The Best Instructors in The Bay Area
Every driving school will tell you their instructors are experienced. At Greenlight, we can prove it.
Our instructor team holds California DMV Driving Instructor Licenses issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, but their credentials go far beyond the license. Between them, they bring professional motorsport careers at the highest levels of competitive racing, driver training for US Special Forces and Department of State personnel, decades of law enforcement driving with the California Highway Patrol, and command-level experience at the Berkeley Police Department.
There is no comparable instructor team at any driving school in the East Bay, the Tri-Valley, or the broader Bay Area. This is who you want yout teenager to learn from.
Josh Hurley — Chief Driving Officer
California DMV Instructor License #I2854038
Josh Hurley is a championship-winning professional racing driver, racing engineer, and one of the most credentialed driver development professionals in Northern California. His racing career spans some of the most demanding professional series in North American motorsport: Ferrari Challenge, GT3, GT4, Formula 4, TransAm, and TA2 where vehicle control, situational awareness, and split-second decision-making are not abstract skills but survival requirements.
Beyond the racetrack, Josh is the founder of Motorsports Measurements, a professional driver development and data analysis firm that works with competitive drivers at the highest levels of the sport. He understands not just how to drive fast, but how to analyze driving data, identify errors, and systematically build the habits that make drivers better.
His most distinctive credential is the one least common in driver education: before founding Greenlight, Josh built advanced driving curriculum for the US Special Forces and the US Department of State. The operational driving demands placed on those programs — situational awareness under pressure, hazard recognition, vehicle control in unpredictable environments — are embedded in the training philosophy Greenlight applies to every teen driver who walks through our doors.
When a student trains with Josh, they are learning from someone who has taught vehicle control to elite military and government operators, coached professional racing drivers, and competed at the championship level himself. That depth of expertise simply does not exist anywhere else in teen driver education in this region.
Josh’s areas of expertise:
- Professional racing: Ferrari Challenge, GT3, GT4, F4, TransAm, TA2
- Racing engineering and driver data analysis
- Advanced driver development curriculum design
- US Special Forces driver training
- US Department of State driver training
- Simulator-based training methodology
- Teen driver education and risk awareness
Jason Zimmerman — CEO & Driving Instructor
California DMV Instructor License #I3656001
Jason is a championship-winning racing driver and the founder and CEO of Greenlight Driver Training. The school exists because of a conviction he formed on a Bay Area freeway: that the drivers around him were dangerously underprepared, and that the training system responsible for producing them needed to be fundamentally rethought.
What makes Jason’s approach to instruction distinctive is not just his racing background it’s his coaching background. Before founding Greenlight, Jason spent years coaching athletes across multiple sports and age groups, from youth recreational leagues through high school and college competition. That experience taught him something that pure driving expertise alone cannot: how people actually learn under pressure, how confidence is built progressively, and how to communicate technical concepts to teenagers in ways that change behavior rather than just transfer information.
The combination of competitive racing discipline and sports coaching methodology is rare. Most driving instructors have neither. Jason has both and he built Greenlight’s curriculum around them.
Jason’s areas of expertise:
- Championship-level competitive racing
- Youth, high school, and college athlete coaching
- Teen driver education curriculum development
- Progressive confidence-building instruction methodology
- Simulator-based training design and delivery
Rico Rolleri — Driving Instructor
California DMV Instructor License #I3361033
Rico retired from the Berkeley Police Department at the rank of Captain following a career that included decades of professional driving, emergency vehicle operation, pursuit training, and the kind of real-world road experience that cannot be replicated in a classroom or a standard behind-the-wheel lesson.
Law enforcement driving is fundamentally different from civilian driving. Officers must simultaneously manage vehicle control, environmental awareness, radio communication, and rapid decision-making in unpredictable and often dangerous situations. The hazard recognition and situational awareness skills developed through a law enforcement career represent some of the most intensive real-world driver development available outside of professional motorsport.
Rico brings all of that, and the communication skills, patience, and public-facing professionalism developed over a distinguished career in law enforcement, to every session with Greenlight students. His students learn to read traffic, anticipate hazards, and manage distractions the way trained professionals do, not the way most civilian drivers do.
Rico’s areas of expertise:
- Law enforcement driving and emergency vehicle operation
- Pursuit driving and vehicle control under pressure
- Hazard recognition and situational awareness
- Traffic safety and collision prevention
- Teen driver education and defensive driving instruction
Kyle Pacheco — Driving Instructor
California DMV Instructor License #I3363116
Kyle Pacheco served as an officer with the California Highway Patrol — the agency whose entire mission is the safety of California’s roads. CHP officers spend their careers observing driver behavior, enforcing traffic law, responding to collisions, and developing a professional understanding of how and why crashes happen that goes far deeper than anything available through standard driver training.
That professional perspective — knowing not just the rules of the road but the patterns of driver error that cause real collisions, on real roads, in real conditions — is what Kyle brings into every Greenlight session. His students don’t learn to drive defensively in the abstract. They learn to read traffic the way a trained road-safety professional does, because that’s exactly the perspective their instructor brings.
Kyle’s areas of expertise:
- California Highway Patrol traffic enforcement and road safety
- Collision cause analysis and prevention
- High-pressure driving and vehicle control
- Traffic law and California DMV standards
- Teen driver education and defensive driving instruction
What This Means For Your Teen
Most driving schools hire instructors who meet the minimum DMV licensing requirement. Greenlight built an instructor team from the top down — starting with the question of who has the deepest, most proven expertise in vehicle control, driver development, and road safety, and working from there.
The result is an instructor team that no competitor in this market can match: a professional racing driver who trained US Special Forces personnel, a championship-winning racer with an elite coaching background, a former Berkeley Police Captain, and a former California Highway Patrol officer. All California DMV-licensed. All teaching from the same curriculum — one built on the principles of professional motorsport, law enforcement, and evidence-based driver development.
Your teenager deserves to learn from the best. This is the best.
What Greenlight Parents Are Saying
“Greenlight should be a required step in the drivers training curriculum. Teens become safer drivers by learning important lessons and building confidence in a risk-free space before they get on the road. Now she’s a licensed 16-year-old — a safe, defensive, confident driver.” — Woody Hunt, Greenlight parent
“Took the stress away from teaching my kids the basics of driving. No consequences, just skill learning and building in a safe environment. My kid now feels confident about getting behind the wheel.” — Shannon Dorsey, Greenlight parent
“Can’t say enough good things about this driving program. It blew our mind how realistic it is and the skills she’s learning in a super safe environment. I would highly recommend this without reservation.” — Ali Oromchian, Greenlight parent
Serving The Greater Bay Area
Serving families across Danville, Alamo, San Ramon, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Concord, Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, and the broader Tri-Valley, East Bay, and Bay Area from our location at 730 Camino Ramon, Suite 130, Danville, CA.
Questions? Call us: (925) 302-2544
DMV License: E4563
Training Hours:
(By Appointment)
Monday-Thursday: 3:00pm to 6:00pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11:00am to 5:00pm
Location:
730 Camino Ramon
Suite 130
Danville, CA 94526
Proudly Serving:
The Tri-Valley, East Bay & Greater Bay Area including:
Danville • Alamo • Blackhawk • San Ramon • Walnut Creek • Lafayette • Moraga • Orinda • Pleasant Hill • Clayton • Concord • Pleasanton • Dublin • Livermore
