John Abraham Powell was born in Stanford and raised in Santa Barbara. As an infant, his parents called him Abie-Baby, and so did everyone else. Abe graduated from Santa Barbara High School in 1987 and attended Vassar College, graduating in 1993 with a B.A. in Philosophy. He worked at Skate One Corporation until 2000, when he founded Solforce, a solar energy company.
Since 1999, Abe served as president of Get Oil Out for 14 years, president of the Mountain Drive Community Association for five years, and as a Mountain Drive Brush 6 volunteer firefighter for five years. He currently serves on the board of the Montecito Fire Protection District and is a Santa Barbara Middle School trustee.
On January 28th, 2018, Abe and his wife Jessica created the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade to coordinate a community response to the disastrous 1/9 Debris Flow in Montecito. More than 3,000 volunteers showed up to help dig out the community and get Montecito and Santa Barbara back on track. Abe and Jessica live in Santa Barbara and have two teenage children, Olivia and Leo.
