Brenda Montgomery

Founder and Executive Director

Ms. Montgomery is the founder and Executive Director of SMAS, Single Mothers and Sons. She is divorced and lives in Pleasanton with her very bright teenage son. She has worked in various Management and Project Management positions in the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley. Her teenage son is the joy of her life. Brenda has a BA in Social Services from San Jose State, and a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology from the College of Notre Dame.

Brenda by choice, has made numerous sacrifices to provide for her son so he can have and experience a good quality of life, even though at times, it has been extremely challenging for her doing it alone. Brenda has first hand experience and has continuous 24/7 hands on experience being a Single Mother. She knows all too well what it is to raise her son alone with very little help. While she feels that her son is extremely smart, gifted and bright, it still has not been easy having to be both the nurturer and disciplinarian. Brenda says, “While being a single parent has been one of the hardest things she's ever had to accomplish, it's by far been the most rewarding.”

Since her son was able to speak and walk, she began teaching him that “there is no such thing as I can't”. With her constant encouragement and daily involvement, her son Cameron began playing the piano at the age of three and chess at the age of six years old. At the age of 5, She also enrolled him in a “Dual Immersion” program his first year at kindergarten and to date speaks very fluent Spanish. He loves playing point guard in basketball. As you can see, Brenda loves her son more than life itself and has now accepted her purpose and mission to help him and other boys that are being raised by single moms all over the world to become the very best they can be.

Brenda developed this vision over 9 years ago as a result from a conversation that her son had with one of his pre-school teachers which highly upset him. He was only three years old at the time, however, he was able to verbalize verbatim to his Mom that one of his teachers at his pre-school said, “that he didn't have a Daddy” and therefore excluded him from being apart of the conversation that she was having with his classmates, who were all sitting around in a circle. It was then, that Brenda realized the emotional magnitude of not having an active Dad in the home is and how sometimes, it is perpetuated by outside influences.

As if being a single parent wasn't enough, Brenda was also born with a physical birth defect, which resulted in a shortened limb and four fingers missing, including both thumbs. She was laughed at, taunted and ridiculed daily by her schoolmates in elementary and junior high school until she figured out a way to fight back, thus giving her self-worth a boost. Brenda is also the founder and CEO of "Tools-for-Life", an empowerment services company. She is an aspiring, energetic, spirit filled self-esteem Life Coach and Motivational Speaker for women as well as the physically disadvantaged.

Ms. Montgomery is overjoyed that her vision to help boys whose Dads are not active participants in their lives and their single Moms who have an incredible responsibility of raising them is finally coming to fruition! Brenda's vision for SMAS is to have SMAS chapters throughout every county in California by the end of 2010 and to go International by the end of 2011.