Our founding team comprises experienced entrepreneurs, event producers, and business professionals with a proven track record in the non-profit sector. We are passionate about bringing this vision to life and creating a lasting impact on the cultural landscape of Palm Springs.
Bryan Hughes, Founder / Executive Director
Bryan is a consummate entrepreneur, business man, and artist having started 3 companies and sold one to Nokia. In the nonprofit world, he has raised $890K for the Russian River Alliance (www.russianriveralliance.org) where he helped resurrect the organization to help pay rent and utilities during COVID, and $400K for the non-profit Equitable Access California (www.eqac.org) that he founded to install free public Wi-Fi in 8 unincorporated rural communities in Sonoma County. While creating a rich career in technology, Bryan has a BFA in Art from CCAC (now CCA) and has always been immersed in graphics and music in one way or another. In the late 80s, Bryan was one of the first minor pioneers in Virtual Reality working with Eric Gullichsen at Sense8 giving lectures and demonstrations all over the world, including with Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna (but that was a different life).
Juan Garcia, Co-Founder / Director
Juan has been an event producer and planner for over 27 years. His broad experience includes Entertainment and Art Director/ Producer for the Castro Street Fair for 12 years, drawing over 300,000 attendants.
One of Juan’s accomplishments is an incredible San Francisco Fog Themed private dinner event he project managed/produced when he worked for the amazing event planning company, RFI.
Hector Yee, Co-Founder / Director
Hector is a technical artist with awards for his work like the team Emmy for YouTube’s personalized video recommender system. He has worked as a rendering specialist and artist at movie studios such as DreamWorks on movies such as Shrek 2 and Madagascar and as a game programmer on hit games such as Star Wars Empire at War and Command and Conquer Renegade. He is currently a research scientist in the field of artificial intelligence. He brings his expertise on computer graphics as well as computer and human perception to the team.
Doug Klein, Co-Founder / Director
Doug is a serial entrepreneur with several decades of experience founding and leading technology companies in Silicon Valley. His experience covers a broad range of executive positions, with a particular passion for the intersection of customer needs and product realization. From his early years of building customer service teams, he brings a strong ability to help guide the mix of technology, business expectations, and customer experience to successful deliveries.
Fred Bothe, Co-Founder / Director
Fred is on the board of directors and Director of Events for Lazy Bear Fund, a grass-roots, non-profit organization the produces Lazy Bear Week in Guerneville that attracts up to 3000 people. Lazy Bear gives all of their profits to causes like clinics and schools and food banks. We help kids and seniors, people living with HIV, or struggling with addiction. To date, Lazy Bear has raised over $2M for charities.