Our Staff
Anna Bradley, Founder and Instructor
Anna grew up in Eastern Oregon and spent her summers and weekends fishing, camping, and wandering the hills with her family. She discovered Archaeology, which became a passion and dreaming of running away to live in the wilderness. In 2006 she graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Archaeology and nowhere to go. She spent time directing plays and choirs, tutoring children, working as a Program Director for Boys & Girls Club, and volunteering with local organizations such as Nearby Nature. However, nature was always calling her back. With this in mind she began to study wilderness survival and nature awareness skills and soon found the link between her dreams and her passion to understand ancient ways. Anna has studied wilderness survival at Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, and has studied using the Kamana Naturalist Training Program. Anna loves to throw around a sling, study herbalism, and play in the wilds. She has worked very closely with children and adults alike using a teaching method that encourages curiosity, motivation, and fun. Anna loves integrating music and theatre into her teaching and is currently working on writing and recording her music. Anna has completed 126 training hours with the Academy of Scottish Herbalism here in Eugene and is currently studying with the Columbines School of Botanical Studies. She is also a volunteer with the Lane County Search and Rescue.
Matt Bradley, Founder and Instructor
Matt grew up in the southern Willamette Valley and was always conspicuously curious about the natural world. He began with an interest in hiking that evolved first into backpacking and then wilderness survival and eventually all manner of outdoor and wilderness skills. Matt specializes in ultralight backpacking and in the summer of 2005 he hiked 1700 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in through California, Oregon and Washington making much of his own gear for the trip. In 2004 he discovered Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants which spurred him in to a love of plants and all of their uses. You can often find him with his nose to the ground looking at (or perhaps tasting) something green. Matt has been trained at Tom Brown’s Tracker School and has completed Level 2 of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program but most of his experience comes from just being outside and passionately wanting to learn more about our natural world and our place in it. After working various jobs including being a National Park Ranger and helping REI coordinate their community outreach programs Matt has found his calling as a wilderness educator. In 2008 he co-founded ReWild Eugene with Anna Bradley.
Rees Maxwell, Founder and Instructor
Rees Maxwell is a graduate of Wilderness Awareness School’s year long Anake Outdoor School program and has taught in their Roots & Wings preschool program as well as their summer camps. Locally, Rees has taught children at Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and Nearby Nature. For three years he taught wilderness living skills to teens at the Network Charter School. Rees and his wife Matty have led their own summer nature camps in Eugene, mentoring 175 children over the last few years, and are excited to merge their summer nature camps with Whole Earth Nature School in 2010. Rees cofounded Dancing Sol – Nature Education Program with Matty in 2007. Rees teaches preschool-aged children in nature five days per week at Dancing Sol. See http://dancingsol.com for more details. Rees has found his bliss in teaching children (and adults) in nature!
Imogen Field Banks, Instructor
Imogen Field Banks grew up in Portland. As a child she loved to hang out in the woods and climb trees. When she got older, she put her love for the outdoors to use and started volunteering for a program called Outdoor School (based out of the Multnomah Education Service District). Through this organization she started her outdoor education training by teaching ecology and environmental science to sixth graders. Not to mention all the fun games and songs Outdoor School provided her with! She now has spent seven volunteer weeks at various camps, and plans on doing more in the future. Now Imogen is a an art student at the University of Oregon who hopes to combine her love of art, the great outdoors, and children into one super-dream-job in the future. On any given day you might find her doodling in her sketchbook, making new friends with children/adults/animals, or basking in any available sun on a lawn somewhere…Maybe even all at once. She loves living in Eugene because of all the beautiful parks and all of the nice people!
Michael Holmes, Instructor
Michael Holmes grew up between Eugene Oregon, Vancouver B.C., Germany and New York City. Michael spent a period of time living in a remote village in Northern India at 12,500ft above sea level on the Tibetan Plateau. He lived with a Ladakhi family, harvesting barley milking yaks and learning the customs of their ancient culture. Michael has worked as a private contractor surveying forest for the BLM and Forest service. In between this job and college, Michael has dedicated himself to Volunteer opportunities. He volunteers mainly for a non Profit called “Iceaxemen “, which teaches high school students to be leaders in the outdoors. Out of all his life experiences the ones that shaped him the most are those centered on a wilderness survival school taught by the acclaimed author and survivalist Tom Brown Jr. Over the years Michael has taken ten classes from Tom Brown Jr. and has spent six months living close within Tom’s community, as head intern at the school. As an intern he lived on site in a primitive shelter and lit a fire by friction each night to heat it. He was also fire keeper at many of the ceremonies held in camp. As an equally shaping experience Michael has participated in two vision quests, and has experience surviving alone, with nothing but a pocket knife. Today Michael has a continuing passion for nature, farming, and living simply. He delights in spending time teaching survival skills and testing his own techniques through survival experiences.
Terance MacKenzie, Lead Instructor
Terance was raised in Coburg, Oregon. He graduated from the Northwest Youth Corps Outdoor high school. While with the Youth Corps he worked with crews on a variety of conservation projects all over Oregon and Washington building trails plus restoring habitat for animals and plants. His family taught him to love the forest and everything in it while helping him learn how to identify plants and mushrooms, how to hunt and fish and most important how to have fun and get muddy. He has been a counselor for a number of youth programs including: City of Eugene’s Safety Town, Sempervirens Outdoor School located in the California Redwoods and Portland based Trackers Northwest.
Charissa Newell, Instructor
Charissa grew up in Eugene, Oregon. Her family gave her a love for nature through hikes and outdoor trips and going to summer camps of course! She graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.A. in Spanish and a minor in Environmental Studies. Charissa has recently been working as an educational assistant at Prairie Mountain School and her other experience includes 4 summers as a camp counselor. For two of those summers she was the outdoor education instructor and loved exploring the wonders of nature with children. Charissa has volunteered as a Nature Guide at Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and has extensive hiking experience in the Pacific Northwest; she’ll reach 100 hikes by the end of the summer. Her favorite parts of hiking are figuring out plant and insect species and learning about their amazing qualities, as well as discovering animal scat and tracks. It’s always an adventure! Charissa’s other hobbies include knitting, crocheting, spinning yarn, and jewelry making. She can also be found reading a good book with a cup of tea and working in her new backyard garden.
Indre Noreika, Instructor
Indre Noreika is an enthusiast of the natural world, children, education and art. She recently completed the Waldorf Teacher Training in Eugene and is excited to begin her journey as a waldorf teacher. Teaching with a rich imagination and soulful creativity is a passion for this young teacher. Before arriving in Eugene two years ago, Indre spent four years traveling in the US as an environmental educator. She just loves to run around the woods with children learning and having fun every step of the way. Indre graduated from Southern Illinois University with a Bachelor’s in Zoology and soon after discovered her true calling…to teach. She feels blessed and very fortunate to work for Whole Earth. Thank you for sharing your children with us!
Sarah Pond, Instructor
Sarah moved a lot with her family as a child, getting to explore all different sorts of wilderness from the intense Oregon rocky coasts to the rolling green mountains in Vermont. She grew up sailing, hiking, camping, and skiing, which remain to be her interests! After settling in Massachusetts for a while, she decided to go to the University of Oregon in order to explore the great outdoors here once again. She decided to study Environmental science, and with any free time loved to escape to the mountains to go skiing, backpacking, or rock climbing. She also spent a lot of time volunteering for Nearby Nature and other student groups like C.A.S.L., the Recycling Center, and OSPIRG. One her favorite experiences in college was getting to go study biology in the Galapagos Islands, and then staying in Ecuador to volunteer for Planet Drum planting trees and teaching the city about ecological restoration. She just graduated in the spring of 2011 with her degree in Environmental Science, and was set on getting involved in Environmental Education. She loves kids and loves the outdoors, so it was a perfect combo! She is a strong believer in the power of environmental education to create or create stronger relationships kid’s have with nature. She believes this relationship will not only help resolve some of our environmental issues, but also give kid’s a healthier up bringing and life. Sarah loves finding creative ways to interact and teach children about complex theories concerning nature. She has a big imagination, a lot of energy, and a lot of experience working with kids from past jobs.
Karen Rainsong, Instructor
Karen Rainsong holds a B.A. from Cal State University Northridge in Art, and a Certified Naturalist Certificate from the Siskiyou Field Institute in Oregon. She is a graphic designer, photographer, and for many years was an art teacher. She is married and is the mother of an 9 year old son who can often be seen at the museum!
She has always loved nature and natural interpretation. Throughout her years living in Eugene, she has worked most often with teaching children, in both traditional school settings and non-formal outdoor settings. Some of her favorite jobs included teaching natural history and local history at Homesource, teaching many different types of art and natural history courses for Lane Arts Council, and teaching as an Audobon In the Schools instructor.
Previously she enjoyed working as an Educational Coordinator at Dorris Ranch, as an instructor for the City of Eugene Parks and Rec, and an instructor at Nearby Nature. She is currently the coordinator of the Alvord Farm and Museum in West Eugene, which is a hands-on natural history museum and farm for kids and families. More about her can be found at her web site: www.rainsongdesign.net.
Roman Shapla, Instructor
Roman grew up in Western Kentucky where he spent his days mucking about outdoors. After graduating from Murray State University with a degree in Anthropology he moved to the Pacific Northwest with his family where he became interested in primitive skills and permaculture. After a few years back home, where his family lived, Roman worked at an environmental education center and taught classes through the local art guild. Then his family returned to Oregon. Roman is currently working on his Masters in Education with a focus on creating a permaculture-based curriculum for public schools.
Anna Stern, Instructor
Anna Stern grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts. She graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in English Education and certification. She has a passion for teaching, and thinks nature is the best classroom. At a young age, Anna found her love of nature while exploring the woods around her house with her dog. Since then, Anna has completed a summer Wilderness camp where she learned to love hiking, biking, and canoeing. After being a happy camper, Anna went on to be a happy counselor at a camp on Seneca Lake where she and her campers explored the wilderness of northern New York state. Anna moved to Eugene for the welcoming people, the creative culture, and the natural beauty.
