Jaime Balboa (he/him/his), Executive Director
Jaime Balboa serves as Executive Director of 826LA, a position he accepted after discovering that his original career as a 19th-century traveling poet offered neither health insurance nor reliable access to indoor plumbing. Now firmly rooted in the 21st century, Jaime works to ensure that young people across Los Angeles have the tools, mentorship, and encouragement to write their own stories and perhaps alter the timeline in the process. When not raising money, plotting 826LA’s future, or reminding staff that changing the past requires Board approval, Jaime can often be found swimming laps in the Cretaceous Period or wandering the Time Travel Mart looking for the decade in which he left his cell phone.

Diego Quevedo (he/him/his), Chief of Staff
Diego is 826LA’s Chief of Staff, serving as part strategic time-bender, part problem solver, and full-time guardian of organizational effectiveness. He keeps a watchful eye on finances, human resources, and operations while helping the organization plan for a future in which every young person has the opportunity to tell their story. When he isn’t balancing budgets across multiple timelines or safeguarding the Time Travel Mart’s financial investments, Diego can be found turning complex administrative puzzles into systems that keep 826LA moving forward, preferably without creating any unnecessary wormholes.

Shani Foster, Ed.D (she/her/hers), Director of Education
Shani serves as 826LA's Director of Education, specializing in orchestrating learning journeys across time and space, guiding teams of educators through multi-dimensional curricula, and ensuring every student's story reaches its rightful timeline.

Dr. Foster firmly believes that cultivating young voices is the ultimate tool for shaping a more equitable future. If you happen to spot her managing logistics for young authors traveling in from the year 3026 or fine-tuning lesson plans to help students outsmart rogue temporal paradoxes, don't worry. That's all just part of keeping the magic running.

Christie Thomas (she/her/hers), Director of Development
After a successful era navigating the 21st-century entertainment matrix, Christie Thomas initiated a chronological shift into the non-profit sector. Serving as Director of Development, she channels advanced fundraising methodologies to pull vast financial opportunities into 826LA’s present reality. Engineered by a lineage of educators, her prime directive is cultivating a passion for written communication in the youth of this timeline.

Pedro Estrada (he/him/his), Programs & Operations Manager, Echo Park
As 826LA’s Programs and Operations Manager, Pedro makes sure tutoring and field trips run like clockwork and the time machine doesn't backfire. His adventure with 826LA began over a decade ago when he materialized as Workshop Coordinator. Pedro believes that inside every young person is a legendary story waiting to be unleashed—no time travel required, just a blank page and a little imagination.

Mike Dunbar (he/him/his), Programs & Operations Manager, Mar Vista
Mike is the Programs and Operations Manager at 826LA for Mar Vista and the Westside community, where he occasionally works as a publication manager for Barnacle & Barnacle Publishers and oversees a closetful of snacks to fuel young writers.

He believes that the opportunity to freely explore reading and writing at a young age can spark a lifelong passion for learning as well as provide a deep source of joy, and cites as proof his own childhood of Saturday afternoons spent at the Palms Library.

Mateo Acosta (they/them), Associate Director of Community Engagement
Mateo serves as 826LA’s Associate Director of Community Engagement. They specialize in building partnerships across timelines, connecting educators, volunteers, and community leaders from every era to support young writers. Whether coordinating present-day collaborations or planning for futures yet to be imagined, Mateo is committed to ensuring every student has the platform to tell their story.

Carinne Kemp (she/her/hers), Store and General Operations Manager, Time Travel Marts in Echo Park & Mar Vista
Carinne has been working for 826LA and the Time Travel Mart since 2075. After living in Australia for a year and working with other non-profits she found a deep interest in giving back. She returned to her hometown of Los Angeles, and while gaining retail and management experience she realized that the future is now. Paradoxes aside, Carinne now manages both Time Travel Marts in their respective eras, oversees creative volunteers, and shares the 826LA mission and work with the public through store outreach and event support. Carinne enjoys traveling across the space and time continuums, cultures, food, and design, as well as spending time with friends and family.

Alma Carrillo (she/her/ella), Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Communications
Alma serves as 826LA's Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Communications. She specializes in forging alliances across centuries, convincing future philanthropists to invest in today's young writers, and ensuring every paradox is properly documented. Alma firmly believes stories have the power to rewrite history and occasionally the future. If you happen to spot her restocking the Jurassic snack aisle or negotiating sponsorships with visitors from the year 3026, don't worry. That's all part of the job.

Trevor Crown (he/him/his), Senior Manager of Volunteer Innovation & Assessment
Trevor Crown oversees creative writing workshops as 826LA’s Senior Manager of Volunteer Innovation & Assessment. If you say his job title twice while blinking rapidly, you’ll be transported to Mesolithic Ireland, where a man named Oighth will tell you the meaning of life in a language you cannot understand. He (Trevor, though perhaps Oighth as well) is a writer and educator devoted to inviting as many students as possible into the life-changing daily joy of creative expression. Good luck getting back.

Ariadne Makridakis Arroyo (she/they), Senior Community Relations & Communications Coordinator
Ariadne serves as 826LA's Senior Community Relations and Communications Coordinator, where she recruits kind humans (and the occasional time traveler) to support young writers. When they’re not connecting volunteers, corporate partners, and communities to 826LA's mission, they’re usually writing love letters to the moon, wondering whether dinosaurs believed in the Oxford comma, or trying to stay on the good side of Professor Barnacle (the possibly fictional head of our publishing house), who is forever threatening to shut everything down—unless students keep producing original stories!

As a writer herself, Ariadne believes every student has a story worth telling and is passionate about helping them find the people and opportunities to tell it. 

Katie Feige (she/her/hers), Institutional Giving Manager
Katie is 826LA’s Institutional Giving Manager, which means she’s always living in the future, working to raise funds for next year’s programs and searching for the next book to add to her TBR list. As she navigates reporting on the past and working for the future, she tries to stay in the present by hanging out in programs and navigating the Los Feliz - Silverlake - Echo Park tri-neighborhood area, searching for Professor Barnacle.

Arisdeysi Cruz (she/her/ella), Tutoring Program Coordinator
Arisdeysi is LA-born and raised, primarily in East Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Echo Park. She earned her BA degree in Creative Writing and her MA in Humanities from California State University, Northridge.

She needs her daily dose of coffee and a to-do list. One day, she stepped into a wormhole and stayed to facilitate 826LA’s Write On! After-School. As the Tutoring Programs Coordinator, she hopes to continue to create a fun, whimsical third space for students, sharing her love of writing, reading, and crafting. She wants students to see these activities as necessities in life for a better yesterday.

Marco Beltran (they/them), Writers’ Room Program Coordinator, Manual Arts High School
As a neanderthal who accidentally time-traveled to the present via wormhole, Marco has come to understand how written communication can be pivotal to creating strong interpersonal connections in their community as well as for their role as Writers’ Room Program Coordinator at Manual Arts High School. They provide students with various forms of writing support to students throughout the Los Angeles area while trying to figure out modern technology like “car” and “how light bulb turn on without fire”

Wendy Beltran (she/her/hers), Writers’ Room Program Coordinator, Roosevelt High School
Wendy is the Senior Program Coordinator at 826LA and is an experienced time traveler, or at least that’s what it’s felt like since, for as long as she can remember, walking to the local library with her mom provided her with stories that brought her to all kinds of places. At 826LA, she uses her love for words and alliteration to help students find their voices. Bringing confidence and joy to writing is her passion, and as an experienced anthropologist, she welcomes any member of the Hominidae family, regardless of their cranial capacity, to tell their story and preserve it for future generations of readers. 

Cole Montgomery (he/him/his), Development Manager

Cole is the Development Manager at 826LA, working with donors, the Associate Board, and the Development Team to successfully fundraise an annual budget of $2.6 million. He brings a deep knowledge of nonprofit arts education and a fearless mindset when it comes to data to raise money with creativity and transparency. A childhood membership to a weekly Goosebumps book club at his local bookstore and a first job at B. Dalton Bookseller apparently set him on the path to work for a youth writing and tutoring organization where the mission is vital, the people are passionate, and the magic is real.

Ariana Ponce Olivares (she/her/ella), Senior Civic Engagement Coordinator
Ariana serves as 826LA's Senior Civic Engagement Coordinator. She specializes in recruiting volunteers from every era, matching time-traveling mentors with aspiring young writers, and making sure every timeline has enough caring adults to inspire the next generation. Ariana believes every great story has the power to shape the future. Whether she's welcoming volunteers from Ancient Greece, Victorian London, or the year 2526, her mission remains the same: to ensure every student has someone who believes in their voice and the stories they have to tell.

Wilson Swain (he/him/his), Creative Engagement Specialist
Wilson is the Creative Engagement Specialist for the Time Travel Mart at 826LA. With a background in illustration, especially in the world of kids' lit, he not only helps time travelers find everything they could possibly want or need--all in the most timely of manners- he also works with artists, designers, and vendors to develop essential products for our preeminent Time Travel hub. Making sure the Mart reflects what is most important about our organization's mission: meeting students, not just where they are, but also when.

Julia Malinow (she/her/ella), In-Schools and Tutoring Program Coordinator
Julia works as an In-Schools and Tutoring Program Coordinator at 826LA, overseeing two after-school tutoring programs at the Mar Vista Writing Lab and the Writer’s Room at Venice High School.

She can often be found teleporting between all the special corners of the Mar Vista neighborhood, teaching young students the superpower of finding their own voice. While in a past life, she enjoyed teaching dinosaurs to read the classics, she now loves getting to read and publish her students’ stories in books from this timeline.

Caz Shen (they/them/theirs), Store Associate
Caz serves travelers of all divisions of the timeline as a Store Associate for the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. They can often be found chatting with customers, finding spare time where you might’ve lost it, and telling passerbys whether or not the leeches we sell in the store are “real” or not. Passionate about the mission of 826LA, Caz loves working on creative projects to add to the store and celebrate student writing.

Gabriela Romero (she/her/hers), Field Trips and Operations Coordinator
Gabriela is the Field Trips and Operations Coordinator at 826LA, where she schedules and leads field trips for both Echo Park and Mar Vista sites. With the help of a little bottled time (and our amazing volunteers), she manages to produce an entire book full of student stories in under 3 hours!

Through her continued partnership with Professor Barnacle, she hopes to continue to provide a fun and exciting experience for all students who enter the space. And do not fret, if you don’t catch her now, you’ll see her then.