Dawn S. Reese, Chief Executive Officer of The Wooden Floor, is a social innovator who leverages her unique blend of expertise in business, technology, education and the arts to passionately break down socioeconomic barriers to propel young people forward. 100 percent of The Wooden Floor's graduates finish high school on-time and immediately enroll in higher education through the power of dance and access to tools to make them college-competitive. Most students of The Wooden Floor are classified by HUD as extremely low income, and most are the first in their family to enter higher education.

Among the social innovations Dawn used her influence to pioneer during her 15-year tenure with The Wooden Floor:
• The organization’s budget has grown 76% from $2.1M to $3.7M and has grown from serving 375 students year-round to serving nearly 500 hundred students year-round. The Wooden Floor Endowment Fund has grown by 344% from $1.8M to nearly $8M to ensure more students have high quality programs and services to reach their dreams for higher education and beyond.
• Dawn has led efforts to grow The Wooden Floor’s model nationally in order to change the lives of more children, and with concerted efforts to not negatively impact the organization’s operating budget or the 10-year commitment The Wooden Floor makes to each of its annually enrolled class of students. Through the signing of the organization’s first licensed partner in Washington, D.C. in November 2015, The Wooden Floor’s Orange County-developed model and consulting services has changed the lives of hundreds of children annually on the other side of the country.
• Dawn also led efforts to open and pre-fund The Wooden Floor’s second location for 10 years in order to change the lives of more students locally. The second location opened in April 2018 at the Depot at Santiago, a workforce housing community in Santa Ana, and was developed through an innovative partnership with C&C Development. This resulted in no brick-and-mortar costs for The Wooden Floor and increased the organization's student body to nearly 500 year-round children and their families. The Wooden Floor is forced to turn away nearly 80 percent of the students who wish to enroll due to space constraints.
• In 2023, Dawn expanded The Wooden Floor’s mission by piloting an after-school program, named Dance Uplifts, to the Garden Grove School District to change the lives of students in Title 1 schools in response to Prop 28 funding and the need for more social emotional programming in schools. Dance Uplifts is an extension of The Wooden Floor’s community engagement efforts called Dance Free Weeks, an in-school program held each fall, which has served over 95,000 students since 1983.

Dawn also serves as a formal mentor to students of her Alma Mater, California State University, Long Beach, as well as to students, alumni, and staff of The Wooden Floor.

Dawn has received the following recognition:
• 2020 Women of Distinction Awards - Top 3 Nominee for Arts & Culture, Senator Tom Umberg's Women of Distinction Awards
• 2019 Women Breaking Barriers Award, Connected Women of Influence
• 2018 Founder's Award, Institute for Community Impact, a program of Passkeys Foundation
• 2016 Center for Leadership Award for Innovation, California State University, Fullerton
• 2015 Difference Makers Award for Small Nonprofit Person of the Year, Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce.

Dawn seeks to also affect positive change by serving on the Board of Directors for Orange County Music and Dance, and OneOC where she is also the Chairperson for the Nonprofit Advisory Council (2017-2019). She also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Leadership - Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton and Advisory Committees for DifferenceMakersOC, Institute for Influential Community Impact, and Orange County Business Council’s Latino Education Attainment Committee.

Dawn began the first 10 years of her career with The Oaktree Consulting Group, a management consulting firm specializing in CEO Coaching for the high technology industry, and this is where she learned the best practices of business strategies and corporate governance. Dawn received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from California State University Long Beach and she lives in Huntington Beach with her husband.