(Dakota Chang: Awarded Ace Certification Status! Published 10/8/26) First Tee – Silicon Valley is excited to share that Dakota Chang was awarded the distinguished honor of being Ace-Certified!
Ace is the highest level of certification at First Tee and less than 1% of First Tee participants from across the country achieve Ace certification. Dakota will receive local and national recognition from First Tee for completing her Ace classes and the post-class documents. More importantly, her work in our Ace classes helped her apply the First Tee Life Skills to college and career exploration, and to volunteer experiences. The Ace classes also assisted in developing transferable skills that will aid her in her professional development.
Who is Dakota?
Dakota is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. She began our program as a participant in 2015 and has volunteered as a coach since 2023. Dakota is one of the most diligent, engaged, and impactful participants in our program’s history. She has taken (4) 8-week classes every year since 2015, participated in our regional and local events, recently helped our team win the 2026 NorCal First Tee Regional Cup, and was selected to the First Tee Leadership Academy in Georgia, and the Innovators Forum in Florida. Additionally, she took on several leadership positions within our Junior Council where she worked with her peers on a new coach app that we rolled out this year, and she helped put together our Family Fest, which was an event where we celebrate our participants and families.
Since she was 7 years old, Dakota and her brother and father have been coming on Saturdays, taking classes and staying the entire day (7am to 4pm) to assist with a myriad of tasks. She and her family arrived first thing in the mornings to help us set up the games and stayed after her classes to help us pick up and pack up. As soon as she was old enough, she started volunteer coaching and now leads sections of our classes.
She has been taking Ace classes since she got into high school and being Ace-certified was a personal goal that she can now check off her list.
What does FTSV mean to her?
“FTSV is like a second family to me. It is a community where I can freely express myself because the coaches and my fellow participants prioritize making it a supportive and welcoming environment for all. I was able to grow as a person at my own pace because of the coaches’ patience and gentle encouragement. Most importantly, FTSV taught me that leadership doesn’t mean being the loudest in the room. Instead, it means being the one that facilitates others’ ideas and allows their voices to be heard. It was this kind of mindset that I carried with me into the Coaching App subcommittee.
What are her takeaways from Ace?
“I learned how to ensure that I have the best college experience possible by properly researching and ranking colleges and manage college budgets. I also learned how to conduct informational interviews to be able to explore and understand careers, helping me flesh out my long-term goals so I can begin working towards them.”
What is ACE?
Ace includes four (4) 8-week Ace sessions, each with post-class projects.
- Education – financial planning for college (budgeting, saving, grants, scholarships), college application process, school identification and exploration strategies
- Career – resume-building, interview skills, transferable, adaptive and content skill development, and professional correspondence
- Golf – golf psychology, optimal practice habits
- Volunteer – going above and beyond, learning transferable skills, networking, professionalism
To receive Ace-certification, participants must:
- be at least 14 years old;
- be in our program for a minimum of 3 years;
- attend a minimum of 2 seasons per year;
- attend all four of our Ace-Future Planning Classes (listed above);
- complete the 4 Ace-Future Planning post class documents;
- submit a letter of recommendation; and
- be selected by a panel of First Tee National judges.
To find out more about our Ace classes and how to be Ace-Certified, please reach out to Chris Moreno-Hunt at [email protected] or 408-508-4884.
Congratulations Dakota on your outstanding achievement with Ace and in First Tee – Silicon Valley!