Meet the Team

Saveria Tilden

Communication Manager

Sharing her love of the outdoors with others is Saveria’s passion.  In addition to serving as the Communications Manager for TYO, Saveria represents the American Hiking Society as one of their Ambassadors, volunteers as a Sierra Club leader teaching WTC and leading backcountry trips, and is also an REI Outdoor School Instructor where she teaches a variety of classes including kayaking, SUP, biking, climbing, map and compass/navigation, hiking, backpacking and more.

Saveria‘s adventurous outlook on life started in childhood, preferring to spend time outdoors; she played soccer, rode horses competitively, and explored the local woods of her hometown Woodinville, WA. She went on to complete 3 Ironman triathlons, hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and summit Mt. Rainer and Mt. Whitney.

Chris Rutgers

Executive Director

Christopher is the founder of Outdoor Outreach, and now serves as the Executive Director of TYO. As a competitive skier, whitewater river guide, expedition rock climber and avid surfer, Chris has spent most of his life developing a passion for the outdoors. It was this passion that helped Chris overcome his own at-risk childhood. In 1999, he founded Outdoor Outreach as a means to give at-risk and underprivileged youth the same life-changing opportunities. Drawing from his own personal experiences, Chris developed the Outdoor Outreach program model and philosophies that have proven to be so successful working with at-risk and underprivileged youth.

Chris has been nationally recognized as an expert on programming for youth at-risk. He is frequently asked to speak at national conferences and symposiums, and to consult with government agencies, academic institutions and other nonprofit organizations. He has served as an advisor to the California Governor’s Office, California State Parks and the National Park Service on developing programs for at-risk youth.

Anett Lemke

Operations Manager

Anett started her career with Big4 Ernst & Young in Germany, conducting financial and process audits. She was Vice President for SPM Technologies, later acquired by SAP SI, for Process Management/Quality Control and Technical Editorship/Document Management while simultaneously acting as Project Manager for multiple Fortune 500 companies on consulting projects in the fields of process reengineering, business development and organizational restructuring. She leveraged this knowledge to start a consulting company with her partners focusing on analyzing financial data for strategic business decisions. She also taught in Greece as an Adjunct Professor for the French MBA program at New York College in the fields of European Business Law and as an instructor at the Goethe-Institute, Athens.

Anett holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Institute Universitaire Kurt Bosch, Sion, Switzerland , and a Master of Law from the Free University of Berlin, Germany. She also holds the 2nd state exam, whose American equivalency would be the state bar exam, which allows her to be a licensed lawyer in Germany.

Francisco Martinez

System Administration Intern

Francisco is currently attending San Diego State University majoring in Aerospace Engineering. At TYO he is responsible for implementing the maintenance and development of the TYO platform.

Francisco enjoys camping, taking hikes, and off-road sports. He became involved in the outdoors through Outdoor Outreach in his high school years. His greatest experiences in the outdoors were through Outdoor Outreach where snowboarding became his favorite outdoor activity.

Antwan Kakki

Software Development Intern

Antwan is currently a junior at the University of California, San Diego studying Mathematics and Computer Science. Antwan joined TYO in May of 2014 and his responsibilities range from developing internal tools to aide managing documents and writing software to interact with our users. Antwan is also tasked with researching tools and services for TYO as well as solving everyday technical issues.

Since being introduced to the outdoors as a program participant at Outdoor Outreach, Antwan strives to help connect his peers to nature by introducing them to the great experiences Outdoor Outreach showed him. His hobbies include hiking and exploring San Diego and the areas around it, surfing the waters of La Jolla Shores, programming side projects, contributing to open source software around the web, and playing soccer with friends.

Yousif Razooqi

Content Management Intern

Yousif, is a fulltime college student at Grossmont and Cuyamaca College, and is intending to major in Electrical Engineering. Yousif’s responsibilities include supporting Content Management and Development as well as Tool and Platform Administration support. Yousif came to TYO after graduating from the Outdoor Outreach Adventure Club program and now volunteers at Outdoor Outreach giving the youth in his community the opportunities to have the same life changing experiences in the outdoors that he had.