Staff and Board members

GEEO is run by a small staff and our board of directors, who tirelessly donate their time and talents to help educators travel. Each staff and board member is experienced in their own field, and brings a unique perspective to GEEO.

Jesse Weisz, Founder and Executive Director

Jesse founded GEEO in 2007 to share his passion for traveling with America's teachers. Jesse discovered the wonders of travel during high school when he made two trips to Europe as a member of the US National Ultimate Frisbee team. Later Jesse studied film in Sydney and landed a three month all expenses paid trip to Asia to shoot stills and video for an Australian tour company. From there Jesse was hooked on travel and has visited over 70 countries.

In 2003, Jesse started his own new business development consulting company for European advertising agencies. In 2006 he cut back his consulting hours to start GEEO. In September of 2010 GEEO received funding, hiring Jesse to work full time for a job he had been doing as an unpaid volunteer for the previous four years.

Natasha Weisz, Outreach Coordinator and Office Administrator

Natasha serves as GEEO's Outreach Coordinator and helps GEEO in an administrative capacity. Natasha spent her childhood in the Philippines and New Zealand. She has worked for the Royal New Zealand Navy, primarily as the Executive Assistant to the Chief of Navy. She also served at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington, D.C. as the Personal Assistant to the New Zealand's Defence Attache to the United States. Currently she splits her time between GEEO and another non-profit organization, Children's Literacy Initiative.

Aaron Muderick, Board Member and Treasurer

Aaron is President of Crazy Aaron Enterprises, a toy and promotional merchandise manufacturer based in Philadelphia, PA. Aaron helped found GEEO and is an essential part of the organization. As a successful entrepreneur, Muderick brings to GEEO his experience in managing all aspects of small organizations including marketing and advertising, organizational startup, outsourcing, and business finance.

Zachary Klughaupt, Board Member and Secretary

Zach is an Associate Counsel at Ansell Ltd., where he specializes in transactional and corporate work involving the U.S. and Latin America. Prior to joining Ansell, he practiced law at a number of law firms and companies in New York and Sao Paulo. Zachary received his law degree from Duke University, where he was a Lead Editor of the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law and spent a semester at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. He graduated cum laude from Duke University in 1999, where he earned a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Spanish. He is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, and now lives in New Jersey.

David Easthope, Board Member

David Easthope is a senior analyst at Celent, an international strategy consultancy for financial institutions. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and member of the CFA Society of San Francisco. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1998, where he earned a B.A. in Economics and where he later earned his MBA in 2004. He is proficient in Spanish. David brings a passion for travel to GEEO's board.

J.D. Bowers, Board Member

Dr. J.D. Bowers has been teaching for eighteen years and has taught at secondary schools and universities in Uruguay, Hawaii, Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Turkey and Cyprus. He is an Associate Professor of History at Northern Illinois University and the Director of the Genocide and Human Rights Institute. A graduate of the College of William & Mary and Indiana University, he is an adventurous traveler who frequently visits the Middle East, a coffee and soda fiend, admirer of art, and avid fan of learning new things. He lives in Northern Illinois with his wife and two daughters.

Peggy Altoff, Board Member

After traveling with GEEO to Southern Africa in the summer of 2010, Peggy accepted GEEO's invitation to join our board of directors. Her wealth of experience is a huge asset to GEEO.

Peggy is the former President of the National Council for the Social Studies. A veteran of more than 30 years in education, Peggy has taught middle school and high school, supervised pre-service teachers, and taught continuing education classes. Four years as Maryland's state specialist in Social Studies preceded nine years as K-12 supervisor in Carroll County, MD. Peggy now resides in Colorado Springs, Co where she worked for 8 years as the social studies coordinator in District 11.

Peggy's professional passion for social studies is most often manifested in working with teachers, both in the classroom and through professional development. She has developed workshops and taught graduate courses related to reading and literacy and their importance in unlocking social studies content for students.

Berenice Felix Diaz, Board Member

Berenice is a Dual Language Teacher who has been teaching in Dallas, TX since 2002. Fully bilingual in Spanish and English, she has had the opportunity of studying in the Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterey in Mexico as well as studying in Sevilla, Spain for one semester while in college. She is a visionary teacher who believes in empowering students with their capacity to change the world. Berenice perceives children as individuals whose unique perspectives and sensitivity can inspire activism when exposed to national and world issues.

An active Student Council advisor while at Brandenburg Elementary, she loves to encourage our young leaders towards the importance of student involvement within their communities. Through this vision she developed an extra curricular class after school called "Awakening Young Voices." Her students worked on creating various multi media projects and filming documentaries inspired by personal dreams and current events on a global scale. Being part of GEEO's mission greatly resonates with her vision and belief of cultivating the potential of emerging leaders because the preparation of their minds will impact our nation as well as other nations.

Special Thanks

GEEO has had the help of many people over the years and we could not be where we are today without their hard work. John Warner, Ron Fenska, Tricia Madill, Amylee Silva, Leah Ferguson, Liane O'Keefe, Lianna Martin and Nathaelle Roy at G Adventures are instrumental in the day to day running of our operations. Bruce Poon Tip, the founder and owner of G Adventures had the vision to partner with GEEO and without him we would be able to serve a small fraction of the teachers we help travel today. Our website was designed by Shawn Burant and Attit Patel, who did an amazing job at an amazing price.

Special thanks also go out to our amazing artist Frank Fallon. Frank has designed our logo, promotional materials and much more and almost all of his work was donated out of the goodness of his own heart.

We would also like to thank former board members who helped build GEEO. They include Beth Begy, Jeremy Baker, Mike Iacovella, Anna Nuzzo, Claire Sturm, Sarah Wesley and Dan Dominguez.