Luisa Bernardi Neher
Director of Communications, Arts Department Coordinator
Tel: (805) 272-8156

BHS Website, Aún Aprendo Newsletter, Arts

Year Appointed: 2010





B.A. Carleton College

Originally from Italy, Luisa grew up in Mexico City and moved to the U.S. to attend Carleton College in Minnesota. After graduating with a degree in Studio Art and getting married, she moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where she managed and owned four Benetton clothing stores. Since then, her husband’s career led their family to move to a different city every few years and, as a result, Luisa’s occupations became as varied as the places she was living in. She spent the next twenty years as a: translator and interpreter for a professional translating company in New Orleans, fundraising coordinator for her children’s swim team in Bakersfield, and ‘Tuck shop’ (cafeteria) manager for their elementary school in Brisbane, Australia. More recently, she served four years as the Executive Director for the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN), a professional non-profit organization in Houston, TX, where she was in charge of event planning, membership communications, website development and editing their monthly publication, the Advisor. Following yet another relocation, to Quito, Ecuador, for two years, she landed back in Bakersfield, CA, in 2006.

Her family’s pursuit for a place to call home and her youngest son’s passion for the arts, led them to settle in Ojai in 2008 and join the BHS community. During Alex’s senior year at Besant Hill School, Luisa served as Parent Liaison and developed the school’s monthly Parents’ Newsletter. She is currently working on upgrading and maintaining the school’s website, publishing its quarterly newsletter Aún Aprendo, and assisting the Arts Department in the planning and promotion of its events.

In her spare time, Luisa enjoys painting, biking and hosting dinner parties at her permanent home in Ojai, where she lives with her husband Kurt, their two border collies and a cat. They have two sons, Christian (UC Davis '10) and Alex (Besant Hill School '10), currently a sophomore at Emerson College.