Our Team
We hire only energetic, innovative, and CREDENTIALED teachers to ensure that campers learn from the best.
We hire credentialed teachers from local schools to provide project-based, common core-aligned curriculum. These teachers are supported by college-student “Adventure Guides” (counselors) that assist campers and teachers while contributing their creative, zany personalities to the camp experience. The day-to-day operations are overseen by a Site Administrator, who is typically a current or retired teacher or school administrator. Think you’ve got what it takes to join the team? Click here to learn more and apply! The profiles below cover our “home office” team.
Meet Our Home Office Team!

Jennifer Hartvickson
Jennifer travels the country speaking to schools, art associations and after school programs about the importance of setting goals and making plans.

Hans Hartvickson
Hans is the author of books including the award-winning “Mister Lemur’s Train of Thought” and “It Will Take a Lot of Us to Lift a Hippopotamus,” and the founder of the educational band “The Scheming Lemurs.”

Zee Smith
Zee organizes and manages the recruiting process that brings together AIW Camp’s awesomely amazing team of instructors! As Senior VP, People and Innovation, she is also highly involved in identifying new opportunities to help students progress in their journies as writers.
Zee grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania (home to boxer Larry Holmes… and Crayola Crayons). She went on to study Drama at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and worked as an actress in film, tv, and theatre. Alongside these creative pursuits, she worked privately with families coaching their children in theatre to build stronger self-esteem. When the number of families she worked with grew larger than she was able to cover, she started finding other people to work for them. She then officially started her own company recruiting other performers to work with children as babysitters, tutors, and full charge nannies. Zee’s love of working with children also led to taking on a Founder and Director role in Esteem Preschool in Los Angeles. In her free time, Zee chases after her 4th grader on the Soccer field as a Rec Coach, and takes long walks or runs with her husband or dog.

Jonny D. Williams
Jonny is the musical director for Adventures in Writing Camp.

Caitlin Orr
Caitlin works individually with AIW students as part of AIW’s online tutoring program.
In addition, Caitlin has been a project liaison for several years, taught art lessons to elementary school students, and taught English for three years in rural Japan. She is an award-winning, cum laude graduate from Mount Holyoke College.
Writing has always been a passion for Caitlin, and she enjoys writing book and play reviews for local media organizations, and working on her own collections of short stories. Beyond her talents and experience, Caitlin is an infectiously upbeat and creative person. She can’t wait to nurture that love in elementary students through Adventures in Writing Camp! Caitlin believes that fostering a love for writing in students at an early age is a vital part of their success in academics.

Zoe Bader
“Zany” Zoe leads curriculum and staff development for AIW’s online camps and after-school programs.

Sydney Guthrie
Sydney loves people! As the AIW HR Specialist, Sydney engages with new employees to help guide them through their first days with AIW and setting them up for long term success.
Sydney has been in the performing arts since she was a small child. She travels the world as a professional opera singer and engages with audiences of all ages! Sydney operates a budding music studio and teaches private voice and piano to foster creativity and a love of arts and music in all students.

Alissa Watts
Alissa is the Parent/Teacher liaison for AIW’s one-on-one tutoring program. Before joining AIW, Alissa was an elementary school teacher for both English and Spanish immersion programs.
She also taught ESL to adults from South America and other parts of the world to help them pass the TOEFL exam and to enter universities in the U.S. Alissa was raised in Chicago, Illinois but has lived in many other places, including Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and Thailand. She speaks Korean, English, and Spanish.
While being a teacher, she created her own activities and curriculum to enhance learning and help build confidence in her students.

Blake Foss
Blake manages the web presences, handles IT needs, and generally oversees all things technical in the organization.

Alison Gervais
A Colorado native, Alison began writing her very first story at the age of five about a daring frog prince on a quest to save his kingdom and has been in love with writing ever since.

Sam Korobkin
Sam otherwise known as Soo Sam, is a Los Angeles based actor, collaborator, and educator. Over the past two years he has helped bring the “technoverse” to life through his engaging lessons and zany videos. Sam is the lead Entertain Ranger for Adventures in Writing Camp Online and After-School Adventures and our head content creator, bringing writing to life through fun and engaging stories. “A Day without laughter is a day wasted”-Charlie Chaplin