BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Lauren Sanders
Executive Director
Aida Owens
Treasurer
Born and raised in Detroit, educated at Detroit Country Day School and the University of Michigan College of Engineering, Aida brings a strong commitment to education to the SONShine Project. Her formal degrees include a BSE in Industrial and Operations Engineering, an MBA in General Management, and an AAS in Accessories Design, but her passion is fashion.
Automotive seats are surrogate dress forms in her current work as a Platform Manager in the Leather Division of Lear Corporation. Prior to joining Lear, she worked in various positions within the automotive industry including Engineering, Product Design, Program Management, Purchasing, Sales, and Commercial Account Management at companies that included Ford, General Motors, ITT Industries, Acument Global Technologies, and GKN Driveline.
Having an older brother 8 years her senior afforded Aida the opportunity to see the world unfold for a young Black man as he navigated Morehouse College and beyond. Now, as a mother of 2 school age sons, she seeks out the same type of support her own mother did, and finds society to be lacking.
Black young men are the most under-supported and under-invested group of people in society and have the heaviest burdens to overcome she has come to see. Her desire to be the change she wants to see in the world led her to the SONshine Project to be an active part of uplifting our sons (and brothers, and fathers).
Kimberly Dokes
Secretary
TRACIE HIGHTOWER
Advisor
Tracie was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. She’s a graduate of Fisk University with a Bachelor of Science In Physics. She moved to the Detroit Metro area after developing her career as an electronics engineer for both the Department of Defense and Motorola Semiconductor.
Tracie shifted her discipline to multimedia, video production, and editing for corporate training and documentary productions after attending Specs Howard. She worked for local firms and eventually founded Kemet Digital Media, LLC, a small video editing and design boutique to support small businesses with marketing materials.
While raising her daughters she saw the critical need for schools to be more intentional in their use and application of educational technology within instruction. She decided to study for her Master of Science in Instructional Media from Wilkes University/ Discovery Channel.
Armed with her Master’s she began consulting and developing after-school programming at two of Metro Detroit’s most prestigious schools, the Roeper School and Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School. She led transformative programming resulting in new learning spaces as and curriculum centered around interdisciplinary, project-based STEAM instruction that included virtual and augmented reality, drones along with diversity equity and inclusion and design approach to problem solving across the schools.
She enjoys speaking engagements where she has been asked to share best practices with hundreds of educators at local and national conferences. Tracie started her consulting practice, Collective Flow Learning, LLC which seeks to support nonprofits and mission-driven organizations to grow and sustain their business models with sound and practical problem-solving and capacity building through innovative communities of practice.
She and her husband Ed live in Metro Detroit and they enjoy all the adventures of having two daughters, both at the University of Michigan. Nia, a biomedical engineering graduate student and graduate of Purdue University and Kali, a Ross business student and dance major at SMTD, along with being on the UM Dance Team.