Career Day

Claire Blocker is the principal and co-founder of Parc Studio, a full-service, boutique interior design team serving California. She is committed to developing customized designs for her clients, and works closely with them to create timeless spaces that will inspire. Claire takes great pleasure in being involved with every studio project and developing personal relationships with each client.

I look back at my time at SFHS as one of discovery and empowerment. My teachers nurtured my intellectual and cultural curiosity which eventually lead me to UC Berkeley, Venice Italy, then NYC to pursue a career in textiles. Over many years honing my design and business skills, I became an entrepreneur, teacher, and influencer. Known as the Trim Queen, I chronicle and share how the design community uses trimmings as a powerful tool in fashion, decor and DIY.

Hannah Gonzales is currently a Project Manager at McMaster-Carr, an ecommerce and industrial supplies company based near Chicago, IL. Her work is focused on business operations and people management, aimed at helping shape the hundred-year-old company’s continued growth and evolution. Previously, she spent three years in Washington, DC, working in the research & consulting and tech startup spaces at Quadrant Strategies and most recently, Morning Consult.

Tooka Zokaie is a Certified Public Health Professional and the Manager for Fluoridation and Preventive Health Activities at the American Dental Association. Her work includes educating and collaborating with community leaders on public health topics including community water fluoridation, tobacco cessation, school-based oral health, interprofessional collaboration, and nutrition. Her work integrates the importance of oral health when addressing total health questions.

Elizabeth is a higher education professional specializing in career and internship advising, program and curriculum development, and event planning. Throughout college at the University of Oregon, Elizabeth worked in the University Housing Office and was involved with the St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center through the student leadership team. After majoring in English and minoring in French and Business, she moved to France for a year to teach English through the Teaching Assistant Program in France. In Normandy, she lived in a house with six French roommates.

Selena Shannon has been a part of the UTA Inclusion & Human Resources team since September 2019. She helps to manage the company’s employee inclusion groups, inclusion trainings and speakers, and helps to facilitate HBCU and HACU engagements.

She previously worked at Circle of Confusion, a Management & Production company in Culver City. There she managed the internship program and social media accounts while establishing HR processes for the smaller-sized company.

After graduating from SFHS, I spent two years at Sacramento City College and received my AS in Science, Math & Engineering. I then transferred to UCDavis. While attending classes at UCDavis I worked as a technician at AT&T. I graduated with a BS Degree in Environmental Biology & Management. I stayed with AT&T for several years but the world of environmental issues was calling to me.

After working seasonal positions in the non-profit sector for a couple of years, I decided it was time to settle in to something more long term and start working for a private environmental firm. I absolutely love my job as an ecologist—I get paid to hike through the wilderness collecting seeds, wander through nature preserves with my binoculars and see what birds are present on-site, and best of all, plant trees. I think this field presents a great opportunity to combine a variety of interests and skill sets.

At St. Francis, Jen was involved with student council as her class VP and later SBO VP and a part of the tennis and track teams. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from UC Berkeley with a degree in Political Economy, and studied abroad for a semester in Berlin, Germany. After college, Jen pursued a career at Altria Group having various leadership roles in sales, project management, management, and client services/data analytics for six years living in San Francisco, Portland, and Dallas.

Christiane has over 25 years of experience in finance. She is a specialist in investor relations, currently leading the department at Five Below (Nasdaq: FIVE), a high growth retailer focused on teens and tweens with over 1,050 stores, including several in the Sacramento area. She previously held similar roles at Safeway and Shutterfly. She also worked in banking and finance at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, an e-commerce startup and a venture capital/mezzanine debt investor.

Katie Lucas is a visual artist and animator working in the video gaming industry. She graduated from SFHS in 2010, and received her bachelors in animation from Loyala Marymount University in 2014.

Katie has worked on all sides of the game development pipeline - including testing, design, marketing and production. As a game designer at Nix Hydra she developed interfaces and mechanics for multiple mobile titles.

Carolyn Perrin is a Director in the Monitoring & Evaluation Division of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). MCC is a US Government Agency that provides economic development grants to well-governed developing countries with the goal of reducing poverty through economic growth.

Dr. Sabrina Young is a Research Economist for the USDA’s Economic Research Service, focusing her research on safety net policy (especially SNAP, or “food stamps”), food insecurity, diet quality, and health across the United States. She has a BA in Philosophy & Government, an MA in Philosophy, and a PhD in Public Health. Sabrina’s journey to where she is now has been anything but linear.

After graduating from St. Francis in 2013, I had no idea what I wanted to major in as a freshman at Long Beach State. I loved my Spanish and English classes my senior year, but in the back of my mind I knew that I always wanted to work in healthcare. When I was browsing the course catalog in my dorm one day, I found “Communication Sciences and Disorders”, went to my first Anatomy and Physiology class, and knew this was the career for me.

April Fallon grew up in Sacramento and graduated from UC Davis with a BS in Civil Engineering and a few years later an MS in Civil Engineering at CSUS. She spent 7 years working in Civil Engineering before she had the opportunity to parlay her construction project management experience into a project/program management role at an internet startup. She loved the fast pace of hi-tech and after 8 years at several start-ups and weathering the internet dot com bust, she landed at Yahoo! where she ran a program management team supporting the Sales organization. After 7 years at Yahoo!

Sarah Vinson is a Project Manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in Roseville, CA. She graduated from UC Davis in 2014 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Sociology. At HPE, she has worked on two large transformation projects including complex tool implementations and enhancements. In 2016, she obtained her Project Management Professional Certification, a key industry-recognized certification offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Sonya Sorich has spent more than 15 years as a professional journalist, and is currently the digital editor of the Sacramento Business Journal. In that role, she manages the publication’s website and oversees its social media accounts. She also writes articles about retail, restaurants and other small businesses. During the past year, she’s covered a variety of small-business survival stories and analyzed ongoing tensions between landlords and commercial tenants amid disruption from the pandemic.

After graduating St Francis in 1995, I obtained my BA in Political Science from Gonzaga University.

Dr. Dakkak specializes in family medicine and obstetrics providing a full spectrum of primary care services for patients of all ages, as well as a range of obstetrical services for expectant mothers. She delivers babies and performs cesarean sections and other procedures at Boston Medical Center. At Manet, she offers women’s health services, including colposcopies, office gynecological exams, ultrasound and family planning. She is certified to prescribe buprenorphine (Suboxone and Subutex) and to provide HIV and Hepatitis C care.

Dr. Katie Lawlor received her doctorate from the joint program between the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology. She trained at both the Stanford University Medical Center and the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, focusing on human-animal interactions (HAI), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), neuropsychology. Prior to her career in clinical psychology, Dr. Lawlor held positions with NBC News in Beijing and New York City, the U.S. Department of State in Washington DC, and the Governor’s Office of California.

After graduating St Francis in 1995, I obtained my BA in Political Science from Gonzaga University.