Nick Sandoval
Chair
Nick Sandoval has spent his professional career in the nonprofit sector and has extensive experience working with the Latinx community in Monterey County. He has worked as a community organizer working with agricultural worker families and as a health educator. He is currently working as a behavioral health therapist at a community health center.
He was raised in East Salinas and educated in the Salinas public school systems. He is a veteran of the US Marine Corps. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Masters degree in Holistic Counseling Psychology.
In his free time, he enjoys hiking the Central Coast parks, spending time with family and friends, visiting museums and cultural performances and listening to different genres of music, especially folk music from Latin America.
Ted Rico
Vice Chair
Ted Rico has spent his entire adult life working in nonprofits, government, and education. He is currently a special education teacher at an elementary school in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. In the past, he has worked at a non-profit providing free immigration services to low-income (primarily farmworker) clients, at the United States EPA doing research and case development, directed a family resource center in the Pajaro Valley, worked as a library archivist, founded and directed a non profit providing education focused on animals and the environment, taught at the university level, and worked as program director of a non-profit doing community organizing and leadership development in the Salinas Valley (focused primarily on farmworkers and public health). He has served on several non profit boards of directors, including organizations focused on immigration, animals/environment, youth sports, and art.
He received bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Community Studies at UC Santa Cruz, a Juris Doctor Degree from New College of California School of Law, as well as a teaching credential in special education from CSUMB.
Stefan Jaskulak
Treasurer / Secretary
Stefan Jaskulak is the Treasurer and Member of the Board for Hijos Del Sol, bringing a professional financial background to the organization. As his day job, he is the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Administrative Services for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Los Altos, California, responsible for finance, information systems & technology, geospatial information systems, human resources, procurement, and grants management, and has received various leadership awards for finance and innovative technology.
Previously, Stefan was Deputy CFO for DeKalb County and the City of Atlanta, receiving the Bond Buyer Deal of Year Award for the Southeast Region in 2011. As Director of Cash Management for the City of Los Angeles, he received the AFP Pinnacle Award (Grand Prize and Strategy) and London based Treasury Today’s Adam Smith Award for the Virtual City-Virtual Bank conversion project. Prior to joining the City of Los Angeles, Stefan was Assistant Treasurer/First Vice President of Corporate Finance at IndyMac Bank overseeing treasury operations (cash management and disbursements), structured finance (commercial paper and repo facilities) and treasury systems.
At times, Stefan is also an instructor and frequent speaker at various conferences for professional organizations, public and private sector. His experience spans the public and private sectors in the United States in addition to consulting in The Netherlands with over 30 years in the finance profession and more than 20 years of Treasury experience.
Elizabeth Gonzalez-Jaskulak
Elizabeth Gonzalez-Jaskulak is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has been a mental health therapist since 1996. She has extensive experience in working with the Latinx community in California and Georgia. She worked for the County of Los Angeles County for over 16 years with most of those years at the Department of Mental Health treating consumers suffering from chronic mental health conditions. She is trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and SandPlay Therapy. She was part of the DBT treatment team at Harbor-UCLA for years, Director of the Spanish- speaking CBT team at Harbor-UCLA, and brought DBT to a community mental health and substance abuse center in Norcross, Georgia.
Most recently she also joined the board of Hijos Del Sol, a Latinx arts organization that works with Latinx youth in the Central coast of California.
She has a Bachelors in Psychology and studied Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. Additionally, she has a Masters in Social Work from University of California, Los Angeles.
Danika Jaskulak-Gonzalez
Danika Jaskulak-Gonzalez is a Computer Science and Engineering student based in San Francisco, CA. She primarily works with Front End Web and Design as her focus, drawing her to art and color theory as a result. Coming from a multicultural background with art being a focus, working with Hijos del Sol goes along with her mission of broadening students' education in art. In the past, she has worked with Girls Who Code, Girl Up, and Google and is now working to bring art into Computer Science and close the gender gap in the field.