For the first time in 45 years, Richard Mayer won’t be on the Goleta Union School Board.
Will Eric Bowers, an attorney for Sonos, and parent of two children, take his seat?
Unless someone applies by the 4:59 p.m. Thursday deadline, Bowers appears to be the man to fill Mayer’s shoes.
Mayer told the News-Press he is not seeking re-election, and Bowers was the only one on the ballot as of Tuesday evening.
Eric Bowers, an attorney for Sonos and a parent of a Mountain View Elementary School first-grader, is running for Trustee Area 1 on the Goleta Union School Board.
As a trustee, he wants to bring back some of the programs that were cut during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as music and PE, through partnerships with organizations like the Goleta Education Foundation.
Bowers is also advocating for minimizing screen time for younger students and more intentionality with the tech platforms introduced to older students. He wants to uphold a culture of good governance on the board and ensure students of all backgrounds feel comfortable in the district.
He’s been endorsed by Santa Barbara County 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann, members of the Santa Barbara Unified and Goleta Union school boards, including Emily Zacarias and Ethan Bertrand, and the Goleta Parents for Tech Reform.
“I’m doing this for my kids,” Bowers said. “I’m a parent in the district, and I think it’s important that we have those voices on the board.”
The 44-year-old grew up in Goleta and attended Foothill Elementary School, Marymount of Santa Barbara—now The Riviera Ridge School—and Dos Pueblos High School. He attended UC Berkeley for undergraduate studies and Indiana University for law school.
He is currently an attorney for Sonos, where he’s worked for 13 years, specializing in corporate governance. He and his husband Mike Petrich live in the Goleta Valley and raise two children— a two-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, who will be a first grader at Mountain View , where Bowers previously served as vice president of its PTA.
A holistic public school education
Though a newcomer to the world of Santa Barbara County politics, his roots are firmly planted in Goleta schools, where he said he “grew into the man that he is now.”
He said his experiences in the public school system in Goleta and Santa Barbara taught him the value of a well-rounded education.
His fourth-grade teacher at Foothill, Mr. Whitman, was particularly transformative for him. Bowers remembers a musical theater production on California history he did with his class—one way his teacher made “boring” subjects more fun for a nine-year-old.
“It really brought home a lot of what we were learning into a really creative and interesting format,” Bowers said. “It was just a well-rounded experience, which was really important. Because at that age, you don’t really know what you want to do with your life. Having a good basis of education in all the different subjects is extremely important.”
Bowers said that creativity in the classrooms is essential to a holistic education, noting that creativity doesn’t just happen in art classes but also in math and science.
“When you have these young minds that are developing and creating new connections and their brains are really moldable at that point, music really helps you create a lot of those creative connections that then serve you in your other academic pursuits,” Bowers said.
Strong investment in these programs, he argued, also prevents parents from transferring their kids out of public schools.
“If you aren’t providing those sorts of things, then you start getting situations where the parents that can pay for tutors, whether it be math tutors or something like that, are doing so,” Bowers said. “And then you have inherent inequity in our systems that is problematic.”
A culture of good governance
For Bowers, that kind of policy work is inseparable from how decisions have to get made in the first place.
He was formerly the chair of the Board of Hospice of Santa Barbara, where he helped manage multimillion-dollar budgets, and is a five-year board member of the Pacific Pride Foundation.
“The basis comes from public schooling,” Bowers said. “Having that ability and thinking kind of in an elastic way comes from the education that you get in elementary school.”
His husband recounted when Bowers mobilized into action when Montecito Pet Shop, Petrich’s family-owned business on the Mesa, caught on fire a year ago, which was started at a nearby massage parlor.
Bowers immediately ordered new products and pet food and made calls to other local pet stores for assistance. He also found a storage unit to temporarily operate the pet store and ensured employees were still given work hours. Just a few weeks later, Petrich and Bowers found a vacant spot in the same Mesa shopping center and re-opened it three months later.
“Some people may throw in the towel, but he really stepped it up,” Petrich said. “As a small business, this was a big deal…He’s very good at troubleshooting, which inspires me. He always sees the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Bowers said that one way the district should be more proactive in its approach towards bullying, and one way is by teaching about diversity.
If elected, he’d push for strong anti-discrimination policies and school libraries to stock books with diverse characters and stories.
In recent years, policies on technology use in the classroom have also become a more contentious issue.
“There are so many voices that need to be included in that conversation, and I do want to make sure that teachers have a voice in that,” Bowers said. “Because they should not be forced to use certain programs without actually being able to comment on them.”
Parent representation on the board
Bowers believes parents should also have a voice, noting that the decision to run for school board is ultimately a personal one.
“What happens at the district level affects me,” Bowers said. “It affects my friends, it affects my kids’ friends. It is important to me to make sure that we have a voice in what’s happening.”
