iFoster is a national non-profit with over 40,000 members across all 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico. An estimated 500 new members join iFoster every month. iFoster’s mission is to ensure that every child growing up outside of their biological home has the resources and opportunities they need to become successful, independent adults. 

iFoster Team

Serita Cox, Co-Founder & CEO

Serita is responsible for strategy and programs. As the driving force behind iFoster, Serita brings to bear her personal experience with foster care, devoted commitment to a number of youth development initiatives, and over a decade of experience in executive-level management in Silicon Valley, corporate strategy consulting and non-profit strategy consulting. Despite all this corporateness, she is also the person "most likely to be hugged" by a client. For her work with iFoster, Serita has been recognized as a White House Office of Social Innovation Citizen Innovator, an Echoing Green Fellow, and an American Leader of Change.

Reid Cox, Co-Founder & CFO

Reid is responsible for partnerships and financials. Reid provides over a decade of experience in executive-level management, investment banking, business development, financial reporting and corporate communications. Reid has come a long way from a two room school house in rural Canada and is a first generation college graduate. For his work with iFoster, Reid has been recognized with the AARP Purpose Prize.

Deb Cromer, Director of Program

Deb is responsible for our iFoster Jobs Programs and helps lead iFoster programming. A multi-talented dynamo, Deb is also a lawyer and communications specialist. So she can help our youth expunge or seal their records, prep Serita or Reid for an interview, and ensure the next cohort of youth are ready to be employed. All in a day’s work! Prior to iFoster, Deb was supporting transition-age foster youth at the Alliance for Children’s Rights in LA and had worked for years in Edelman Children’s Court in LA representing children and youth in foster care.

Kristine Schneller, Business Development

Kristine is responsible for engaging business partners and "getting the deal". Kristine's experience in sales and marketing, as well as with Yelp!, are invaluable assets as she works to create new relationships with companies wanting to support our community. Kristine is very lucky to have been adopted into a great family as a child and has had a passion for child welfare ever since.

Stephon Baines, Member Specialist

Based in the Bronx, Stephon represents iFoster in New York. He spends his day sourcing new resources for the local community and making sure foster youth, their caregivers and the organizations that support them know about iFoster and how our services can help them. A former foster youth himself, Stephon loves helping out his NYC peeps!

Melissa Cunningham, Member and Job Specialist

Melissa is the first person you'll talk to when you call iFoster and works all our youth in the iFoster Jobs Program. Melissa takes care of everyone. Looking for tutoring or how to cover daily living expenses? Want to sign up for iFoster or enroll in our jobs program? Just having a hard day and need someone to listen. Melissa is here! Growing up in the Central Valley, Melissa is no stranger to the daily struggles our youth in foster care face. She meets youth where they are and helps them get on the right path to success.

Jenny Mallabo, Tech Support
Jenny is responsible for the daily operations of our 1 Laptop program. Jenny makes sure your laptop gets ordered quickly and gets to you. She'll call to let you know it is on the way then follow-up to make sure your laptop is working fine. Jenny can help with any laptop issues you might be having and she'll make you feel great too! 

Laura Lomeli, Job Specialist

Laura partners with Melissa on managing our youth in the iFoster Jobs Program. Her focus in on youth in Southern California and she works on not only helping them get a job, but makes sure they have all the resources they need to be successful. A former foster youth herself, she can help youth getting ready to age out make that transition to independence.

iFoster Board

Lyn Farr (Board Chair)

Lyn brings over 30 years of human service administration and direct service experience to iFoster. Lyn retired in 2013 as the COO of EMQ FamiliesFirst, California’s largest non-profit children’s agency with services across the State. EMQ FamiliesFirst is recognized as a leader in innovative services that include mental health, foster care and other services that help children, youth and their families recover from complex problems and rebuild their lives. Over the course of her career, she has also worked directly with other population groups including children with developmental disabilities and their families and adults with serious and persistent mental illness. 

Keirsten Quest (Board Vice-Chair)

Keirsten is an Organization Development and Human Resources Consultant.  She teaches coaches and teaches communication, leadership, change management, strategic management and related courses to public, private and non-profit organizations.  She facilitates meetings and retreats with passion and strategies that supports the team’s results.  Ms. Quest creates a dynamic and energetic learning and facilitative environment based in best practices and, applied to the workplace.  

Michael Maxfield (Board Treasurer)

In his 20 years with HP/Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mike has served in a variety of finance positions, including Controller of the Americas Consulting business and most recently as manager of the Americas Enterprise Group Pricing Strategy Finance team, with responsibility for pricing strategy across HPE’s server, storage, networking and services businesses.  Prior to joining HP, Mike was a Senior Associate in the Audit and Business Advisory Group of Arthur Anderson LLP.  He is a CPA and resides with his family in Rocklin, California.

Robert Beaudry (Board Secretary)

Since 2007 Robert has served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the California Primary Care Association (CPCA), a statewide association serving 175 community clinic corporations and over 1,000 individual sites providing comprehensive primary healthcare to over 5 million patients in California. Prior to joining CPCA, Robert spent twenty years in community based organizations and held management and leadership positions with several large children’s services organizations including Victor Treatment Centers, River Oak Center for Children, and the Sacramento Children’s Home. With a leadership background that includes systems management, team development, organizational development and culture, Robert’s career has focused on improving organizational performance and efficiency in non-profit corporations. Robert is currently on the Board of several Sacramento based youth focused non-profits.

Richard Knecht

Richard brings nearly 30 years of experience as a former Chief Operating Officer and Senior Executive in both private and publicly based mental health systems. He is the retired Director of Placer County's highly regarded Children’s System of Care, where he constructed unique models of Parent and Consumer lead services, and where Child Welfare, Mental Health and Juvenile Probation Services are uniquely integrated. He is presently a private consultant and founder of Integrated Human Services Group, LLC. Richard recently served as the first Transformation Manager to the state of California, providing guidance and system wide technical assistance to the state’s implementation of its youth and family shared management structure. 

Holly Kuebler Britt

Holly is currently on maternity leave from her position as the Director of Gift Planning at Georgetown University where she works to secure ongoing, sustainable funding for this prestigious institution. Previously, Holly was the Associate Director of Planned Giving for The National Trust for Historic Preservation where she works to secure revenue to save America’s historic places through estate and other deferred gifts. Prior to joining The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Holly worked as an Attorney for Gammon & Grange, P.C. where she represented and counseled a variety of nonprofit organizations, businesses, media companies, and individuals in a number of matters including nonprofit and exempt organization law, intellectual property, communications, employment law, and civil litigation.  

Eric Bruns

Dr. Bruns is the Director of the University of Washington WrapAround Evaluation and Research Team; Co-Director, National WrapAround Initiative; Co-Director, Washington State Children's Mental Health Evidence Based Practice Institute; and Associate Director, UW School Mental Health Assessment, Research and Traning (SMART) Center. Dr. Bruns directs the National Wraparound Initiative. He is also the UW lead for the Technical Assistance Network for Children's Behavioral Health (TA Network), a new national technical assistance center for States and communities funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human  Services, SAMHSA. He served as Editor of the journal Report on Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Youth and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

Jeff Newton

Jeff Newton is the Vice President of Business Development for Freight Handlers (FHI), a national logistics company. He is a strategic business executive with more than 35 years’ experience in the food supply chain.  During the past 19 years, he has held several senior management positions with FHI, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing labor solutions company. Before joining FHI, Jeff served as chief operations officer for A&M Cleaning Products, the company behind “Greased Lightning” and other premium cleaning products. Jeff is one of the visionaries who helped design and launch the iFoster Jobs Program, bridging the need for employees in the grocery industry with the untapped potential of foster youth in need of living wage careers.

Extended iFoster Family

Mahesh Chand, Chief Architect and Developer

Mahesh Chand is the Chief Architect and Developer of iFoster's unique online platform. Mahesh directs ongoing development and continual management and maintenance of our .net platform. As the founder of C# Corner, one of the most popular online communities for Microsoft developers and programmers, Mahesh is uniquely able to work with Serita's "visions" for the iFoster web platform and never says something can't be done. Mahesh is an 11x Microsoft MVP Developer. 

Social Change Partners

Sean Hughes and Reed Connell are our dynamic duo with legislators. Representing iFoster on the Hill in DC and State Capitols, Sean and Reed work iFoster's legislative agenda including our Improved Employment Outcomes for Foster Youth - our first Federal bill. Sean is a former Congressional staffer who helped work on the transformative Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 which extends foster care for youth to age 21 and provides additional funding for adoptions. Reed was instrumental as an advocate to getting California's AB12 law which is California's implementation of the Federal Fostering Connections to Success Act. 

Our iFoster Youth Ambassadors

You see these incredible young people, all current or former foster youth, representing iFoster at resource fairs, school events, community networks and social service meetings in your community. These young people represent iFoster, show people the website, explain our resources and help foster youth, foster parents, kinship caregivers and even social workers find the resources they need to help their kiddos. Got a question about iFoster, look for the smiling Youth in the iFoster polo - they know the answer!