The Un Mundo family is comprised of many experienced, dynamic and dedicated people all working to further the visions and goals of the organization. Following are brief bios of Un Mundo volunteers, with the dates of their involvement in Un Mundo.

Staff Members

Rob Tuebner and Elly Goetz, Co-Directors
Rob and Elly are co-directors. Rob was born in Washington, D.C., then quickly moved overseas with his parents. Since 1980, Rob has lived in Botswana, Panama, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Paraguay, Ecuador and the United States. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 2003 and joined the Peace Corps, working as an Agro-forestry volunteer for two years in Paraguay and another year in Ecuador, focusing on watershed management. Rob then returned to the U.S. to teach science and environmental education classes to inner city school children in Brooklyn. Elly, a native of Durham, North Carolina, attended the University of Colorado, Boulder. Upon graduating, she remained at the university to teach sociology and work for an inter-disciplinary service-learning program that trains college students to be effective leaders for social justice and sustainability. In 2005, Elly taught English in Ecuador, where she and Rob first meet. She recently finished her graduate degree in Environmental Planning at Pratt Institute. Rob and Elly are currently living in El Pital, Honduras and will be working there for the next two and half years.

Carl Smith-Hunnicutt, Co-Director Fundraising & Communications Carl is a native of Asheville, NC.  He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Sociology and minor in Social and Economic Justice.  Through his time at UNC, he was able to cultivate his passion for social justice and improving race relations in the United States.  In 2007, Carl was the Marketing and Development intern at A Helping Hand in Chapel Hill, NC, a local non-profit that focused on supporting the geriatric community.  After graduating in 2008, he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as a Campaign Director with Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. specializing in running on the ground field outreach campaigns for different progressive, non-profit organizations.  His drive to achieve and promote equality and social awareness has lead him to work with Un Mundo.     

Heather Clark, Co-Director Fundraising & Communications
 Heather is originally from Bradenton, Florida.  She attended Florida Gulf Coast University where she earned a Bachelors of Social Work.  Throughout college, Heather worked to raise awareness about civil and human rights violations in the United States and internationally through education on campus and the promotion of legislation regarding human trafficking.  In 2008, she volunteered at an orphanage in rural Guatemala; Heather fell in love with the people and culture of Latin America.  Heather worked as a victim's advocate and counselor at a domestic violence shelter and rape crisis center for a year.  During her time at the shelter she developed skills in case management, crisis intervention, outreach education, and advocacy.  Most recently, Heather has been living in Washington, D.C. working as a Director at Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., a political consulting firm that focuses on fundraising and awareness campaigns for various progressive non-profit organizations .  Heather is deeply passionate about combining social work with international development and continuing to fight for social justice. 

Board of Directors

Ken Hutz, Founder, 2000-present
Ken is the founder of Un Mundo and served as the Executive Director for many years. Currently, Ken is on Un Mundo's Board of Directors. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in history and minoring in philosophy. After traveling throughout Central and South America, Ken lived in Honduras for five years, where he founded a guest ranch, Finca Papagayo, and Un Mundo. Ken then returned to the U.S. and earned a law degree from the University of California, Davis. He now splits his time between working as an appellate attorney for indigent defendants and helping realize the mission of Un Mundo.

Tim Watson, Board Chair 2002-present
Tim is Un Mundo’s Financial Director and on the Board of Directors. He received a bachelor's degree in history, with an emphasis in Latin American Studies, from Boston College and a law degree from the University of California, Davis. As a paralegal, law student and lawyer, Tim has represented hundreds of Central American immigrants and refugees in their immigration proceedings. After working for a few years as a corporate stiff in Silicon Valley, he moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he helped arrange loans to marginalized indigenous women in southern Mexico. Tim has made several trips to Honduras and now works at the San Francisco law firm of Watson and Lanctot, LLP.

Rachel McIntire, 2003-Present
Rachel is an artist originally from Northern California who has been engaged in the study of art, culture and education for more than ten years. Before pursuing her master's degree from Harvard's School of Education, Rachel played a fundamental role in developing a cadre of art-based programs serving youth throughout the Bay Area. Rachel has worked to create art programs that activate youth as a viable resource in their community through public art works and exhibitions. She has a particular interest in using art as a tool for cultural understanding, transcending the constructs of society, and engaging individuals in a dialogue for positive social change.

Rachel has worked nationally and internationally in Mexico City, Seoul, Korea, and Honduras, where she has continued her research on the role of the arts in community development, exploring how the arts can promote transformative dialogues in public space. Rachel and partner Amanda Lichtenstein co-founded Break Arts (www.breakarts.org), an international arts and education collaborative, in 2005. Currently, Rachel is the art faculty at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco.

Nathan Johnston, 2009 - Present
Nathan is both the director and co-founder of the Small World Project, an ongoing workshop series piloted in Hong Kong and California secondary schools in 2008-9 designed to connect students around the globe through short video production and online collaborations. He strives to stitch together his many interests, most recently founding and directing Inside/Out, a multimedia exchange project between groups of students in California and China and the Small World Project.

Nathan’s interests and achievements are many. He has earned degrees in the areas of Computer Science (Bachelor of Science, Stanford University) and Arts In Education (Master of Education, Harvard University). Professionally he’s experienced in those fields at Apple Computer, Study Abroad Italy, and through the projects above. Yet he brings many more loves to his work. From music composition and piano to computer-aided performance, multimedia installations, ethnographic and documentary film, in addition to the connections between people established through travel and exchange, Nathan's work lies at the intersection of technology, culture, education, and art.

Paul O'Hainle, 2009 - Present
Paul grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate. He escaped Berkeley and spent an academic year in Ireland and then a semester in Hong Kong before the UC Regents awarded him a degree in history and economics. In Ireland, he enjoyed seeing a country and its people prosper in the late 1990s despite the curse of the country’s own history. Hong Kong fascinated him with its fantastic pace of life. After Berkeley, Paul earned a law degree at UC Davis. It was there he met Ken Hutz and then traveled to El Pital, Honduras in 2002.

Since that time, he has earned yet another degree-an LLM in tax law at the University of Washington, and practiced law in Seattle before returning to California as an undefeated trial lawyer (1-0). Currently Paul works at Plagemen Lund & Cannon, LLP in Oakland, California. However he most enjoys his time in the company of his wife, Molly, their daughter, Finn, and their various animals.

Jamie Rezmovits, 2009 - Present
Jamie is an educator, artist, and attorney. As an educator, she has provided transformative learning opportunities for students from all over the world. At the University of Colorado, she worked as a faculty member for the INVST Community Studies Department where she trained community leaders to work for the benefit of humanity and the environment. Additionally she taught with the Civic Education Program at Northwestern University, combining education and community service to promote civic responsibility among young people. Most recently, she fostered global and cross-cultural knowledge and understanding as an International Trip Leader with the LEAP Now Program, in affiliation with the New College of California.

Jamie is a filmmaker and artist and believes in using the arts as a powerful tool for social change. She currently works as an Associate Attorney with the Scheitler & Elio law firm in Denver, Colorado. At this time, Jamie is also working as the Project Director for the Global Youth Forums Project, seeking to involve and empower youth from all over Kenya by creating opportunities for leadership development and increased civic engagement in local, regional and national issues. She graduated with a BFA in filmmaking from the University of Colorado-Boulder and received her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Colorado School of Law.

Joshua Spetter, 2009 - Present
Josh is from Dayton, Ohio and is pursuing a Masters Degree in Sustainable Development from SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont. He has been working for governmental and non-governmental organizations in Latin America for the last eight years in the areas of beekeeping, conservation agriculture, food security, maternal and child health, training design, fundraising and program management. Several of those years were spent as a Peace Corp Volunteer and Manager.

Josh fell in love with Latin America, and resides in Mexico. He is rarely found without his trusty Yerba Mate in tow. An international board member and world citizen, he is gifted in planning across nations. Currently he is finalizing all the details of his own upcoming wedding in Mexico.

Volunteers

Margaret Hutz, 2000-present
Margaret has been involved with Un Mundo since day one. She is currently serving as the office manager and also helps with our newsletter and web pages. In addition to helping Un Mundo, Margaret works as a technical writer and editor.

Brian Goetz, Education Coordinator & Facilitator
Brian
was born and raised in Wheaton, IL, in the heart of suburban sprawl
spreading west of Chicago. At an early age he became fascinated by the
possibilities proposed by music and poetry. While attending the
University of Wisconsin in Madison, he majored in Comparative
Literature and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. There, an intense
interest in the peoples, rhythms and geography of the America
previously unknown to him drew him in like a magnet. He studied in
Santiago, Chile, and hitch-hiked north and south along that country,
meeting many wonderful people; spending time in solitude in the desert,
mountains and Patagonian forests; and witnessing the hard realities
that all of Latin America has suffered at the hands of the rest of the
world for half a millennium. After playing guitar in a Madison–based
funk and reggae band, Chafo, for a couple of years and completing his
degree, he came across Un Mundo and contacted Rob and Elly to express
his interest in working in Honduras, a decision based on his shared
philosophy, hatred of injustice, and love for people.

Maureen Taylor, Environmental Health Coordinator & Facilitator
Maureen is originally from the Philadelphia area. She studied sociology at the University of Colorado, where she first discovered her love of travel and of understanding other people and cultures. She has worked with the I Have a Dream Foundation, helping to tutor and mentor youth in the Boulder, Colo., area. During her time in Boulder she also interned with Boulder County Social Services, helping and mentoring children who have been in and out of foster care. Her love of volunteering and traveling took her to Ecuador, where she volunteered on a spectacled bear reservation, helping to reintroduce the endangered bears to the area. Recently she has spent time in Central America, studying Spanish in Guatemala and volunteering in Nicaragua. She hopes to pursue a degree in nursing after returning from her experience in Honduras. She would like to continue traveling to countries where health professionals are hard to find but desperately needed.

Melissa Bride, 2002-present
After a 12-year Spanish teaching career, Mel, shown far right with co-op head Rosario Lobo (left) and "Mama" (center), the late Lobo family matriarch, shifted her focus to international development through microbusiness and has served as US Representative for Sales and Marketing for the Juan Pablo Segundo Sewing Cooperative since 2002, visiting the co-op annually. While those in El Pital focus on finding in-country outlets for the growing line of products made by the women of the co-op, Mel has focused Stateside on spreading the word about the importance of supporting microbusineses like the co-op by speaking at churches, schools and benefit dinners. She has recently gained Fair Trade Federation certification for the co-op, which provides new outlets for co-op products. In June 2004, Mel led a group of 12 volunteers to El Pital to see the co-op and work in the community.

Meredith Ferrill and Evan Cauble-Johnson, 2008-Present
Evan manages the Team in Training fundraising campaign for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in Chicago, Illinois. He enjoys music, particularly classical and jazz, and teaches guitar to children and young adults. Meredith lives in Chicago, Illinois, and attends DePaul University, where she is pursuing her Masters in Writing and Publishing. She has studied ballet and jazz for sixteen years and currently has a work-study internship at Visceral Dance Chicago. She traveled to El Pital in July 2008 to teach five weeks of dance classes, and she returned in December to lead a dance concert in the community.