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.

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.

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.

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: Creative Director

Guild: Rangers

Jordana Beh

Position: Storyteller

Guild: Artisans

Started with Trackers: 2018

David Kacena

Position: Developer

Guild: Artisans

Lisa Porter

Position: Muralist

Dan Clark

Position: Summer Director

Guild: Mariners

Coming soon!

Mary McKeever

Position: Program Director

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.

Sarah Fillis

Position: Year-Round Program Director

Kyle Shaw

Position: Program Director

Sam Bisnett

Position: Program Director

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.

Jeremy Williams

Position: Program Coordinator

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.

David Friedmann

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Guild: Rangers

David originally hails from the land of Santa Cruz, California. He started his journey As a Naturalist and Wilderness Survivalist at the age of 14. He has been mentoring youth and adults since the age of 18 After Graduating high school early, he went on to study Outdoor Leadership and Wilderness Survival at Headwaters Outdoor School for 5 years, and studied Nature Connection and Mentoring for 2 years at Wilderness Awareness School, where he received his Naturalist Certification. He also studied for one year at Tom Brown's Tracker School in New Jersey, and completed a 9 month internship with them afterward. David has always found the most fulfillment from connecting people back with nature, and helping them find a context to fit nature connection into their modern lives. He works at Trackers because He feels he can bring nature into the lives of thousands of children and adults in the Portland Area annually, and that's what David wants to do. He also loves sticks and Trackers has many sticks.

Megs Hein

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Greg Barrett

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Nathan "Keith"

Position: Outdoor Educator & Coordinator

Nico Spadafora

Position: Outdoor Educator

Sarah Kessler

Position: Outdoor Educator

Josh Roberts

Position: Outdoor Educator

Houston "Biscuit" Oldland

Position: Outdoor Educator