​BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Brian Handley,
Board Member
​President

Brian has served on the board of directors of Winding Road since 2020 and as President of the Board since 2022. He spent most of his professional career in Silicon Valley. There, he held senior positions in a variety of global technology companies. In addition to his professional roles, Brian served on several technical, professional, and non-profit boards including IEEE (Electrical Engineering), ASAP (Global Alliances), 7/24 Exchange (Data Center professionals), the National Kidney Foundation, and as president of the Board of Trustees for a private preparatory school. Brian’s career includes founding two companies, growing them into national operations, and successfully merging them with other companies.
  
Brian attended college at the University of San Diego and the University of La Verne.  He spent his first years after graduation as a police officer in San Diego. After fracturing a knee while working and remembering he had a business degree, Brian moved to Silicon Valley (San Jose) in 1984 at the beginning of the tech explosion. 
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Brian and his wife, Ronni, moved to Tucson in 2019. Once here, Brian took two years of theater classes at Pima College satisfying a long time urge to participate in the arts. He’s been in a few theater productions and has taken part (as an extra) in several movie productions in and around the Tucson area. His learning take-away from this experience? Singing is NOT his strength. 

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Sharon Root,
Board Member
Treasurer

Sharon Root grew up in the Silicon Valley before they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. She graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in Philosophy and then a year of MBA studies. She pursued a 20+ year career in Silicon Valley high tech Materials Management (in lasers, telecom, power equipment and mainframe computers).  As a startup junkie managing annual growth rates of 30% and up, it was an E-ticket ride, for those who still know what that means.
 
After deciding to start a new career helping people with personal and professional growth in 1998, she founded a training company in Silicon Valley (Computer Magic Training) that focused on teaching computer and soft skills to over 20,000 people at 2,000 companies in the Western United States. She loved seeing the light bulb go on over peoples’ heads. Twenty-one years later, in 2018, she sold her training company and retired shortly thereafter.

Sharon loves to help the underserved communities. She volunteered for decades to help homeless people get back on their feet and more recently to help newly released incarcerated men adapt with changes in their technical and emotional courage skillsets. She taught empowerment skills to women and business professionals for decades. She now volunteers to help seniors with computer challenges. 

Ms. Root moved to Tucson in 2021 with her husband Dennis Humphris and has been blissfully and creatively enjoying “retirement” (busier than ever). She currently coaches a women’s empowerment group, teaches emotional intelligence classes, and enjoys photographing the Tucson landscapes and wildlife. She thrives with an active social life, enjoys painting and drawing, and is looking to revive her golf and racquet sports skills. 
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One of the things Sharon loves most about Tucson is the accessibility and energy of the cultural and creative arts at a grass roots level – people can partake in arts and crafts, musical and theatre productions with ease and affordability – and she thinks everyone should be encouraged to benefit from them.

Chad Davies,
Board Member,
​Executive Director

Chad Davies is an actor, director, and producer who has worked with both equity and community theater companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He majored in Theatre Arts at San Jose State University. Past stage roles include Willy Loman (DEATH OF A SALESMAN), Clarence Darrow (NEVER THE SINNER), Billy Einhorn (HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES), Candy (OF MICE AND MEN) Santee (GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER) and dozens more.

Although he considered following the career path of a professional actor, he opted instead to stay in Santa Cruz, California, raise a family, and pursue what many would consider a “normal” life. He leveraged his theater arts skills, especially his performance and stagecraft training into a 20+ year career in marketing, promotion, and sales positions with several Silicon Valley start-up companies and large corporations. (It turned out this work was remarkably similar to show business, but happened to pay really well and with much greater consistency.)

After the “dot com” downturn, he spent seven years as a computer skills instructor, followed by six years working for the State of California’s Employment Development Department. And, once his kids went off on their own, he returned to theater with a number of local production companies. 

Arriving in Tucson in 2017, Chad joined Winding Road Theater Ensemble and was featured in the Company's productions of THE FANTASTICKS! and BURIED CHILD. In 2019, Chad then founded Winding Road’s EIGHT 10s IN TUCSON 10-minute play festival, a showcase of 10-minute plays submitted by playwrights from across the country. He also stepped up to serve as Winding Road's Managing Director until 2020. In 2023, he returned to Winding Road as a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Director. 

When he isn’t managing company operations, Chad spends his time nurturing his two German Shepherd dogs, following politics, and attempting to engage friends and colleagues with conversations about existential ideas, such as “what if humans really are the first intelligent life form to develop in the universe?” 

At his core, he’s a storyteller, whether that’s through appearing on stage, moving in front of a camera, or supporting all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing great theater. He particularly likes that there are always surprises – “happy accidents” he likes to call them – and those are the things that really keep him going.

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