THINK Together names new executive director

Deepa Bharath

COSTA MESA -- For most of his working life, Stephan Erkelens has spent

his time monitoring profits and focusing on the bottom line.

But at some point in the recent past, his priorities changed. The man

who was working at a New York trading company until three years ago

decided to give it all up -- for the kids.

Today, he will be named the new executive director of THINK Together,

a Santa Ana-based nonprofit organization that oversees Shalimar and other

learning centers countywide and in Costa Mesa.

Erkelens, 40, fills the position formerly held by Pablo Diaz, THINK

Together’s first full-time professional director. Diaz left earlier this

year to accept a post as pastor of a Presbyterian church in New York.

In his capacity as executive director, Erkelens will be responsible

for the organization’s operations, volunteer development, fund-raising

and evaluation programs.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “Our goal is to go from serving 1,300

students a day to 10,000 students a day by the year 2005.”

Erkelens, who was born in Argentina and raised in Guatemala, also

founded and developed several businesses in Latin America and the United

States into multinational operations.

His ethnic background and his entrepreneurial skills will help a great

deal in expanding an improving THINK Together, said the organization’s

founder and vice chairman, Randy Barth.

“There are two sets of people we deal with,” said the Mission Viejo

resident. “We collect resources from the well-off people in the community

and provide services to the less fortunate people in the community.

Erkelens “has the unique ability to relate to the people we get our

resources from and the people we serve,” he said.

Erkelens said Costa Mesa, particularly the city’s Westside, is

desperately in need of after-school centers where kids can find the

academic support they cannot get at home.

“They need a good homework environment,” he said. “We need to give

less fortunate and at-risk children the opportunity to succeed

academically and in life.”

The organization now operates three centers in Costa Mesa.

“We hope to have between 10 and 12 centers in the next two years,”

Erkelens said.

He has been active in the local nonprofit community as a

philanthropist, as well as a participant in a number of youth-oriented

initiatives.

In Orange County, he has served on the board of Girls Inc., and as a

director for the United Way’s Success by Six initiative. He chairs the

United Way’s Success by Six -- Health and Healthy Families insurance fund

committee.

The motivation came from a heartfelt decision to give back to the

community, Erkelens said.

“I just felt it was my time to contribute,” he said. “There comes a

point in your life when what you earn is less significant than what you

leave behind.”

* Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She can be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.