Administration Team
Maike Silver,
Student Services and Admissions Manager
Moin, moin as we say in Northern Germany. I was born in Essen, Germany, and raised in the beautiful Ostseebad Laboe. As a competitive swimmer, I traveled and competed outside of the country. So it came as no surprise when I decided to come to California as an Au Pair after finishing an apprenticeship in a bank. Once here I never looked back. After I got married and my two beautiful daughters were born, I decided to go back to school to start a teaching career. In 1996, I started working in the Pre-School at GAIS.
As the school decided to follow the path of becoming a PYP School I led the effort in developing our Kindergarten program. In 2005 I was offered the position of PYP (Primary Years Program) Coordinator, guiding the school through the authorization process as an IB World School in 2007 as well as through a successful evaluation in 2010. In 2009 I was trained as a PYP workshop leader, consultant and participate in site visits to authorize and evaluate PYP Schools in the United States. Last year I also was invited to join the IB global curriculum development team and build new global workshops. Using the experiences from these IB tasks has helped me guide our school in becoming a well-known IB School of excellence, something I am very proud of.
Roman Bruegger,
Communications Manager
Hello! I was born in Bern, Switzerland, and have lived, studied, and worked around my hometown most of my life. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Certificate of Advanced Studies CAS in Leadership and Communication from the University of Applied Sciences Bern, Switzerland, and used to work in the financial corporate world for many years. After gaining experience and profound knowledge in various financial institutions and eventually leading six branches of a regional bank as ‘Head of Customer Relations’ and ‘Member of the Management’, I decided to to broaden my horizons and move on and out…
After having spending time as a trainee in Chicago and New York City in 1998 and undertaking a world trip in 2002, it was my dream to go and work abroad. Therefore, I moved to San Francisco at the beginning of 2011 where I started to work in the Tourism and Hospitality Business.
As chance would have it, the opportunity arose to become a Communications Manager at the German-American International School.
Since I like to work with different cultures, languages, kids and people in general I did not hesitate to take on this responsible job at GAIS. I am happy to be a part of the GAIS community and look forward to many interesting and communicative moments!
Kimberly Schuster,
Controller
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Susi Lindley,
Business Manager
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Dagmar Stullich,
Office and Front Desk Manager
I was born and raised in Munich/Bavaria – the hometown of the famous Oktoberfest. In Germany, I was working in several administrative positions until my sons were born. Before my family and I moved to California in 2005, we had been living in Munich, Cologne and also Hannover. In my free time I enjoy traveling, knitting scarves and volunteering for the GGLRR (Golden Gate Labrador Retriever Rescue).
Jana Seidel,
Librarian
I was born and raised in a small town in Saxony. Later I studied at the Teachers Colleges of Leipzig and Kaluga (Russia) to become a teacher. From 1991 on, I taught students in 5th to 10th grade in German, Russian, German as a Second Language and Beginners English.
After relocating to the Bay Area in early 2006, I decided to change my career and started volunteering at my daughter’s school library, leading to my current job as a school librarian at GAIS.
I obviously love books and reading in German, English and sometimes Russian. In addition, I like to travel, see the country and learn about the different cultures in the United States.
Uli Francis,
Librarian
I grew up in a small town near Heidelberg, Germany.
After the Abitur, I was very fortunate to be able to work for a while and then travel the world for 1 year before going back to school, becoming a Physical Therapist.
I worked as a Physical Therapist first in Berlin (1989/1990), and later back in Heidelberg. I started my own practice in 1994.
After meeting my husband during a vacation in California, he convinced me to start a new life in this beautiful state in 1998.
We have 2 children, who are now 13 and 10 years old.
Being a “stay at home mom” opened up another opportunity for me, following my passion for books.
I started volunteering at the GAIS Library when my daughter went to the GAIS preschool. I later volunteered at public school Libraries and chaired several Book Fair events. I started working part time at the GAIS Library in 2009 and I can truly say, “I love going to work”.
I love seeing children getting excited about books and teaching them to find their way around in the Library.