About YPM | The Executive Board | Committees | Chapters

Here we are, the YPM Executive Board. Instead of bore you with education and career accomplishments, we thought we’d share the stuff that really matters…

Clockwise from top-left: Zach Brooks, Matt Wells, Griff Foxley, Sonja Rasula, Brendan Piper, Marguerite Moreau

Gabriel Botnick, Treasurer
Occupation: Creator
Vices: Port Wine, Neckties, and Project Runway
Inspirations: Great Minds (writers, businessmen, artists)
3 things I love in LA: Sushi, Hiking the Canyons, Smelling the air outside the See’s candy factory
Movies I can’t live without: Blazing Saddles, The Godfather (I & II)
My mixed tape has to include: Some old school hip hop
Cause I’m most passionate about: Environment
Something very few know about me: Nothing…I’m an open book

Zachary Brooks (Zach), Secretary and Outreach Director
Occupation: English Teacher, Business owner (AppleESL.com), freelance writer, speaker and advocate (National Kidney Foundation), graduate student in linguistics.
Vices: I react poorly while driving. I obsess over an ideal of beauty. I get too emotional, have a temper, allow myself to focus on negative things. I can get angry in Spanish and I use it sometimes. Not nice. I have a hard time forgiving. Other than that, I’m perfect like everyone else.
Inspirations: People with passion inspire me. People who have everything and still find a reason to give inspire me. People who work all day, then go to school inspire me to. The civic leaders who set aside space for parks such as Griffith Park many years ago inspire me. What value they created but not having every square inch of space used for lame, boxy developments.
3 things I love in LA: I love the diversity of LA. Whenever I go somewhere else, I always miss the richness of the people of LA. There are so many different people here that get along pretty well. That’s impressive. I love the fact that there are mountain passes in the middle of the city. I love when it rains in LA.
Movies I can’t live without: Gattaca, Blade Runner, Step Mom
My mixed tape has to include: I’m a dork when it comes to music. I used to be dance in a company and I developed a love for house music. I like sophisticated beats with people who compose music over those who slap tracks together with cheap, dollar store glue.
Causes I’m most passionate about: Young Progressive Majority and creating more educated and empowered voters who act. You have to feed democracy to eat at its table. Raising awareness about kidney disease. 10% of Americans have kidney disease, but no one talks about. It needs to become a sexy disease. Look at me. Exchange programs. I established and have run a youth exchange program between Europe and the United States for 15 years.
Something very few know about me: I’m a fantasy sports junky. Last year I played in 9 fantasy basketball leagues. I won 8. I played soccer in Europe.

Evan Carter, Director of Research
Occupation: Network Security Consultant
Vices: Politics and good beer
Inspirations: Robert Kennedy, John Lennon, FDR
3 things I love in LA:
Movies I can’t live without: Big Lebowski, Bladerunner, High Fidelity, Usual Suspects, Three Kings, Hard Days Night, Bulworth, Dr. Strangelove, Chinatown, The Insider, Annie Hall, All the Presidents Men, Manhattan, Moulin Rouge, Children of Men
My mixed tape has to include: Electronica and lots of it
Cause I’m most passionate about: Public Transportation
Something very few know about me: I have spent time writing analysis of states politics for only myself.

David Joshua Levy, Co-Founder and Fundraising Director
Occupation: Composer/Entrepreneur/Uniter
Vices: South Park, political news shows, actresses
Inspirations: Henrik Goreki’s 3rd symphony, Gustov Holst’s The Planets, Flash Gordon, Gandhi,
3 things I love in LA: Venice, Babe and Ricky’s, The Wiltern
Movies I can’t live without: Into The Wild, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, The Thin Red Line, Cady Shack, All the President’s Men, Eternal Sunshine . . . .,
My mixed tape has to include: Frank Zappa, Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Megadeth, Arch Enemy, Muse, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson, Bill Frisell, Aaron Copeland, God Speed You Black Emperor, Police, U2, Led Zeplin, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Public Enemy, Radio Head, John Zorn, Def Leppard, Queen, Pantera, Bon Jovi, Heart, Any Ozzy, Crowded House, Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, Body Count, Boston, Avenged Sevenfold, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Neutral Milk Hotel, Coheed and Cambria, The Mars Volta, Calexico, Iron and Wine, Ben Harper, Billy Holiday, Wes Montgomery, Beck.
Cause I’m most passionate about: Education
Something very few know about me: My first album was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I was 8 years old. I used to make my little sister and her friends dance to it in formation with me, and when they screwed it up, I screamed and got violent with them.

Marguerite Cecile Moreau, Volunteers Director
Occupation: Actress
Vices: never met a donut I didn’t admire… talking back to my mother
Inspirations: are a daily necessity in “L.A.”
3 things I love in LA: World Class Blues, Movies 24-7, Fig Trees
Movies I can’t live without: But I try
my mixed tape has to include: Something bootylicious
Cause I’m most passionate about: enjoying this short life.
Something very few know about me: I’d like to keep it that way.

Brendan Piper, IT and New Media Director
Occupation: Digital Media Producer
Vices: Coffee, Irish Whiskey, The Internet, The Written Word, and a Crowded Dance Floor
Inspirations: Umberto Eco, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Friedman, Richard Dawkins
3 things I love in LA: The Art Scene, The Best Movie Theatres, Empty Freeways at Night
Movies I can’t live without: Lawerence of Arabia, The Third Man, Barry Lyndon, Indiana Jones
My mixed tape has to include: Daft Punk, David Bowie, CSS, Seu Jorge
Cause I’m most passionate about: Education
Something very few know about me: I make a mean balloon animal

Sonja Rasula, Executive Director, Director of Marketing & Events
Occupation: Martha Stewart for the MTV GenerationVices: sneakers, chocolate malts, french fries, cheese, magazine subscriptions
Inspirations: nature, architecture, urban landscapes, my aunt anna and uncle eddie, Tokyo, Paris, vintage stationary and wallpaper, great public transportation systems
3 things I love in LA: The Rose Bowl Flea Market. 99 Cents Only stores. And a tie between buying bags of fresh fruit (loooove the coconut) on street corners/the historic architecture downtown.
Movies I can’t live without: Flirting with Disaster, Your Friends & Neighbors, Best in Show, The Anniversary, Rear Window, Killing Zoe, The Women, The Age of Innocence. All Woody Allen, Hitchcock and John Hughes flicks.
My mixed tape has to include: Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, Feist, M.I.A., Arcade Fire, Metric, Stars, Lil Kim, Bonnie Raitt, Jill Scott, Stevie Wonder, Beck, Jeff Buckley, Elliot Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Outkast, EPMD, Blackstar, Daft Punk.
Cause I’m most passionate about: Green Design (living a greener lifestyle, and advocating for more green space in LA)
Something very few know about me: I was the proud founder and president of “The 90210 Club” at my high school. We would book AV equipment and classrooms so we could watch the show at lunchtime. And I have narcolepsy. Really.

Kabira Stokes, Co-Founder, Communications Director
Occupation: LA City Council Aide
Vices: noodle soup, Sex and the City, vintage shopping
Inspirations: Dr. Martin Luther King, my aunt Roz, Kauai
3 things I love in LA: walking in the hills, the Mustard Seed Cafe, Little Tokyo
Movies I can’t live without: The Big Lebowski, Lives of Others, The Philadelphia Story (Jimmy Stewart, not Tom Hanks)
My mixed tape has to include: radiohead
Cause I’m most passionate about: violence prevention
Something very few know about me: I never went to Kindergarden. It’s true.

Matt Wells, Research and Events
Occupation: Theater Producer, Tutoring Manager
Vices: Chess, Star Trek, CSPAN, In and Out Burger, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, tuna fish.
Inspirations: Los Angeles, My Family
3 things I love in LA: (1) The Lakers (2) Label’s Tables Deli (near Pico/Robertson) (3) KCRW
Movies I can’t live without: (1) Magnolia (2) Harold and Maude (3) Groundhog Day (4) Network (5) Young Frankenstein (the movie not the musical)
My mixed tape has to include: Wilco, Stevie Wonder, The Flaming Lips, Belle and Sebastian, Johnny Cash.
Cause I’m most passionate about: Let’s get LA Moving and build those subways already!
Something very few know about me: I published my own monthly entertainment magazine for two years in elementary school. All my friends were the contributing reporters, and it was called The Original Buzz Magazine.

Griff Foxley, Communications/Research Specialist
Occupation: writing, branding, communications
Vices: HBO, indulgent foods, reading too many books at once
Inspirations: are just about everywhere I look… all that matters is that I continually train my eyes to see them.
3 things I love in LA: biking, fresh produce, my crew
Movies I can’t live without: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko, Almost Famous (guilty)
My mix tape has to include: Radiohead, Aphex Twin, something you’ve never heard of 
Cause I’m most passionate about: sustainable business practices, environment, green
Something very few know about me: In the second grade, I wrote, illustrated and hand-bound a book called “The Hero”, in which a young boy on a nearly constant sugar high from ice cream ingestion devises and enacts a plan to save his island town from devastation by volcanic eruption.