Meet the Board

Elisa Sumakeris
President
First Term July 2010-July 2013

Elisa Sumakeris is a native of California, but has spent most of her life in North Carolina.
She graduated from North Carolina State University with a BS in Zoology, from UNC-Chapel Hill with a Masters in Microbiology and Infectious Disease, and from North Carolina State University as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.  She worked for a few years as a large animal veterinarian in Chatham County, before joining the CareFirst Animal Hospital group in Raleigh and Morrisville.

Elisa and her husband Joe live in Carpenter Village in Cary, and have 3 children.  Her oldest daughter, Kathryn, started kindergarten in 2004, and her younger two children, Joanna and Luke, started preschool in 2006.  She has held multiple leadership roles in the Sterling Montessori Parent-Faculty Association, including President for the 2009-2010 school year.  In her spare time, Elisa and her family enjoy hiking, camping, and boating on Jordan Lake.

Lorrie Tomek
Secretary
First Term March 2011-March 2014

Lorrie Tomek has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer  Science from Binghamton University, a Masters of Science in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at  Charlotte, and a Ph.D. in  Computer Science from Duke University.   Throughout her professional career, Lorrie has worked for IBM both at the Charlotte and Research Triangle Park locations.  She has worked in a variety of areas including network architectures, WebSphere middleware, and virtualization and cloud computing.  She is currently a Senior Software Architect. Lorrie and her husband Brian have one daughter, Sarah, who is currently a fourth grader at Sterling Montessori.  Lorrie enjoys gardening, reading, and sharing time with her friends and family.

Jenna Geigerman
Treasurer

Jenna Geigerman is experienced with all aspects of commercial real estate and leading small companies.  Her formal education includes degrees from MIT and UNC, Chapel Hill.  Her career progression is affordable housing development for a Boston non-profit, real estate consulting, asset management for a REIT, and running affiliated agencies for a title insurance company.  Her most recent job was COO of an architecture firm responsible for operations and finance.

Jenna’s professional career is coupled with active volunteering with TCREW, Sterling Montessori, Tarheel Diving Association, Girl Scouts, and her church.  She has a fifth grade son at Sterling who has been enrolled since Kindergarten.  Her older daughter attends Cary Academy.  Jenna’s hobbies include reading, travel, and half marathons.

Patrick Brown
Director

Patrick Brown is a North Carolina native, born in Wilmington and raised in Cary.  He graduated from the NC School of Science and Mathematics for high school, UNC-Chapel Hill for undergraduate with a BS in Biology and minor in Marine Sciences, and Campbell University for law school.  He is a licensed Patent Attorney and is licensed to practice law in North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.  He was in private practice for approximately 6 years in the areas of real estate, civil litigation, and creditor’s rights.  He currently works for NC’s bar-related mutual legal malpractice insurance company, advising attorneys on risk management and malpractice avoidance.

Patrick has served as the Building & Grounds committee chair for the LHU since joining in the spring of 2012.  He and his wife Katherine live in Holly Springs, have three children currently enrolled at Sterling, and have been a Sterling family since 2010.  Patrick has also been a licensed PADI Dive Master since 2002, completing his training on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Cristina Gillanders
Director
First Term March 2008- March 2011
Second Term March 2011-March 2014 

Cristina Gillanders is a native of Venezuela and has lived in the United States for more than 20 years. She graduated as school psychologist in Venezuela and obtained a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been involved in the field of early childhood education for many years as a bilingual early childhood teacher, director of an early childhood program, teacher educator and researcher. Currently she works as researcher in FPG Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her work focuses in the learning and development of young children who are dual language learners, professional development practices for teachers, and school reform efforts in early childhood education.

Cristina has two children, Nicholas who is currently in high school and was in Sterling from 5^th to 8^th grade, and Gabriela who started kindergarten at Sterling in 2004. Cristina and her children enjoy hiking, reading, dancing and traveling.

Lynne Ritter
Director
First Term March 2011-March 2014

Lynne Ritter is a contractor with Rankin McKenzie LLC. Her children are Mackenzie Lamb, a middle-school student, and Christian Lamb, a fifth-grader in D20. The Ritter/Lambs have been at Sterling since 2003.

Sandeep Bhattaram
Director
First Term March 2011 – March 2014 

Sandeep moved to theUnited States from India about 15 years ago.  He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) –Bombay with a Masters Degree in Technology, after which he pursued a Ph.D. in Distributed Databases from IIT Bombay. He has been with IBM for more than a decade and has worked in the NJ / NYC area with the big 5 financial companies, Poughkeepsie Development Center on Mainframe Operating Systems and is currently stationed at RTP as an IT Architect for Cloud Computing.

Sandeep and his wife Padmaja have their son, Dhruv, in the 6^th Grade at Sterling. They are very passionate about providing the best possible learning opportunities for children who want to explore.  Sandeep volunteers frequently at Sterling to teach Middle School Math to 4^th, 5^th and 6^th Graders. His passions include Carnatic Classical Music, playing chess and tennis with his son and going on long walks with his wife.