The Staff for Trackers Earth Portland

Molly Deis

Position: Founder

Guild: Wilders

Started with Trackers: 2004

A native Oregonian, Molly received her Bachelors degree in German from Davidson College in North Carolina and spent a year in Germany, also traveling throughout much of Western Europe. She spends her time between Portland and Sandy, where she and her husband (Tony) live with their three children. She keeps busy herding goats, wrangling chickens, planning gardens and wandering the woods with babes in tow. Molly is also an avid cellist and plays in the Willamette Falls Symphony. As one of the "voices of Trackers", you have probably spoken with her regarding any of our myriad programs. Molly and Tony have three children - Robin, Annie and Maxine.

Tony Deis

Position: Founder

Guild: Rangers

Started with Trackers: 2004

Tony Deis, founder of Trackers Earth, rose-out* of high school at 14 years old. Fancying himself an autodidact, he went on to explore forest-craft, primitive skills, and tracking. Somehow he also learned how to start a business because his community needed him to. Tony believes the values and practice of a foraging family and community naturally encourage kids to be far more capable than the modern world allows.

He runs Trackers as though it were an extension of his large Italian family. Every member is responsible for creating a way of living that remembers our connection to village, the more-than-human-world (that's nature), and many generations beyond our lifetime. His hobbies include the art of animal tracking, with which he frequently invades the private lives of local American Black Bears. Plus, he appreciates hanging out with his own kids, well-known douglas fir trees, and all the abundant sword ferns of the Pacific Northwest.

*often called dropped-out from the other side of the looking glass.

Chris Codino

Position: COO

Started with Trackers: 2012

Chris joined Trackers full time as our Administrative Director in 2012 after 17 years in the credit union world. She has been involved with Trackers off and on from the beginning and is thrilled to be part of the community full time.

When she isn't processing registrations or assisting parents and staff, she enjoys camping, baking, cooking and hanging out with friends and family. She is actively involved in her daughter’s school and a strong supporter of her husband’s ultra marathon running.

Ian Abraham

Position: Forest School Principal

Started with Trackers: 2019

Ian has been teaching within the Portland Metropolitan area since 1999. Born and raised in Chicago, IL., he set out to work, teach, and educate in the informal outdoor setting provided by the riches of the Pacific Northwest. With an extended stop in Alaska and backcountry leadership work with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), in 1998 he moved to Portland.

Ian holds an MA in Environment and Community through Antioch University and has taught for many outdoor education programs, including M.E.S.D. Outdoor School, Cascadia Wild, Wolftree Inc., Tryon Creek and the Oregon Zoo. He spent the last 13 years at Portland Audubon as an Environmental Educator, Camp Director, and the Youth Programs Manager.

Ian’s focus is within the science and art of animal tracking, he is passionate about bird language, as well as wilderness living skills. He is looking forward to enacting the vision of Forest School of having kids learning immersive, core competencies outdoor skills while learning typical core curriculum standards put forth by the state of Oregon. He is most passionate about supporting the massive amount of talent that the Forest School teachers bring to each and every day while also supporting the parents that trust us with their child's academic experience.

Libby Strand

Position: Bookkeeper

Tom Brown III

Position: Adult Program Director

Guild: Rangers

Tom, otherwise known as “T3”, has been a practitioner and teacher of primitive living skills, wilderness survival, tracking, and nature observation since an early age. Growing up in New jersey at the Tracker School he was raised with a deep reverence and respect for wild places and the skills our ancestors used to live close to the land. After graduating high school he spent a few years wandering the country, practicing the skills he learned as a child in both urban and wilderness environments. He eventually returned to Tracker school and after a few years became head instructor and director of operations. In 2009 he left Tracker school to start the Primitive Arts Collective, an outdoor education program that sought to teach people in small groups in many different states across the country. In 2014 Tom moved to Virginia where he helped to found Earth Village Education, a non-profit organization based on a 100 acre farm near Shenandoah National Park.

Tom’s role at Tracker’s Earth involves being both the land steward and an adult educator. His unique insight and first-hand knowledge about how large groups of people interact with the landscape help him and the Tracker’s team ensure healthy land management practices that will not only benefit the students, but also the wild things that are the centerpiece of these rural locations. Tom loves all things wild and free. During his down time you can find him on a river somewhere fly-fishing for steelhead with his spey rod and learning all the wonderful things the PNW has to offer.

Chris Van Pelt

Position: Designer & Demigod

Guild: Rangers

Started with Trackers: 2016

Chris VanPelt is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. They are from the south, and have the best taste in barbeque, biscuits, and bourbon flavored candy. They enjoy nature sounds while sitting in nature.

Chris’ mission is to provide everyone with tools for choice. Life is full of choices and they want choices to be made from a base of knowledge. When we stop pursuing knowledge is when we have given up. They have spoken.

I am art. Yes, and
So are you. We are art if
We want to be.

Jordana Beh

Position: Storyteller & Anxiety Angel

Guild: Artisans

Started with Trackers: 2018

Jordana Beh... How do I even begin to explain Jordana Beh?

Saki Niwayama

Position: Graphic Designer

Guild: Rangers

Started with Trackers: 2019

David Kacena

Position: Developer

Guild: Artisans

Scott Templeton

Position: Project Manager / Magician

Guild: Rangers

Started with Trackers: 2019

Lisa Porter

Position: Muralist

Dan Clark

Position: Summer Director

Guild: Mariners

Coming soon!

Sarah Fillis

Position: Year-Round Program Director

Mary McKeever

Position: Program Director

Kyle Shaw

Position: Program Director

Michelle Cordell

Position: Outdoor Educator & Custom Programs Coordinator

Michelle started learning from the lichens and the mycelium growing up in Olympia, WA and continued to develop her ecological knowledge and love of the outdoors when she got her Bachelors in Economics at Colorado College. She then took her hiking and kayaking experience to Thailand where she has been instructing experiential education for high school and college students for the last three years before returning home to the PNW this summer to coordinate at the Trackers Vancouver location.

Ryan Johnson

Position: Content & Curriculum Developer

Started with Trackers: 2017

Born in New York and raised in the desert southwest of Arizona, Ryan has been obsessed with science and biology since early childhood. Prowling the wildlife mountain preserves and parks of his hometown were just the beginning of a lifelong dedication to learning everything he can about the natural world. His passions include woodworking and crafting, plants, birding, shelter building, primitive fire building, outdoor cooking, and teaching. His journey into Outdoor Education began several years ago volunteering as a Naturalist at Oxbow Regional Park, which fueled the inspiration to pursue a job at Trackers. Ryan believes that passing on knowledge, nature connection, and community are of the utmost importance for the next generation of young adventurers. When not working at Trackers, Ryan can be found hiking or gardening with his partner Licia and pet doggo Hazel.

Lesley Marshall

Position: Sales Director

Guild: Wilders

Started with Trackers: 2012

Lesley grew up in Portland, exploring the local wild spaces with her brothers. Her love of the the outdoors and interest in pursuing work in education led her to earn a degree in Early Childhood Education from Portland State University. She joined the Trackers Earth team in 2012 and taught preschool at Catlin Gabel for 7 years. She found her calling in the Rovers and Wilders Guild, and is especially fond of fiber arts, permaculture, and food preservation like canning and pickling. Sharing these skills with generations to come and wilderness conservation are both aspects which fuel her continuing work with youth. When not mentoring kids, you can find Lesley camping along the Oregon Coast or gardening with her son, Jack.

Brenton Spratlen

Position: Program Director

Guild: Rangers

Started with Trackers: 2016

Spending his early years in the dry river beds east of Paso Robles, CA, Brenton evoked his natural passion of the outdoors at 5 years old, while tracking and hunting Jack rabbits on horseback. At age 7, his family moved to the mountains of Colorado where he spent every available moment of his next 10 years exploring the 40 acres of land he lived on. The countless forts and fires he built, mixed with trails and his own wild imagination, accounted for his deep desire to become proficient in the arts of wilderness survival, primitive living and bushcraft. Brenton has spent many of his adult years following this path, and being self-taught in these types of primitive arts has lead to a great amount of self awareness and loads of information to share with all who will listen. He believes nothing is greater than the connection we have with nature and strives to teach this and other primitive skills to all. The self-discipline, drive and attention to detail Brenton obtained from his days in the US Navy's Presidential Guard, including the experiences of traveling abroad and learning different cultures, reflects in his teachings. While not at Trackers Earth, Brenton can be found with his face in a book or teaching his daughter the world of nature, with their favorite activity being fire challenges in every way imaginable.

Mira Mickiewicz

Position: After School Coordinator

Started with Trackers: 2014

Pronouns: She/her/they/them
Mira is a healer, a teacher, an artist, and a forest creature hailing from a family of free-thinking creative folks. They grew up in Berkeley sailing on the Bay and laying under redwood trees, and spent her formative high school years at a hippy-leaning democratically-run boarding school and working at summer camps. After studying public health and microbiology in college in Massachusetts, she moved back to the Santa Cruz mountains to teach Outdoor Education. Mira took a brief detour into the world of urban planning before landing at Trackers in 2014. After some time off to obtain her Master's degree, Mira moved to Portland and is glad to be part of the team again at Trackers, bringing her deepened knowledge of organizational dynamics, interpersonal communication, and experience-creation that she gained in grad school. They enjoy walking in the woods, playing music, dancing, and spending time with all of the lovely Portlanders they've met here.

Jeremy Williams

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Artisans

Rashelle Hams

Position: Blacksmithing Instructor

Guild: Artisans

Started with Trackers: 2015

Originally from the Pacific NW, Rashelle kept herself out of trouble as a youth by running around outdoors and fishing. She worked in military law enforcement as a dog handler with 11 years experience in the criminal justice system. She bounced around operating heavy equipment then worked for an industrial cleaning company. Always interested in crafting things, she eventually found blacksmithing and promptly started taking classes and volunteering at Fort Vancouver and other forges, mentoring others as she herself learned. After becoming a board member for the NW Blacksmith Association, Rashelle found Trackers Earth and made it a goal to teach others there.

Elaine Kinchen

Position: Forest School VP, Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Guild: Artisans

Elaine grew up in California suburbs using the 90's lack of adult supervision. She spent her formative years both attending Star Trek conventions and living with a radical primitive skills community in the woods before receiving her degree in Cultural Anthropology with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Elaine has been with Trackers since 2012 teaching and managing a variety of Trackers programs and and handling the bookkeeping. She now divides her time between art classes with all the Forest School grades and administrative duties as the Vice Principal. Watching students realize their own competency has been one of the best parts of being with Trackers. She is excited to be part of a program that connects people to the earth through hands-on experiences.

Elaine loves making things and will happily spend a weekend covered in clay, sewing costumes, working with her children on their tiny farm, and fighting for social justice.

Sam Bisnett

Position: Program Director

A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, Sam has held positions as a cowboy, wilderness guide, and back country chef before working with trackers as an educator. He has found that children are slightly more difficult to herd than livestock, but don't kick nearly as hard.

Megs Hein

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Guild: Mariners

Raised between Hawai’i and Alaska, Megs grew up with a father who had a passion for making traditional weapons and bushcraft, and as she grew she found her place along those lines as well. Megs moved to Portland in 2013 to expand horizons and find outdoor work found herself at trackers.Megs is a strong believer in healing society’s culture through knowing nature personally and found that through teaching ocean kayak tours as a teen.

David Friedmann

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Guild: Rangers

David was reared in the woods and fields of coastal california, where he spent much of his childhood and adolescence establishing a personal connection with nature through survival trips and tracking wild animals. David's main passions at this time are survival skills, stealth, bird language, and exploring the polarizing yet harmonious interconnectedness of all living things within the cosmic phenomenon of planet earth. With a decade of outdoor experience, David is most interested in teaching kids to believe in themselves, build their self confidence, find their place in the natural world, face fear in a healthy way, and nurture wholesome connections between them and their peers with an interest of building a future of fully alive, nature-conscious initiates to lead our world to a brighter, more cohesive future. David is actually a human puppet controlled by entities known as "bird hands" which have threatened to destabilize human civilization unless the bird hands are appeased with daily snacks. Please bring snacks. Bird Hands, er-- David is excited and ready for a great year of holistic learning in the outdoors!

Sarah Kessler

Position: Outdoor Educator

Greg Barrett

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Greg Barrett is an enigma, wrapped within a conundrum, sealed with a kiss, encapsulated within a very loud theatrical man. He's been working with Trackers for the past 6 years in a variety of artisanal rolls: The School of Magic, Forest Ninjas, Secret Agents, Rustic Harvest, and for the past three years, Realms of Cascadia. His goal is to rekindle a love of wild places and foster self-sufficiency in today's youth.

Bre Lundvall

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Artisans

Bre hails from the countryside of Ohio where she grew up rockhounding the cornfields around her home. Her background is in Biology, specifically Zoology, which she pursued for several years before discovering her love for outdoor education and wilderness skills.

Nico Spadafora

Position: Outdoor Educator

Nico comes from the Wild West of Arizona where he learned to love all things nature, especially the dead and super dead things. With the Indiana Jones persona he puts on for his classes, students are sure to feel the adventure while they learn about the land we share with the animals they will track. He loves to show kids bones and fossils and his favorite outdoor activities include but are not limited to: Tracking, Archery, Fire Building, and Adventuring.

Skye French

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Wilders

Hailing from the cloudy Pacific Northwest, Skye is immensely grateful to get to share connection to this beautiful land with her students. A lifelong nature-led learner, Skye loves mentoring with a curiosity-to-discovery approach. She has over a decade of teaching experience at different outdoor schools, and is especially interested in medicinal herbalism, tracking, and environmental education for social justice.

Jake House

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Artisans

The critter known as Jake was born and raised in the concrete hellscape that is Los Angeles California. After having discovered and worked regular summer camp jobs in the great Pacific Northwest of Washington State, he decided to undertake the great journey of moving Portland Oregon. Jakes many passions currently include the exploration of unknown natural areas, discgolf, painting miniatures, blacksmithing in the forge, and the facilitation of complex social interconnectedness utilizing collaborative storytelling, in a game centric context, to ultimately craft an engaging roleplaying experience. He runs and plays Dungeons and Dragons. Jake has over nine years of youth education and camp experience as well as a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Jake is most interested in helping his students to develop social empathy for the environment and each other, build leadership skills, illuminate sustainability as a principle, and to begin thinking about their impact and ultimate role as stewards in modern civilization.

Jody Fouse

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Rangers

Jody Fouse has been working at trackers for 3 years. Since a young child he has been immersed in bushcraft camping and hunting because of his awesome father who was one of the best bushcrafters he'd ever met. After spending a few years honing his skills and living on the Appalachian trail he went to college to study commercial arts. After 15 years of being a successful artist, he realized something was missing, the woods. At this point he moved to Portland and began his career at Trackers.

Haley Spadafora

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Artisans

My name is Haley but I am known by many other names at Trackers including Nutmeg, Amelia, Mermelia, and Twig. I recently got my Masters in Environmental Education and super excited to share what I learned. I have been working with students for over 8 years now. This is my first full year in Trackers but have taught all four guilds and am loving them all. I specialize in Realms and Wilders, and would love to guide your students through Cascadia.

Seamus Collins

Position: Outdoor Educator

Guild: Artisans

My name is Seamus but my students and friends call me "Moose". I teach martial arts like Muay Thai and kali(a.k.a escrima or arnis) but also enjoy exploring other art forms to help me and my students further understand our own discipline as well as the context in which they developed. These other styles include BJJ, tai chi, systema, karate, taekwondo and even yoga. Besides martial arts, I find wilderness living skills(fire building, plant identification, natural navigation, etc.) equally as important for strengthening the connection our souls have to the environment we were created by. Lastly, I can't forget how much I love telling stories and creating our own mythology that I believe builds not only our imagination but our ability to envision our challenges being overcome and our dreams coming true. So yeah... I love my job.

Mc Miller

Position: Outdoor Educator

Hey, I’m Mc and I love teaching with adventure! I think that all of us learn best from experience, especially when it’s fun. I also believe that the best way to understand a skill is to fail at it a few times, and that that’s ok. Finally, I’ve noticed that the best lessons are the ones that you haven’t planned, but rather, those that kids and nature present to you; after all, those are the things they are most excited about.

Neil Bacon

Position: Outdoor Educator

Born in a place called Durban, raised in a place called Pennsyltucky, I learned woodcarving at North Marion High School, when I temporarily moved to Oregon in 11th grade. It became a hobby that would follow me into adulthood and all the way back to Oregon when I discovered Trackers. During the times in between, I worked in a special needs camp in Pennsylvania and studied art and photography in Scotland. I believe everyone can and should make art. I make no distinction between art and craft. Making things is what we do.