Steven Esparza,
Founder
Our Founder, Steven Esparza, has demonstrated his commitment to giving back to the St Louis community for over 13 years. As a minority and successful businessman, Steven founded Vision Warriors Foundation to help create homes and lives for our Veterans. Steven’s commitment extends even further, he manages several annual charitable events and sits on the Board of Directors for Rebuilding Together St Louis, and PHL, Inc.
Steve Fuchs
Steve provides support to the Vision Warriors Foundation by leveraging his deep knowledge and networking contacts within St Louis metro area. Steve is a native St Louisan who received a BS in Finance and Accounting as well as a MBA from St Louis University. He currently is the Director of Program Management Special Projects at World Wide Technology. Steve has been involved with nonprofits since high school. Inspired by the Jesuit credo “Men for Others”, Steve quickly developed a deep passion for charitable work specifically in regards to his personal involvement with the St Patrick’s Center, Habitat for Humanity, St Vincent DePaul Society and 100 Neediest Cases. This experience gave him a deep appreciation for how nonprofits seek to improve the quality of life for our region; one program at a time.
“I’m deeply committed to the Vision Warriors Foundation’s vision of building homes to create permanent, positive change; its mission to provide housing for homeless veterans with the same pride they exhibited in protecting our freedom; and its core values of humility, hard work, passion, teamwork, honesty and integrity”
Russell Johnson Cochran
Russell brings more than 25 years of operational and Human Resources experience to his role with Vision Warriors.
Russell is currently in the role of Territory Associate Relations Manager at The Home Depot. Acting as a resource for all business platforms including retail stores, distribution centers, contact centers, and services branches across the Home Depot to support, consult and deploy to address complex/high risk issues. Prior to joining The Home Depot, Russell was employed by United Parcel Services Inc. as an Area Human Resources/Labor Relations manager with UPS Cartages Services providing labor relations and human resources support to the Central and Southwest US. Prior to joining UPS, Russell spent 13 years at the Chicago Transit Authority in multiple operational and Human Resources roles.
Russell has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from DePaul University; and a master’s degree from Northwestern University, MSC program.
Russell is active with charitable and non-for-profit organizations including Special Olympics Chicago and The Home Depot Foundation. He has a passion for real estate development and has rehabbed several single-family homes. Russell’s goal in alliance with Vision Warriors is to develop affordable, safe housing for veterans.
Jim Keeven
Jim Keeven is the former President of ARCO National Construction Company; a national design/build general contractor with several regional locations throughout the U.S. and subsidiary specialty contracting businesses. His professional involvement in commercial construction spanned more than 30 years and totaled tens of millions of square feet across various industries, from light industrial to residential. Independent of ARCO, Jim has developed a portfolio of single-family homes through new construction and acquisition in St. Louis County. His experience overseeing a rapidly expanding business, as well as his engineering and construction expertise, will be a unique asset to Vision Warriors.
Jim graduated from Purdue University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (Honors), after which he became a licensed Professional Engineer. He has prided himself in building long-term relationships both personally and professionally and constantly acting with high integrity.
With his wife and children, Jim has been involved in many non-profit organizations, including:
- St. Agatha’s Food Pantry
- Habitat for Humanity
- ReStore St. Louis
- Step Up of St. Louis and the Hancock School District
- First Free Church
- Rise Up St. Louis
- Little Bit Foundation
Jim is excited to now be a part of Vision Warriors.
Vanessa Antoniou
Vanessa serves as screenwriter and Executive Producer of Conflicted and “The Lost Hope”. She also serves as President of Beach House Productions, Inc. Ms. Antoniou is a principal at the Law Offices of Vanessa C. Antoniou, L.L.C. and has specialized in the field of criminal defense and torts for the past twenty-eight years. Her primary expertise is major drug conspiracies and white collar crime, which has led her to represent individuals across the country. She has been lead counsel during litigation on several multi-defendant drug conspiracies and has successfully tried multiple federal and state criminal cases. Ms. Antoniou has been involved in several high profile criminal cases and was awarded Criminal Defense Attorney of the Year in 2004, 2005, 2006 , 2010 & 2015. Ms. Antoniou also litigates complex personal injury suits, representing those individuals injured in catastrophic accidents.
She is a member of the Missouri Bar, Arizona Bar, United States District Court for the Eastern and Western District, United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, United States District Court of Arizona, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Missouri Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Antoniou is a member of the National Association of Criminal Lawyers, Missouri Association of Criminal Lawyers, Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis and Women’s Association of Trial Attorneys. She has also served on the Ethics Committee for the Missouri Bar and as a board member of Great Rivers Habitat, an environmental group.
Michael Potrzeboski
Michael started his career in public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was a Senior Assurance Associate on multiple Fortune 500 financial audits including St. Louis’ AB-InBev and Edward Jones. Subsequently, Michael moved on to St. Louis based Fortune 500 company, Centene Corporation, where he is currently a Manager of Finance Projects and Support. Michael graduated from the University of Missouri with a Master’s in Accountancy and is an actively licensed CPA in the State of Missouri. When not working, Michael, his wife, and daughter love spending time at the dog park with their two dogs, at the St. Louis Zoo (where Michael’s wife currently works), or attending sporting events of their favorite teams.