Celeste White has served as a member of the Westmont College Board of Trustees since 2011. The run now spans more than a decade of governance work. Her name sits on the College’s published Board of Trustees page.
White is a Westmont graduate. She earned degrees in French and Sociology at the College. Her steady service on the Board reflects a long-standing tie to her undergraduate alma mater. That tie sits within her broader civic and professional record in Napa Valley.
Westmont College runs as a private liberal arts school in Santa Barbara. Board service at colleges of this kind takes in fiduciary duty for governance, financial oversight, and strategic direction across multi-year cycles. Trustees hold advisory and decision-making roles that shape school priorities over time. The seat calls for steady work on academic strategy, financial planning, campus operations, and broader institutional direction.
Long-run board service of the kind White has held at Westmont marks a set form of civic input. Higher education governance turns on decisions whose results take years to land. Steady trustees build the in-house knowledge that makes those decisions sharper, and the working ties that make governance smoother.
White’s Westmont service sits within a wider set of long-run institutional roles in her civic record. She served as U.S. Pony Club District Commissioner for 17 years, an extension of her own lifelong work with horsemanship into a formal mentorship role. She has also served on the Napa Valley Education Foundation Board. Her philanthropic record takes in The Salvation Army, Young Life, Hospice, Queen of the Valley Hospital, and Ag 4 Youth.
White and her husband, Dr Robert White, received The Salvation Army’s Nehemiah Award for their support of the Napa Culinary Training Program.
Beyond board work, White founded and chairs Lux Forum, a St. Helena thought-leadership group. She is also the CEO and owner of Horse Rock Olive Oil, a small-batch estate-grown olive oil brand based at the family ranch near St. Helena. The breadth of her work across higher education governance, regional business, faith-based service and youth development reflects a settled orientation toward steady engagement across institutions.
More on her work sits at celestewhite.org.