Instructors

Ramzy Berbawy — Lead Instructor for School-Year and Summer Youth Programs; Adult Wilderness Skills Instructor

Ramzy’s naturalist journey began stargazing on a football field, sparking a deep passion for the outdoors. He’s since worked on small farms across the Olympic Peninsula and Methow Valley, where he deepened his connection to the land. Ramzy has completed the Wildlife Tracking Intensive with the Wilderness Awareness School and is currently continuing his studies through CedarRoot’s Wildlife Tracking Immersion.

Ramzy is now in his fourth year as a youth nature studies instructor with CedarRoot and is also involved in adult programming. This year, he will co-lead CedarRoot’s new multi-month Wilderness Skills Immersion, sharing his extensive knowledge and mastery with those eager to dive deeper into learning these ancient and essential practices. His hands-on approach and passion for nature inspire his students, equipping them with practical skills and a lasting connection to the wild world around them.

Hannah Breckel — Assistant Youth Summer Camp Instructor

Hannah has loved the outdoors since the day she was born on an Alaskan island. Since then she has moved around the country learning about new flora and fauna as she goes. Hannah is especially captivated by birds, but also enjoys foraging for wild edibles, hiking, and mountain biking. Currently in her third year participating in CedarRoot's Friday Nature Studies program, Hannah is the first student to earn one of the program's Nature Studies Rings. She enjoys sharing what she's learned as an assistant instructor for the Wednesday afternoon program. 

Scott Brinton — Lead Instructor for School-Year Youth Programs; Adult Wilderness Skills Instructor

Scott has nearly three decades of nature education experience.  He has mentored hundreds of students in practical wilderness skills and nature awareness.  He co-founded the Riekes Nature Studies Department in California, has taught Environmental Science for Peninsula College, and taught Islandwood’s graduate students in the Natural History and Ecology program. Most recently, Scott founded CedarRoot to help continue natural history and rural skills education. He is passionate about applying ecological lessons discovered in nature to areas of regenerative design, sustainable development and agroecology.

Maria Bullock — Basket/Hat Making Instructor

Maria spent much of her youth in a small Polish country village where she gained an early appreciation for the craft of basket-making. She is now on Orcas Island which is in the Salish Sea in Washington State, living on the edge of a wetland marsh on her family’s permaculture farm. On Maria’s homestead, she grows, harvests, and dries a variety of basketry materials. Each of these materials serves as an inspiration. Over the last decade she has studied traditional techniques from both Europe and the U.S. and uses them to create unique pieces that are both functional and beautiful.

Mark Darrach — Botany and Geology Instructor

Mark is a professional conservation botanist and plant taxonomist affiliated with the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. He has worked on plant conservation projects and plant taxonomic research for 30+ years in various settings throughout the western U.S. and Mexico. Mark’s primary research interests lie within the parsley family - Apiaceae, and he is actively describing newly discovered species, particularly in the genus Lomatium. Ongoing molecular genetic research, of which he is a co-investigator, has led to the discovery of many new taxa in this highly speciose group. Mark enjoys teaching and "lighting the flame" of interest in plant in others. He has taught as an instructor in several university settings and as a long-time instructor for the North Cascades Institute as well.

Dr. Mark Elbroch — Tracking Immersion Instructor

Mark is a scientist, tracker, writer, and storyteller. His current position is Lead Scientist for the Puma Program for Panthera (www.panthera.org), a global nonprofit focused on wild cat conservation. His research on mountain lions is contributing radical changes to what we thought we knew about the species, especially with regards to their social lives and their keystone roles in ecosystems.

Mark was awarded a Senior Tracker Certificate by CyberTracker Conservation in Kruger National Park, South Africa, after successfully following lions across varied terrain. His certificate was the 17th ever awarded and the first to a non-African.

Sean Koomen — Olympic Mountain Teen Expedition Lead Instructor

Sean first moved to Port Townsend in 2003 to attend the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. After spending several years traveling both nationally and internationally working on wooden boats, he returned to the Olympic Peninsula in 2010 as a boatbuilding instructor for NWSWB. In a short time, Sean became the lead boatbuilding instructor, and now, after 15 years of teaching adult students, he is shifting his passion toward working with kids.

In 2022, Sean joined Olympic Mountain Rescue in Bremerton, WA, and, with his combined teaching experience, is excited to help CedarRoot develop more expeditions and outdoor adventures for youth in our area.

Jason Knight — Wilderness Skills Instructor

Jason is passionate about helping people learn wilderness survival skills. Since 1997 he's taught thousands of people, including training hundreds of adults to become survival instructors. He has consulted as a local wilderness skills expert for the Discovery Channel and has been featured on NPR. He is a co-founder and instructor at Alderleaf Wilderness College, where he has offered courses on wilderness survival to the general public and a broad range of clients including the US Forest Service, the Seattle Mountaineers, and the cast of the award-winning film Captain Fantastic.

Chloe Lampert — Lead Youth Summer Camp Instructor

Chloe has been a part of the CedarRoot community for over a decade, evolving from student to instructor! She is grateful to have grown up under the mentorship of many local naturalists and organizations. She cherishes every opportunity to give back to the community that raised her, passing along the knowledge, skills, and joy accumulated throughout a childhood spent mostly barefoot and sopping wet. 

Chloe is an undergraduate student at Colorado College, majoring in Organismal Biology and Ecology with a particular interest in mycology and entomopathogenic fungi. She spends her summers home, foraging for woodland trinkets and wild food, playing the guitar for snails, chasing tides and waterfalls, and dancing under the stars.

She believes in fostering love, curiosity, and reciprocity as mechanisms to bridge the cultural divide between “nature” and “human”.

Matt Mahan — Wildlife Tracking Immersion Instructor

Matt became involved with the Olympic Cougar Project after losing livestock to a cougar—an experience that sparked a deep desire to find better ways to steward both land and wildlife. Seeking alternatives to lethal conflict, he connected with Dr. Mark Elbroch and began monitoring his land with game cameras, discovering it was a key cougar corridor with over 60 visits in two years. This work led to collaring local cougars and eventually to Matt being hired by Panthera to manage a camera grid in Jefferson County. He also documents kill and bed sites and assists a local filmmaker with camera trapping for a documentary. Matt continues to deepen his skills in tracking and trailing, and is passionate about finding coexistence with apex predators.

David Moskowitz — Wildlife Track and Sign Certification Instructor

David Moskowitz works in the fields of photography, wildlife biology and education. He is the photographer and author of three books: Caribou Rainforest, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest and Wolves in the Land of Salmon and co-author and photographer of Peterson’s Field Guide to North American Bird Nests. He has contributed his technical expertise to a wide variety of wildlife studies regionally and in the Canadian and U.S. Rocky mountains, focusing on using tracking and other non-invasive methods to study wildlife ecology and promote conservation.

Olivia Rose — Assistant Youth Summer Camp Instructor

Olivia has been attending nature schools since she was four years old, and began participating in CedarRoot programs in 2021.  During her time in CedarRoot, she has completed the first four levels of the Fire Ring and has also completed portions of the Plant Ring.  Olivia grew up on her family's farm in Sequim, and she enjoys jumping into cold rivers and lakes, climbing trees, drawing, reading, and playing lots of soccer.

Caleb Sigmond — Assistant Youth Summer Camp Instructor

Caleb grew up in the CedarRoot program and has been a devoted attendee since pre-school. It has ignited his love of the outdoors! He can be found packrafting the Elwha, backpacking in the Olympics (and even the Alps), bike commuting to school, sailing the San Juans and Gulf Islands, rowing longboats for school credit every week, and commercial fishing in Alaska. He brings these outdoor adventures to the work he does at CedarRoot. Caleb finds it difficult to name a single moment outside he loves most; rather, he is most fully himself when immersed in the outdoors—adventuring, working, and connecting with the natural world.  He loves sharing experiences with other kids and is honored to be stepping into the mentor role with the Salish Coast weekly programs and summer camps.

Sarah Spaeth — Wildlife Tracking Instructor

Sarah has a lifetime of exploration of, and connection to the Pacific Northwest, and has worked for Jefferson Land Trust for 28 years helping to preserve the farms, forests and fish habitat of Jefferson County. Her life's work was enriched immeasurably through a wildlife tracking class she took 11 years ago— it opened her eyes fully to the significance of conservation work to the other creatures that share their home with us. Sarah has been studying and teaching wildlife track and sign through the Wilderness Awareness School’s Wildlife Tracking Intensive, and achieved her Track and Sign Specialist Certification in 2020. She is excited to help us learn to read this first script written on the land, telling stories rich in love, mystery, drama and death!

Andrew Stratton — Wildlife Trailing Instructor

Andrew is Project Coordinator on the Olympic Cougar Project, based in western Washington, with 8 years of experience in wildlife research fieldwork. Originally trained in naturalist skills as a tracker through CyberTracker International, holding a professional tracker certificate, which includes a
professional trailing certificate and a specialist in track and sign for Western Washington. He attended Alderleaf Wilderness College, an outdoor skills school for two years. He is currently finishing his degree in wildlife and fisheries conservation through Oregon State University. His professional interests include being in the backcountry, tracking, camera trapping, and training working dogs that assist with the safe capture of cougars.

Joshua Sylvester— Lead Sequim Summer Camp Instructor

Sylvester grew up along the saline coast of Maine, where he learned to forage and track at an early age from his father. These skills helped feed his family through hunting and gathering local wild foods. Later in life, he lived in the Appalachian area of Tennessee and Central Florida. He always wanted to learn more so studied plants and animals with his wife and children.

Sylvester was feeling stagnant, his learning having plateaued through books and exploration, when a close friend recommended Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracker School in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Returning home to Maine, he began to put into practice what he had learned at the school. He eventually returned to Tom's Children of the Earth programs and earned a Coyote Mentoring teaching certificate.

Dr. Nyn Tomkins — Skull/Bone Morphology Instructor

Nyn is a naturalist, anatomy enthusiast, chiropractor, bodyworker and wildlife tracker. She’s a graduate of Wilderness Awareness School’s nine-month Immersion program and is now a guest instructor. She is deeply interested in the story our bodies, in particular our bones, can tell about how we live and relate to the world. She is passionate about teaching anatomy and physiology as a way to help other people relate to and connect with our other than human kin.

Rachael Van Laanen runs Mystery Bay Farm, a micro-goat dairy on Marrowstone Island.  She received a BA in Ecology and Education which led her to teach environmental and garden based education for 10 years.  She then followed her passions to the world of farming and co-ran a diversified organic vegetable farm for 3 years.   Rachael is also passionate about weaving.  She was mentored for 4 years by Miwok elders in Yosemite Valley Ca, where she learned to twine willow into all different shapes, sizes and patterns.

Tyler Walcheff— Olympic Mountain Teen Expedition Instructor

Growing up in Anacortes, Tyler found an early love for the outdoors through climbing, backpacking, and exploring the North Cascades and Olympic Mountains. He studied Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at The Evergreen State College and later worked as a field biologist and ornithologist in remote regions of southeastern Oregon, southern Arizona, Australia, and elsewhere, including off-grid field expeditions that lasted months at a time.

After returning to Washington to earn a master’s in science education from Western Washington University, Tyler eventually made his way back to the Olympic Peninsula, where he now teaches high school science at Chimacum High School. He has been climbing and mountaineering since his teenage years, pursuing technical rock climbing and alpine travel throughout North America and abroad.

Peter Yencken — Village Class Instructor

Peter started as a bowyer while working for Tom Brown's Tracking and Wilderness Survival School.  He has taught the art of making bows to 2000+ people of all ages. He also makes and teaches knife (of different size and shapes) making; backpack basket making; felt boot making; as well as leather bag, hat and shoe making. Peter has been on a lifelong search for skills that help people reclaim a feeling of self reliance while also providing a focal point for observing oneself more deeply. He currently lives in Ticksville (a.k.a. Charlottesville, VA) and learns much wisdom from his daughter.