Youth Education - Staff Directory

Franklin Tate, Director
34 Wall Street, Suite 804
Asheville, NC  28801
(828) 398-0178

Franklin serves as TU’s first Director of Youth Education.  Prior to that, he directed a college service-learning program for eight years and was also an adjunct faculty member.  His experience in conservation and environmental education includes crew leadership and program development for a Youth Conservation Corps program in Central Oregon, and logistics coordination and field instruction for non-profit educational organizations in the Four Corners area of the Southwest.  He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a BA in English from The Citadel.

Rochelle Gandour, Coordinator of Youth Education Programs
206-905-7353

Rochelle Gandour is pleased to be a part of TU's youth education team.  Before coming to TU in 2005, she taught science and dance in a New York City middle school.  She holds a BA from Grinnell College in Chemistry and an MS from Antioch University in Environmental Studies, with a concentration in environmental education.  In her spare time, Rochelle likes to garden and then cook with the fruits of her labor.

Lilli Genovesi, Trout in the Classroom (TIC) Coordinator for the New York City Watersheds
718-389-2002, ext. 4452

Lilli is responsible for assisting the 130+ schools in the Southern NY area with their TIC projects.  She conducts three teacher conferences each year providing teachers with DEC certified trout eggs in the fall and macroinvertebrate study and wildlife stocking permits in the spring.  She also leads Trout Release Field Days and travels to classrooms to bring TIC lessons and activities to students during the school year.  Lilli studied Marine Biology at UCLA and has been working in Environmental Education for over 5 years.  She enjoys surfing, sailing, snowboarding and streamcombing.

Joshua Nease, Chesapeake Bay Youth Education Coordinator
304-358-0506

Josh is based in the mountains of Eastern West Virginia near the highest point in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and has worked in the region for over five years.  Josh is running the Potomac Headwaters Youth Education Initiative and works with WV public schools within the Bay Watershed. Programming takes place on recently protected streams with native brook trout habitat and focuses on riparian restoration and monitoring.  Josh, a native West Virginian, has worked throughout the country on a wide variety of education projects and has an academic background in Public Relations and Environmental Studies.