is chock-full of standout alumni from the four public high schools in Danville and San Ramon, young adults making their marks in fields like public safety, entrepreneurship, medicine, the arts and education.
“Hearing the stories of our 30 young alumni honorees gives me great hope for the future – not just the next two years, but the next 50,” San Ramon Valley Unified School District Superintendent CJ Cammack said in a press release after the morning ceremony Oct. 30 in the Village Theatre in Danville.
“They are talented, resilient and humble achievers who have confidently stepped out into the world, pursuing their dreams with passion and perseverance,” Cammack added. “I am immensely proud of how they credit their education in SRVUSD for laying the foundation for their varied paths and I know that they will continue to make the world a better place.”
Going through the list, I have to concur with Cammack’s call on hope for the next generation – after admittedly getting over the personal hurdle of that phrasing, since I now find myself closer to my 40s than my 20s like these young women and men are.
A partnership with the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation, the program aims to recognize SRVUSD grads born in 1993 or later who “have made a significant impact on or contribution to the San Ramon Valley community; and/or have achieved their college and/or career goals; and/or have accomplished something else significant or impactful along their pathway since graduation.”
The district received 53 nominees this year and used a blind review process with representatives from the foundation, city of San Ramon, town of Danville, Diablo Valley College, PTA council and the wider community to whittle it down to the top 30, according to Ilana Israel Samuels, SRVUSD’s director of communications, family and community engagement.
These Tri-Valley success stories include Anthony Carbone, a member of the elite Navy Air Rescue team (San Ramon Valley High School class of 2021); BART police officer Travis Dulaney (California High School, 2021); San Ramon Valley firefighter Tyler Oranje (Cal High, 2016); and Garrett Steffen, a firefighter-paramedic in Redwood City (SRVHS, 2017).
Steffen also represents local business owners on the list — the lacrosse coach now runs the downtown Danville gym where he trained as a teen athlete, renaming it Iron Horse Fitness and Sports Performance. Taylor O’Hanlon (Dougherty Valley High School, 2014) operates O’Hanlon Brass Instrument Repair in San Ramon while still playing music around the Bay Area.
Former Wolves baseball standout Anthony Villa is director of player development for the Baltimore Orioles. Anand Kannappan co-founded and serves as CEO for Patronus AI. Michelle Koo is a senior software development engineer at Workday. Caroline Mendel co-founded financial tech startup Pluto.
Others in business and innovation were Courtney Cheng, Ritika Mitra, Hannah Wald and Erika Wheeler.
The health field was well-represented: Nathan Gilbreth (emergency medicine physician), Olivia Jones (school psychologist), Julia Karczewski (occupational therapist), Bryant Li (chronic disease pharmacist), Natalie Oberhauser-Lim (pediatric emergency medicine), Deepika Pugalenthi Saravanan (medical school) and Alagu Subramanian (medical school).
In education, there were Jessica Caston Di Dio (who teaches at Twin Creeks Elementary), Kiara Smith (teaching at Cal High), Sayam De and Benjamin Freiman.
Also: Ariela Castillo (culinary), Colin Cook (aptly, culinary too), Jacob Freiman (music), Isabella Ordaz (ministry) and Maddy Pisio (communications).
And close to home for me, professionally, was journalist Sejal Govindarao, who covers Arizona state government and politics with a focus on women’s issues for The Associated Press — I’ll even forgive that she’s a GW grad, the No. 2 university in Washington, D.C. in my book.
Gary Alpert, board president of the education foundation and a parent of two district alumni, perhaps summed it up best:
“These remarkable individuals exemplify the strength and quality of education in our schools, and each honoree has forged a unique path toward success. Recognizing their diverse accomplishments reminds us that our collective future is bright, thanks to the extraordinary contributions as demonstrated by these former SRVUSD students.”
Learn more about this year’s SRVUSD “30 Under 30” honorees online at www.srvusd.net/alumni.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com. Walsh is an alumnus of American University in Washington, D.C. – thus the GW dig in jest.
