Staff Bios
The staff of TrackersNW includes experienced regional educators on the leading edge of place-based education. We are a community of people who's diverse range of skills and interests make everyone of our classes an adventure.
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Tony Deis (pictured with Molly) Founder and Galley Cook Tony has always loved his great Italian family; sitting with the grandpas and grandmas, playing horseshoes and bocce ball with the kids, working in the garden and eating good food together. For the past eleven years Tony has developed and taught outdoor education classes with The Audubon Society of Portland, Metro Regional Parks and Greenspaces and other Portland outdoor education organizations. Tony eventually founded TrackersNW, an outdoor education organization rooted in fostering community and knowledge of place. As practitioner of many martial arts, as a writer, an artist and a maker of fantastic Sicilian pizza, Tony is working to connect more people to the land and their families in a beautiful way. | |
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Molly Strand, Self Defense Skills Instructor, Molly has a passion for travel, foreign languages and culture, classical music, outdoors adventuring, and empowering people through self awareness and self defense. 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 trains and teaches the martial arts, teaching kids and women about safety and strength. She is a self-defense instructor with Artemis Adventures and is a Trackers International safari representative to Botswana and beyond. Molly is also an avid cellist in the Central Oregon Symphony, snow boarder, fluent speaker of German, dabbler in languages such as Italian and Portuguese and lover of cats. | |
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Willem Larsen, Culture Mediator- Willem is Maestro of Ceremonies for many of TrackersNW's team processes. His work with tools of clarity and communication make the way for peacemaking in our business and our programs. He mixes agile and Collaborative Team tools employed by some of the top tech development firms in the world with Taoist philosophy and Military training methodology to form a highly effective model for wilderness education. He apprenticed with one of the lead team development consultants in the world and has been working in environmental education for 12 years. Willem appreciates "cutting through" the drama to help people find highly functional ways of working and caring for each other. He also focuses on teaching linguistics and different language matrixes to actually facilitate new mind sets for learning through his College of Mythic Cartography Blog. As an instructor of riddle-making, place-making, mythology, animal movement, and wilderness survival, Willem is the glue that keeps us tight. |
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Dr Mike Owen, ND , Naturopath & Fitness Trainer, has been doing martial arts since he was born. Mike's parents raised him in one of the most acclaimed knife fighting, kali stick, ju jistu, muay thai, american boxing and jeet kune do schools in the country. After training with his parents, Mike went on to work with key masters in each of these respective styles. He become a naturopathic physician and practiced medicine for over a year in small Nicaraguan village. Dr. Mike says that his time as a professional skateboarder has done more to inform his skill as a martial artist than anything else. | |
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Miriam Burke, Instructor- From an early childhood ambition to grow up into an aspen tree, Miriam Burke has nurtured a lifelong passionate involvement in the natural world. After earning a B.S. in Botany and completing a four-year apprenticeship with local herbalists, she left Wyoming and came to Portland. Since 2001 she has honed her skills as a naturalist and educator, connecting to the wild beauty of the Northwest and developing and teaching programs with various organizations including Portland Parks, Metro, and MESD Outdoor School. She is currently in Java studying gamelan music and traditional dance. Miriam is a dedicated participant and instigator in building community, creating art, making music, playing in the woods, telling stories, and myriad other celebrations of our world. |
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Shaun Deller, Lead DIY Instructor -Shaun is an artist, designer, bicycle fanatic, observer and participant in the wild and urban landscape. He grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Portland after graduating from The Maryland Institute College of Art. His interests in art and the wilderness then converged into an exploration of wilderness arts. This includes skills such as hide tanning, sewing, fire making, tracking, shelter building, and awareness of plants and animals. He loves to share this knowledge and excitement with the world around him. His company Deller Recycled Apparel specializing in high quality bike style hats from recycled material. |
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David Jacobson, Skills Instructor -David enjoys eating good food and draws from his background in botany, wildlife ecology, and wilderness living skills in order to eat well on our programs. Combining urban, and wilderness foraging strategies he assists students in learning to create crawfish stew and wildcrafted meads. David also graduated with a BS in Botany from the Evergreen State College. During his time as a "Greener" he took it upon himself to do extensive independent study contracts in pressure release study and other aspects of tracking and natural history. One critical aspect of David's educational philosophy is his attentiveness to safety of students and the requirement that every lesson needs to functional. "I will never ask a student to do something that does not have a real purpose. We learn about tracking to actually find the animal, not simply as an academic study." |
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Billy Williams, Jedi Master- Billy enjoys training and coaching Brazilian Ju Jitsu, observing life and nature, connecting to the land through ancient skills, raising a family, playing old time music, spending time with friends and family and cutting metal in the machine shop. Many trackers take note that no one really knows the limits to Billy's skills and perception. We often rely on him for our Jedi Training Programs. |
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Urban Scout has a deep ancestral relationship with this land; his great, great grandfather lies buried in N.E. Portland. He proudly dropped out of high school at 16 to begin his life-long unschooled journey of rewilding. He manages a non-profit, mythmedia, that he founded at 19 years old, keeps a popular blog about rewilding and created a popular international internet forum and wiki for fellow people-who-rewild. Locally, Urban Scout has been an environmental educator with CascadiaWild, Friends of Tryon Creek, Audubon Society and TrackersNW. He has received both local press in the The Oregonian, Portland Mercury, Willamette Week and national press in ReadyMade Magazine. Despite all of this, he still remains a penny-less celebrity anarchist. Well, he does have one Penny… And her value far exceeds that of your average coin. So there you go. |
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Tom Prang, Consultant and Skills Instructor -Tom blends his academic backgrounds in archeology and education with a diverse work history, including naturalist, curriculum designer, back country guide, wild-land firefighter, bear monitor, flintknapper, archeologist, and educator. As a subsistence fisher, hunter, and trapper he has spent much time in the back country learning skills for survival and navigation. Using both prehistoric and current methods, Tom works with materials such as jade, mammoth ivory, bone, slate, wood, shell, fur, antler, and chert to create museum-quality materials for displays and educational programs. |
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June Rzendzian, Skills Instructor-June has been a naturalist in the Pacific Northwest for nearly 10 years. She has explored tracking and wilderness crafts since 1998 and taught MESD Outdoor School for seven seasons. June has a Masters of Science in Educational Leadership at Portland State University’s Leadership in Ecology, Culture and Learning program. Her rewilding with TrackersNW includes leading women and girls deeper into their relationships, hunting and gathering wild foods in urban and greener landscapes, storytelling and creating new ways to play, learn and give thanks every day. |
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Emily Porter, a.k.a. Penny Scout: Tracker of Plants Breaker of Hearts hails from the Far East…Pennsylvania that is. She grew up next to the Allegheny National Forest, exploring the ancestral hills and rock shelters of the Seneca people. At age sixteen she ran away in depths of the night…by canoe. Like the fabled Yamabushi (forest warrior monks) her passions include herbalism and healing touch. She has a degree in environmental studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a certified Reiki II practitioner. Making a living as a botanist/model/ writer/educator, in her free time Penny enjoys trips to the road kill graveyard and long walks in the swamp. She keeps track of undertakings on her blog: Adventures in Feral Failure |
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Alice Froehlich, Instructor, A skilled naturalist, Alice brings keen curiosity, deep respect for the earth and genuine fun to our outdoor adventures. Her broad interests include ethnobotony, edible plants, mushrooms, birds, herbalism, geology, and growing food. A native of Minnesota, Alice came to the Northwest eleven years ago and has fostered a deep connection with the land. She developed and directed the Explorador program for low-income Latino youth during her tenure with the Audubon Society of Portland. She has also worked on nature and science education with Portland Public Schools, Growing Gardens, Metro Parks and Greenspaces, Friends of Trees, Portland Park’s Community Gardens Program, and SUN Schools. Alice enjoys speaking and studying Spanish and has traveled widely in South America. As a student, she conducted ecological fieldwork in Ecuador and Venezuela. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Science Teaching with Portland State University’s Center for Science Education. |
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| Arriving National & International Participants Its easy to fly into Portland's airport and get a ride out to your workshop. We pick up and host up to two nights before. Fees $75 for each non-workshop night: meals and safe lodging included. Contact Us to make your travel arrangements. | |