New CEO

Canadian Barbara Robertson, who has held a succession of finance, operations and administrative positions with several area nonprofit organizations, has been named president and CEO of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara.

Robertson studied business economics at the University of British Columbia and accounting at the British Columbia Institute of Technology before working as a consultant, first at Peat, Marwick and Partners in Vancouver.

After relocating to Santa Barbara in 1989, she was appointed fiscal director for the city’s Community Housing Corp. and in 1993 became director of finance for the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, a position she held for 11 years.

She was also vice president of finance and administration at the Music Academy of the West before rejoining the Scholarship Foundation as operations director in 2011. Appointed chief operating officer in 2016, she served as the foundation’s interim president and CEO from February to December 2018.

Rest in Peace

On a personal note, I offer my condolences to Summerland winemaker and Santa Barbara Polo Club player Bilo Zarif, who has just lost his son, Jason Davis, at the all too early age of 35 in Los Angeles.

Jason, who voiced the character of Mikey Blumberg in the Disney animated series Recess, had long been open about his struggles with substance abuse and co-founded a charity, Cure Addiction Now.

Bilo was married to Jason’s mother, Nancy Davis, daughter of the late Texas oil tycoon Marvin Davis, owner of the Beverly Hills Hotel and 20th Century Fox, who died in 2004 aged 79.