This is Jeremy’s 10th and final year at St. Monica. Jeremy and his wife Dr. Tracey Roden have been parishioners at St. Monica since 2014-15 where their two boys Jack and Jude first attended K and Pre-K. Jack is now a freshman at Bishop Lynch where he plays lacrosse. Jude is now in 8th grade and plays varsity football (#18) for St. Monica where he scored 7 touchdowns during the 2022 season. Jude also plays AAA baseball (Outfielder, 1st, LH Pitcher) for the Dallas Bandits. Their daughter Delaney Carolina is a freshman at Arkansas where she is studying criminology.

Jeremy and Tracey have volunteered on various committees throughout the last 10 years at SMS, including Autumnfest, Christmas Market, NOWF and multiple Galas. Jeremy served as Secretary for Dads’ Club in 2016-2017, Gala Chair in 2021/22, and Vice President in 2022/23 and is eager to once again serve and contribute to the needs of St. Monica School and community. Jeremy holds a bachelor’s degree from UNT, a M.Ed from Concordia University Texas and an MBA from LSU where he teaches in the MBA program. He is also a drummer and singer in the St. Monica originated Dad band OKOTB. In his spare time, he loves watching LSU sporting events with his family and friends.

Fun Facts: Jeremy designs and builds custom electric guitars in his home workshop and was an animator of special fx for Paramount Pictures on the Academy Award Nominated film, Jimmy Neutron in 2002.

St. Monica has been his home since 2009 and is a father of 4 (3 Bearcats so far in 6th, 3rd, and 1st grades), a decorated Army veteran, Eagle Scout, and a graduate of Indiana University. He is currently a Cloud Architect.

Brian serves across the St. Monica community. He holds an elected position in the St Monica Knights of Columbus as well as serving as their technical director. He is a part of the Sunday Mass Usher Team and was elected to the School Advisory Council (SAC) where he has served for the last 3 years. He has also volunteered to coach a variety of SMS YMCA teams.

Brian has been a very active supporter and member of the Dads’ Club serving as Gala Chair, Gala Sponsorship Chair, Gala Raffle Chair, Chief Pastafarian, and was elected twice to DC Board Secretary, and most notably helped organize the 2019 Chainsaw Brigade in response to the devistating tornado that impacted the surrounding community.

Sam Ackels is a lifelong parishioner of St. Monica. Sam, and his wife Katie, volunteer and serve to assist the St. Monica Community in many activities including, Dads Club, PTO, Coaching, and Legacy Endowment Events. Sam has two children at St. Monica, in the 3rd and 1st Grade and their family works to promote and preserve the St. Monica Community for today and the future.

Fun Fact about Sam: Sam won the 1993 St. Monica School Field Day Sportsmanship Award and still has the trophy prominently displayed in his office! Sam also sings and plays guitar in the bands OKOTB and Brother Landry.

Mike is a Harvard graduate and business tax lawyer at Haynes and Boone. His family has been at St. Monica for almost 15 years. Mike has a 21-year-old son who is a graduate of both St. Monica and Jesuit, an 18-year-old daughter who is a graduate of St. Monica and a rising senior at Ursuline, and a 9-year-old son Michael, who is a rising fourth grader at St. Monica and plays drums. He came to St. Monica when his oldest son came home one day and decided he was done with his current school and wanted to try a new school. They toured St. Monica and fell in love with the community.

Fun facts: Mike spent a year and a half as a missionary in Honduras and sings and plays guitar in the band OKOTB with Jeremy and Sam.

Bio coming soon.

Zach is extremely dedicated to every project that he starts. He is a loving father to three SMS boys: Rider (3rd Grade), Mason (PK4), and Jax (Age 2). Zach is dedicated to his family and friends, and to finding solutions and making things work. Zach served as silent auction chair for Dads’ Club Gala during the 2022/23 school year and was eager to serve on the 2023/24 board as secretary.

Zach’s professional career is defined by seeking out new challenges. As a young child, he would read instruction manuals cover to cover, and that inspired him to pursue a degree in Corporate Communications with a minor in technical document writing at Texas Tech. Upon graduation he pursued IT where he spent a fair amount of time writing how-tos for the less technically inclined. But, the waves of Hawaii called him, so he dropped everything and moved to Hawaii to see what would happen. While in Hawaii he put his IT experience to use working in electronic security as a systems engineer. Zach travelled across the Pacific doing work for the Navy, Army, and several banks and corporations. Zach met his wife Michelle there and somehow convinced her to move with him back to the states to pursue a job opportunity in San Francisco.

After four years as an embedded engineer at eBay/PayPal leading the security technical services team, Zach felt the need to take on a new challenge.

Zach was a principal member of the team that put together the Northland Control’s GSOCaaS, (Global Security Operations Center) the first of its kind in the industry. Drawn to the newness and excitement, Zach jumped right in to figure out how Northland could connect to clients’ different security systems and deliver remote GSOC services seamlessly. From specifying the hardware to pricing to onboarding, Zach played a critical role and was part of onboarding Northland’s first 12 Managed Services clients.

Zach took a brief hiatus to work for Avigilon (a Motorola Solutions company) with a manufacturing facility located in Plano, TX. After only a year, he was called back to Northland Controls as a Director of their Managed Services Division.

Shortly after returning to Northland Controls Zach welcomed a second child to the family, but not before racing to complete his MBA, and subsequently supporting his wife through an acoustic neuroma. He is the definition of "challenge accepted" and his guiding philosophy is to say yes when other people say no.

Aaron served as Dads’ Club President for 2022/23 and has been a member of the St. Monica community for 7 years. With his wife, he has been an active member of the community; serving as the soccer coach and volunteering to support the many activities and fundraisers that assist our school. Aaron is a dedicated dad and husband to his two beautiful daughters and wife. He considers family the most important thing to him, demonstrated through his commitment to the school and community that is helping grow his girls in faith and spirit.

Justin is in his sixth year supporting the Dads’ Club. He has served as the Prohibition Gala Chair in February 2020, Vice President in 2020-2021, and President in 2021-2022. He has two wonderful girls attending St. Monica (Kindergarten and 3rd Grade). Justin currently serves on the DC financial committee and continues to be a valuable asset to the St. Monica Dads’ Club a community.