Camp Directors

 

The 2007 Camp Directors Retreat! Individual director bios can be found below.

Director Bios

Elaine Brigham started her BYM Camping Program career 26 years ago. She has been a staff child, camper, counselor, staff person, and assistant director at Catoctin Quaker Camp and is currently in her eighth year directing Opequon Quaker Camp. Elaine studied history, Women Studies, education, and African-American Studies at Guilford College. After teaching middle and high school social studies in public schools she entered the Social Justice Education (SJE) Program, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she received her M.Ed. Elaine served as Coordinator of LGBTQA Student Support and Services, Area Coordinator for Residential Life and Diversity Educator at Amherst College for four years, and left to pursue her current fulltime studies as a doctoral candidate in the SJE Program. Currently she co-coordinates the Intergroup Dialogue Program in Race, Ethnicity and Class at Mount Holyoke College and teaches an undergraduate diversity education course at UMass Amherst. She is finishing her second year in the Institute for Engaging Leadership in Friends Schools. For the ten months she is not at Opequon in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, she lives in Northampton, MA with her partner, the camp dog, Highland and their cat. She loves taking pictures, singing with camp folks, and canoeing. 

Dana Foster has directed Shiloh Quaker Camp since 1996, and has spent summers working for the Baltimore Yearly Meeting camping program since 1988. Dana grew up in Reston, Virginia and attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. She graduated from Swarthmore College, where she studied biology and art. Since 1993, Dana has worked at Scattergood Friends School, a boarding Quaker school in Iowa. She teaches Quakerism, a variety of art and farm-related classes, and runs the school’s kitchen.  At Shiloh or at Scattergood, Dana enjoys building community while working with young people on the farm, in the kitchen, in the art studio, around the fire circle, and on camping trips. Dana’s favorite shoes are her mukluks. She spent a blissful week winter camping in the Boundary Waters this year.

Linda Garrettson has directed Catoctin Quaker Camp since 1996, and has spent most summers there since 1972, starting as a staff brat and working her way through the program as camper, counselor, staff, and assistant director. She took a short break from working at Catoctin to direct Camp Holiday Trails in Charlottesville, VA for a few years, where she met her husband, Michael Minnig. Linda is a graduate of William & Mary College and has a MPH from Emory University. She currently teaches music at Westtown School. Linda is an accomplished basoonist and has biked across the United States.

Alex Jadin was a camper at Catoctin, where he was then on staff for eight years. He is now co-director of Catoctin with Linda Garrettson. He has taught at San Francisco Friends School and Brooklyn Friends School, and for the International Rescue Committee’s refugee resettlement program in New York.  He has a BA from Haverford College and is currently doing graduate work in philosophy at the New School for Social Research.  He is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington.  He is married to Katherine Piggott-Tooke, who is also on the staff at Catoctin.  He is very tall.

Jane Megginson, the Camp Administrative Secretary, started working at BYM Camps in 1985, as a scullery maid at the old Opequon. In addition, she has worked at Shiloh as an assistant director, at old Opequon on the staff, and at Catoctin and Teen Adventure in the kitchen. In addition, Jane has served on the Camping Program Committee. She has worked at Baltimore Yearly Meeting full time since 2002 and as the Camp Administrative Secretary since January 2005. Jane has a BA from Earlham College in Sport and Movement Studies and an MA from the University of Maryland in Sports Management. The most ridiculous job Jane has ever had is selling frozen meat door-to-door in central Ohio.

Jen Schneider, co-director of Teen Adventure Quaker Camp, has had a wide variety of experiences in the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Camping Program over the past twenty-one years. Jen began her camper career at Opequon and subsequently attended Teen Adventure for two summers. She was a counselor at Teen Adventure, Shiloh, and Opequon and an assistant director at Shiloh. After graduating from Oberlin College with a BA in Psychology, Jen taught preschool at D.C.’s School for Friends, worked at Friends Community School in Maryland, and was a volunteer facilitator for Alternatives to Violence workshops in a Maryland prison. For the past three years, Jen was an environmental educator in California’s Bay Area. There she taught an experiential curriculum focused on the local redwood forest and coastal ecosystems. Jen is currently pursuing a Masters in Education at Antioch University New England.

Whitney Thompson co-directed Teen Adventure for six years and now stays involved as a consulting director. She started in BYM camps as a camper at Catoctin, and worked there for ten years as a counselor and then assistant director.  Whitney is currently middle school dean at Brooklyn Friends School in Brooklyn, New York where she has worked for over ten years. In addition to her administrative work at school, Whitney teaches Quakerism and health classes to lower, middle, and upper school students and is the health department chair.  Whitney has a BA from Oberlin College in African-American studies and women’s studies and an MS Ed in Early Adolescence Education from Bank Street College of Education. She is currently finishing her second year of the Friends Council on Education’s Engaging Leadership in Quaker Schools Institute.  Whitney lives in Brooklyn with her husband and dog and loves to brag about having gone to truck driving school to get her bus driving license.