Board of Directors
SCARE for a CURE has a working Board. Each member is a regular face at all of our events, work days, and run nights.
Susan Pratt
President
Susan Pratt retired this past June, after 24 years of teaching elementary and middle school language arts, science and theatre. She has a B. A. in Liberal Arts from Austin College (Sherman, TX) and a Master’s degree in the Art of Teaching form the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA).
She has volunteered with Girl Scouts, Destination Imagination, and the Breast Cancer Resource Center among other organizations. This is her 19th year working on haunts. She loves seeing the creative team start with a blank slate and watching everything develop and come together by the end of October. She joined SCARE for a CURE in 2007 and currently serves as President.
Debra Buffington
Vice President
Debra Buffington is a retiree after serving over 33 years in the field of education. Formerly, Debra worked as the Library Technology Coordinator for Austin Independent School District.
She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Education with a dual major in Dance and History at Southwest Texas State University and a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her favorite holiday is Halloween, where she enjoyed decorating her yard and dressing up to scare the neighbors. As a fan of Britannia Manor and Haunted Trails, she found others who shared her passion and joined the Scare for a Cure family in 2008. Her first job at scare was fabricating stone castle walls out of styrofoam. She has worked every haunt event since 2008 and continues to scare guests, tech special effects or work behind the scenes. Her favorite skill to teach, blooding a room or adding body parts for a specific room in the haunt.
Other organizations she volunteers for are the Breast Cancer Resource Center, and several dog rescue groups.
Jarrett Crippen
Build Director
Jarrett Crippen recently retired from the Austin Police Department after serving for 25 years. Although he’s a native Austinite, he now calls Manor, TX home. Jarrett co-founded SCARE for a CURE, a non-profit that hosts an annual haunted house that has raised more than $300,000 for breast cancer-related charities. Since 2012, SCARE for a CURE also calls Manor home and has donated thousands to the Manor ISD. Jarrett now spends his time volunteering for a variety of charities and emceeing a wide range of events around the world.
Alexander Petak
Treasurer
Alexander Petak is an attorney in the energy industry, helping to keep the lights on around Texas. Alex has been a volunteer for Scare since 2011, when he had entirely too much fun being a clown and throwing slime onto guests. Born in Houston, Alex came to Austin to study psychology and law at UT and has been an Austinite for 15 years. When not haunting, Alex enjoys frisbee, board games, and chess.
Erica Sigler
Volunteer Director
Erica Sigler is an Executive Assistant who has been working in the semiconductor/hi-tech industry for close to 30 years. A native of San Jose, CA she has been in Austin since 2006. She loves performing and volunteering. She was a member of a local women’s barbershop chorus for 12 years where she served on the management team, and held multiple positions inclusive of being the Volunteer Coordinator for multiple terms.
Erica has been a volunteer since 2013 when she joined for the inaugural Quest Night. Since then she’s taken on more and more roles and responsibilities. If you’ve gone through the haunt you’ve run into her in some of her many diverse characters and if you’ve attended Quest Night you know her as The Captain of the Guard. You’ve also run into her daughter who is a volunteer and actor as well.
When not at Scare, Erica loves to spend time with her husband and children. She’s an avid K-Drama watcher and K-pop lover who loves planning events professionally and personally.
Suzie Hawley
Operations Director
Suzie Hawley has been a manicurist at Michael’s Hair Co. in Northwest Austin for over 17 years, & loves helping her clients look & feel better. She’s also worked various IT-related jobs over the last 20+ years, as well as in the hospitality industry. Her greatest joy is family, especially her son Codey. Over the years, her friends at Scare have become family as well!
Suzie joined Scare for a Cure in 2012. She serves on the Board of Directors as Operations Manager, is Manager of the Box, (tools & supply inventory) & is the Manager for FX. In the past, she has been an Assistant Manager for Props & the Art Dept., before discovering her passion for working with Special FX. She loves being a part of the Scare family, & is thankful for the opportunities that Scare gives her to support the Breast Cancer Resource Center and give back to her local community.
Alys Thompson
Secretary
Alys grew up in San Angelo to an architecture-mad family. After earning a degree in accounting from Southwestern University in Georgetown, the allure of the built environment led her to pursue graduate work here at UT, where she studied Architecture, History and Classics. During this time, she worked as a masonry construction specialist archaeologist every summer in Italy. After the Italian dig project ended, she pivoted those years of art history and architecture analysis into a new career in film set design and set decoration management. Both involved her passion of telling stories using materials and imagination! She currently works for a project management team in Campus Construction at the University of Texas at Austin.
She has volunteered with Scare For A Cure since 2012 and has been our Art Director since 2013