Our People

Meet Our Team

The people beside them.

Razing the Bar is built by people with lived experience, people who know this road from the inside. Every member of our team walks beside young people on the road from Survival to Sufficiently Self™.

Leadership

Leading the work.

Dontae Lartigue

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dontae Lartigue knows the road from the inside. A native of the Peninsula, he spent his first years in East Palo Alto, entered foster care at a very early age, and grew up in San José in shelters, group homes, and foster placements. Mentors invested in him along the way, and that changed everything.

Dontae earned his associate degree in Liberal Arts and Social and Behavioral Sciences from De Anza College and his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from San José State University. In 2017, he co-founded Razing the Bar on what his own road taught him: no one should have to walk it alone. He has served on the Santa Clara County Continuum of Care Board, the Board of Destination: Home, and Destination: Home’s Lived Experience Advisory Board.

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Brandy Wright, MNA

Chief Operating Officer

Brandy Wright joined Razing the Bar in June 2026 to build the structure that holds the work up: the systems, policies, and people that keep the homes open and the road clear.

She brings deep expertise in the HUD Continuum of Care Program, federal grants management, nonprofit financial accounting, and California employment and landlord-tenant law. At Razing the Bar, she leads operations, finance, human resources, and compliance, and built Razing the Bar University, the organization’s year-long training curriculum for its team.

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Community Mentors

Walking beside young people, every week.

Our Community Mentors meet with young people each week, helping them set and reach the goals they choose, from a first lease to a first paycheck.

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Angelina “Lina” Rodriguez

Lead Community Mentor

Lina is a community advocate, organizer, and systems-impacted leader with more than a decade of experience supporting youth, families, and individuals navigating the child welfare and legal systems. Her work is rooted in her lived experience as a former foster youth and a deep commitment to healing, equity, and self-determination.

She brings relationship-centered, trauma-informed practice to her work, with experience building programs that center cultural identity, family reunification, and community-based healing. At Razing the Bar, she is dedicated to ensuring that those closest to the issues lead the work.

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Carlos Yepez

Community Mentor

Carlos is a former foster youth whose journey to Razing the Bar is a testament to resilience, determination, and the power of giving back. Having lived the ups and downs of the foster care system, he understands firsthand the obstacles young people face.

As Razing the Bar’s longest-serving Community Mentor, Carlos channels that experience into walking beside young people every week, through mentorship, connection to resources, and showing up for the goals they choose.

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Mike DiGino

Community Mentor

Mike brings powerful lived experience to his work, having navigated both the foster care and justice systems. He uses his journey as a bridge for authentic relationships, building trust with the young people he walks beside.

Known as a true man of the people, Mike was rooted in community long before he became a mentor: showing up, giving back, and leading with consistency and care. At Razing the Bar, he helps young people rewrite their narratives and reach their full potential.

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Alondra Orozco-Contreras

Community Mentor

Alondra earned her bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies from UC Santa Cruz. Her passion for advocacy and hands-on service led her to Razing the Bar, where she draws on her own lived experience to build the kind of connection with young people that others have failed to make.

She believes there is no better way to invest her time than walking beside young people as they get back on track.

Operations and Life Skills

Keeping the homes open and the table full.

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Raymond Lopez

Operations Coordinator

Raymond keeps Razing the Bar’s homes running day to day and coordinates our weekly community food market, where young people come together around a full table.

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Tony Louangprasert

Culinary and Life Skills Instructor

Tony leads our hands-on cooking workshops, teaching the everyday skills of feeding yourself and running a home. He holds food handler and food handler manager certifications.

Board of Directors

The people who hold us accountable.

Ty Thompson, M.A.Ed.

Board Chair and Co-Founder

Ty brings more than 20 years of experience working directly with young people, in juvenile halls and ranches, homeless youth shelters, group homes, drop-in centers, and special education classrooms. He has helped create collaborative programs for current and former foster youth in Santa Clara County and has mentored young men through Big Brothers Big Sisters since 2002.

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Amber De Buizer

Board Secretary

Amber serves as Secretary of Razing the Bar’s Board of Directors.

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John Hogan

Board Treasurer

John serves as Treasurer of Razing the Bar’s Board of Directors.

Jennifer Kelleher Cloyd, JD

Director

Jennifer is a Certified Child Welfare Law Specialist and former Chief Program Officer at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. She helped establish Advocates for Young Adults in Sacramento County to support youth transitioning out of foster care, and in 2014 was named one of Silicon Valley’s most influential women by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Nick Pham

Director

Nick is a real estate professional with more than 20 years of experience in zoning, land use, development, and property management, including feasibility work on supportive housing projects. A former Planning Commissioner for the City of San José, he has served on the executive boards of local, state, and national real estate organizations.

Delrisha White

Director

Delrisha is a social impact leader who confronts educational inequity and injustice through education and storytelling, drawing on her own family’s experience with the child welfare and justice systems. She holds a master’s in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Want to walk beside them?

We’re always looking for people who show up and stay. Reach out about joining our team or volunteering.

Get in Touch

Razing the Bar, Inc. · 1400 Parkmoor Avenue, Suite 240B, San José, CA 95126 · A California nonprofit public benefit corporation and 501(c)(3) public charity · EIN 80-0441705

CONTACT US

1400 Parkmoor Avenue, Suite#240
San Jose, CA 95126
(669) 215-5310
information@razingthebar.org

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