Temp Keller, Founder and Board Chairman
Awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2004 for the power and promise of RISE's work, Temp has been building the organization since the summer of 2000. He previously taught fifth grade at the East Palo Alto Charter School in East Palo Alto, CA, where he now serves on the school's Advisory Board. Temp received his B.A. in Politics from Princeton University and his Masters in Business Administration from The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Temp also sits on the organization's Board of Directors and thus collaborates with staff, partners, and fellow Directors to expand, develop, and implement organizational assessment, development, and expansion capabilities.

Jim Ahrens, President
Jim has had a long career in operational and financial leadership. In the non-profit world, most notably as Executive Vice President for Finance and Operations for Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties, a leading Bay Area non-profit. His business experience culminated as Vice President of Financial Planning for PRN, a national media company acquired by Thomson, S.A.  Prior to that, he served for fifteen years as a senior executive for Great Lakes Paper, where he was COO and CFO. In that role, he had oversight of international operations, including the first working US joint venture in the former Soviet Union. Jim's career began in information technology as a software developer for Nixdorf Computer in Paderborn, Germany and subsequently as an independent project manager for such companies as McGraw Hill, SCI Systems and Honeywell.  He has also served on various boards, and was a founding board member of Lincoln Park Emergency Shelter, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary as a multi-program social service agency in Chicago. He received his B.A. in mathematics and computer science from Northwestern University.

Tamar Tamler, Senior Vice President of Programs
Tamar has worked in the education sector for over ten years.  She joined RISE in April of 2007 as the organization's first remote regional executive director.  As Los Angeles Executive Director, Tamar increased RISE Partner School membership in the Los Angeles metro area  from 11 schools in 2006-2007 to 35 schools in 2008-2009.  Before joining RISE, Tamar was Program Director of Career Academies for the Urban Education Partnership, overseeing programs that helped 1,300 students in six high schools within Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) develop high levels of academic competency enriched by exposure to business and industry related knowledge and practices. In a previous role, she was Director of Training and Support for the New Teacher Project in Los Angeles, planning and executing six-week pre-service trainings for more than 700 new LAUSD teachers. In addition, Tamar taught middle school Humanities at The Computer School in New York City. She started her career in education at the DreamYard Project, a nonprofit organization that integrates the arts into K-12 academic curriculum in New York City public schools, where she worked on both teacher professional development and fund development. Tamar received her BA in psychology with honors from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MPA with a concentration in education policy, from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.