Outdoor Guides
Mentorship Director
Roman is from Kentucky, where the grass is blue. He speaks Slovenian and enjoys wildcrafting, foraging, and practicing archery. Roman is gifted at teaching kids stealth, movement, balance, and patience. However, his superpower is getting any human passionate about Nature in under ten seconds. If he were an animal he’d be a seahorse (with no jockey).
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Teaching Stealth and Camouflage
Family Success
Maggie Frantz Family Success Associate
Maggie is from Louisville, KY, and loves being in and wandering natural spaces. Maggie has been studying Outdoor Leadership/Education at Prescott College in Arizona for the past three years while taking advantage of her surroundings by rafting on the San Juan River and hiking in the Grand Canyon. She is incredibly passionate about building intentional communities for nature education and teaching/learning wilderness skills from various communities around the world.
Maggie worked as a Trackers Guide in 2019. Her #1 goal when working with students is to create safe, exciting spaces for them to explore and grow.
Maggie began guiding families to the perfect adventure with the Customer Success team in the summer of 2020. Her favorite part of customer connection is problem-solving with all of the families in our Trackers community. She approaches her work with families the same way she would if working with a group of students—with compassion, understanding, and patience. It definitely takes a village.
Maggie’s Favorite Outdoor Activity: Braving raging rivers while rafting.
Holly Noconi Family Success Director
Holly is from Pacific Palisades, CA, and is an avid proponent of all things outdoors. In addition to camping, hiking, and caring for animals, Holly has worked as an educator for Garden School and holds a certification in Herbology. She loves to share practical uses for wild plants and demonstrate the benefits of our connection to flora.
Holly brings her love for nature to her role as the Customer Success Lead by helping families find their perfect outdoor adventure.
Holly’s Favorite Outdoor Activity: Foraging for wild plants while hiking with her family
Mandisa Basarich Family Success Supervisor
Emma Conklin Family Success Associate
Emma was born and raised in North Carolina. Her Personal interests include traveling, all activities involving the beach/ocean, running/exercise, and being outside as much as possible.
Emma graduated from UNC Wilmington, majoring in Tourism Management, Recreation, & Sport Leadership and minoring in Spanish. She has previously worked as a kayak tour guide for 4 years and she has also worked numerous hospitality jobs in hotels, resorts, and restaurants.
Emma's personal interests in outdoor activities and my previous job as a kayak tour guide allows me to relate to our customers and assist them the best that I can.
Emma's favorite outdoor activity is swimming.
Chaneka Hawkins Family Success Associate
Chaneka was born in Montana and raised in Portland, Oregon. She enjoys anything to do with water and spends most summers visiting different rivers and lakes but Fall is her favorite season as she loves the rain, mud and changing of the leaves. She couldn't ever imagine leaving the PNW. In her free time Chaneka loves to hang out with her son sharing their love of music, arts and crafts and going on whatever adventures his mind comes up with.
She spent 7 years in the finance industry before moving over to Trackers Family Success team. Her background in financials, customer service and being a mom helps her connect with families on all levels. She loves to make lasting connections and knowing she is making a difference in peoples lives.
Chaneka's favorite outdoor activity changes with the seasons. She loves off-road mudding in the fall and winter as well as visiting the PNW beaches in the spring and summer with her friends and family any chance she gets.
Team Support
Esther Ikoro Head of Innovation
Esther’s love of nature dates back to her childhood years spent watching National Geographic and the Science Channel. She got more involved in outdoor recreation while earning a Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since then she has been dedicated to helping improve life outcomes for underserved groups, especially increasing access to natural spaces.
At Trackers, Esther’s role is to hold space for everyone in the community to feel heard, supported, and empowered; to identify opportunities for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and to engage colleagues, parents, and campers in programs and practices that are growth-oriented for Trackers.
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Canoeing
Tina Ewing Director of HR
Tina has been with Trackers since February 2021 and is excited to be a part of our team.
She grew up in the PNW and appreciates so much of what it has to offer. Being an avid traveler, seeing and exploring the world, Tina couldn’t imagine not having this as my homebase.
Prior to Trackers, Tina was professionally in the financial institution industry. Starting as a teller, loan officer, branch manager and finally as the compliance director.
Tina thrilled to change her focus to be more involved with individuals and grow within this community.
Tina considers herself a low scale thrill seeker! She loves to go ziplining, parasailing, rafting, all with a qualified lead of course. She's always down for a hike with her ruck as long as she gets assistance with navigation or have a GPS.
Kyle Shaw General Manager, California
Kyle grew up in Juneau, Alaska. It was there, exploring the forests, mountains, glaciers, and waters of The Great Land, that he fell in love with nature’s interconnectedness. When teaching Guides and kids alike, he enjoys pointing out the quiet relationships between animals, plants, and ecological systems.
With over a decade of working in outdoor environments, Kyle delights in the revelatory ""Aha! moments"", like seeing a new climber traverse a difficult route; the look of mutual understanding between a wild bear and a visitor; and a kid’s excited celebration of a successful fishing expedition.
Kyle has been with Trackers Earth for three years, as a key leader in amplifying our mission of inspiring kids and families outdoors for a lifetime of connection and adventure. He has an unending commitment to giving space and fostering confidence in young people so they may have their own experiences outdoors, as he did in his youth.
Kyle’s Favorite Outdoor Activity: Carrying the adventure with him while Backpacking
David Kacena Technology Architect
Hailing from Los Angeles, California, David has been helping get families get into outdoor adventures with only a few clicks since 2018. David is inspired by the experiences available at Trackers Earth.
He loves that because his son has grown up going to Trackers camps, he is now more knowledgeable in outdoor skills than David is!
When he’s not working his web wizardry, you can find David playing music and coaching soccer.
Favorite Outdoor Adventure: Backpacking
Travis Hughes General Manager, Realms
Travis began his career in youth education as a Marine Science Instructor for the Education and Conservation Department of SeaWorld San Diego. He helped teach thousands of students about marine conservation by conducting hundreds of school assemblies across the country, hosting educational shows for up to three thousand field trip students per day, and teaching summer day camps, sleepovers, and resident camps. During his 17 years with SeaWorld, Travis has participated in numerous American Camping Association conferences becoming familiar with and helping to develop numerous camp best practice guidelines.
In 2014 Travis left his position as Camps manager at SeaWorld to become the Director of Safari Experiences at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park located in Escondido, California. Here Travis led a team of over 200 educators who conducted numerous daily programs, helping to educate over 1.5 million guests per year on how to help end extinction one species at a time. During his seven years with the zoo Travis built a world class team of educators working with participants of all ages on public tours, camps, sleepovers, animal presentations, and youth/elder outreaches. While with the San Diego Zoo, Travis presented several times at the annual American Zoos and Aquariums conference on youth programs. He currently sits on the Board for the San Diego East County YMCA and helps advise three YMCA locations on their youth programs and camps.
Travis joined Trackers Earth in the summer of 2021, leveraging his experience and industry knowledge to continue the long standing Trackers commitment to safety, quality, and fun by building highly resilient individuals through tracking.
Travis moved to Oregon from San Diego, California where he attended San Diego State University graduating with a degree in Environmental Geography and a minor in Ecology. While in San Diego, Travis enjoyed the numerous outdoor activities available such as surfing, kayaking, diving, sailing, fishing, hiking, and camping. He and his wife have two wonderful children who also enjoy the great outdoors.
Christina Codino Executive Operating Officer
Chris joined Trackers full time as our EOO 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.
Randall Chalawsky Chief Strategy Officer
Randall has held senior production and programming roles at CBS and HBO, on multi-year, multi-platform franchise media properties -- including Everybody Loves Raymond and the HBO Aspen Festival. He was instrumental in building Levity Live-IMPROV, which sold to Madison Square Garden Entertainment / Azoff and AMC Networks, for its industry leading media and customer acquisition platform. Chalawsky is a first adopter of consumer digital technologies, building fans through video, social, and mobile; an early strategic partner at Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Netflix, amassing global audiences for enterprises such as Trevor Noah, Jeff Dunham, and Jackson Galaxy. His creative and operational leadership created a multi-channel network of 100M+, generating hundreds of millions in revenue.
Chalawsky is an industry leader in connecting digital marketing to live events across Europe, South Africa, and Australia, with partners such as Sony, Viacom, and Universal, introducing an entire ecosystem of content monetization and concert ticket sales at tentpole venues including London’s famed O2 Arena. His brand work includes Norwegian Cruise Line, Jameson, Clorox, Pepsi, and Toyota. He is the publisher of a top 10 iphone app, and a development partner with Amazon, Google, and Apple, among others, with dozens of web / mobile / SW products to his credit. He has produced over 90 hours of primetime television programming.
Previous board level roles include PIAS Belgium, a unit of the leading independent European music distribution company.
He is a mentor at SDSU and WeWork Labs, a volunteer member with ThinkLA and LA 2028, and part-time faculty with CSU-Fullerton in the College of Business and Economics. He is a principal organizer of Southern California’s largest data focused conference, DataConLA. Having started four companies, sold two, incubated and accelerated dozens, Chalawsky also advises a number of startups in LA and the Bay Area working in direct-to-consumer, future of work, and social impact -- including Wisdom Labs, Religion of Sports, BackFlip, and Defy Ventures, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, running life saving entrepreneurship programming for the incarcerated.
He earned his MBA from USC, where is he’s a mentor and program leader at the USC Marshall / Grief Incubator.
Randall joined Trackers Earth in 2020 as a key leader in amplifying the organization's work in this golden age of outdoor education. He has traveled through the PNW all of his life, including high school in Alaska, where he spent summers during childhood and as a commercial fisherman during college.
Jackson Jones Marketing Manager
Jackson Jones was born in the Rocky Mountains and adventured through his young life in the highland terrain of Utah and Colorado hiking, biking, and hitting the ski slopes.
He moved to Portland, OR to study Marketing at PSU and graduated in 2019 with a degree and an Athletic and Outdoor Industry Certificate. Impressed by the roving bands of kids with bows and firemaking kits in his neighborhood of SE Portland, he applied for a position at Trackers Earth and has been working there to inspire families outdoors ever since!
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Shredding Gnar (skiing)
Michelle McCann Editor in Chief
When Michelle R. McCann was a girl, she dreamed of creating books. She would disappear at birthday parties, only to be discovered hours later hiding in a closet with her friend’s books. She studied children’s lit at Brown University, got an MFA in Writing for Children at Vermont College, and has been working in publishing ever since. For the past 30 years she’s edited and art directed hundreds of books for kids, and for 13 years she taught Children’s Book Publishing at Portland State University.
Michelle grew up in Oregon doing all kinds of outdoorsy activities—rock climbing, hiking and camping, whitewater rafting, snowboarding. Trackers brings together her two passions: books and the outdoors. She writes an outdoor parenting blog for Trackers, and has helped create how-to outdoor skills books for families, fiction novels for kids set in the Trackers universes, and lots of super cool Trackers comics!
When not at Trackers, Michelle writes her own award-winning children’s books including Girls Who Rocked the World, Finding Fairies, Reading Together: Share in the Wonder of Books with a Parent-Child Book Club, and an upcoming book about women’s soccer. And she still loves to do all the outdoorsy things she did as a kid—now with her own kids.
Michelle’s favorite outdoor activities are snowboarding and rafting.