C-GEO Steering Committee

The C-GEO Steering Committee is comprised of nine members. Three new members are elected each year by a vote of C-GEO Teacher Consultants, and serve a term of three years. The Steering Committee meets on zoom two-three times a year and one in-person retreat in various locations across the state. It makes decisions about awards and grants; advises the co-coordinators on programs and materials; brainstorms about the scope and future of C-GEO activities; advises on any matters that come before C-GEO; and serves on specific sub-committees: Outreach, Professional Development, Curriculum Resource Development and Technology Integration.

Beth Cook is Program Manager for Classroom Law Project. During her 20-year career as a classroom teacher, Beth focused on sharing her passion for civic engagement, creating curriculum to support students in finding their voices and in engaging as positive change makers. Since 2010, she has been a Social Studies and Language Arts teacher at the Middle and High School levels, creating curriculum through the lens of geographic standards. Beth is a National Geographic Teacher Consultant, and holds degrees from University of Rochester and Lewis and Clark Graduate School. Her other passion is recreating dishes from her travels around the world.

Chelsea Fuller teaches 6th Grade Social Studies and AVID at Waldo Middle School in the Salem-Keizer School District. She has been involved with C-GEO for over ten years. "I greatly appreciate the learning opportunities and friendships that CGEO has provided throughout the years".

Allyson Hamlik has been an elementary and middle school teacher for 16 years. She is currently teaching 3rd grade at a rural K-8 Place-based charter school in Powell Butte, Oregon. “Connecting kids to the land, the community, and the water in a 3-year cycle of learning has been so rewarding and fulfilling even while finishing the most challenging of all of my years of teaching.” I am so looking forward to becoming even more actively involved with the Center for Geography Education in Oregon as I’ve enjoyed being a TC, presenting at GeoFest, traveling abroad for the first time to Greece to support my professional development, and further promoting geography education in our school and beyond.

Kerrie O'Brien is a teacher at Memorial Middle School in Albany, where she has taught language arts, social studies, Chinese, Spanish, science, and AVID over the past seventeen years. She holds multiple degrees from Oregon State University. Since joining C-GEO in 2008, she has worked to promote geography in her school by hosting multiple family geography nights and leading her students in geo-inquiry projects. She is passionate about C-GEO and the opportunities it affords educators to help their students learn about the world we all live in.

Tabitha Richards is a twenty-year veteran social science teacher. She teaches Personal Finance, College Credit Speech/Communication, Government, College Credit Economics, World History & Geography, College Credit U.S. History, and diverse History Electives. Tabitha has been the standing senior class advisor for eleven years. She has served as a mentor teacher to seven student teachers. Tabitha earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from Western Oregon University, and has a Bachelor of Arts in the Social Sciences with a minor in Speech/Communication from Western Oregon University. She believes that student success is centered on an environment where children know they are safe to respectfully voice their opinions and interact with people who have differing views.

Courtney Wehner has taught at the elementary level for the past 10 years. She has been a member of C-GEO for 11 years and has served on their steering committee for the past 5 years. She is so thankful for the opportunities she has received by being a part of this organization. She actively promotes geography education within her district with annual Family Geography Nights and presents yearly at GEOFest. She serves as her district's Union Vice President, and heads up the district Wellness Committee. In 2018, Courtney was awarded the Oregon's Extra Yard for Teacher's award from the College Football Playoff Foundation.

Courtney Wertz has taught almost every subject for the last twenty years She teaches sixth through twelfth grade. Currently, she teaches for Jefferson County School District located in Madras, Oregon. Traveling, exploring and learning are a few of her favorite hobbies. She found out about the Center for Geography Education in 2016 and has been hooked ever since! "This fabulous program opened the door to a whole new way of thinking about incorporating geography education into whatever I teach. I have gleaned much insight through the trainings and institutes which resulted in projects and hands-on experiences, enriching my students’ lives as well as the community. C-GEO has so much to offer and I highly recommend it all!"

Janelle Wren is a Reading Intervention teacher at an elementary school in the Oregon Trail School District in Sandy. In her sixteen years in education, she has been a Library Media Specialist and Teacher Librarian and an upper elementary Classroom Teacher. She has taught in Oregon public schools and in American schools abroad in Brazil and Dubai, UAE. She has her Master's degree in Geography Education from the University of Oregon. She has held many Family Geography Nights at her schools supported by C-GEO.