Jerry Christensen. Jerry is in his 14th year at the UPDC. Previous to the UPDC, Jerry worked as a State Preschool Planner, a resource teacher at the elementary, middle and high school levels, and a self-contained teacher with students having behavior disorders and intellectual disabilities. Much of Jerry’s present work centers on the use of technology in personnel development and increasing leadership skills statewide.

Jim Curtice. Jim started at the ULRC in July. He previously worked for the Jordan School District for 27 years. While with Jordan he served as a classroom instructor at Hillcrest High School, special education teacher and teacher specialist at Jordan Valley School, coordinated transition and vocational programs at South Valley School and supervised the Jordan School District Extended School Year Program. His present interests include reducing special education teacher attrition and putting the joy back into the art of teaching.

Cheryl Hostetter. Cheryl came to the ULRC in July 1999 after working at the Utah State Office of Education for the past 9 years. Previous to the USOE, Cheryl spent her professional life working in elementary and high school special education settings as a teacher and speech and language therapist as well as an administrator in the Provo School District. Coming from her job at the USOE, Cheryl brings interests and expertise in traumatic brain injury, special health care needs, strategic planning, interagency collaboration and comprehensive school reform. She is also the editor of the Utah Special Educator.

Michael Herbert. Michael Herbert. Before joining the ULRC, Michael had classroom experience as a special educator in high school and middle school. He served as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Utah for seven years and was the Project Director for the American Indian Master’s Specialization Program. In addition, he was the Project Director for the award-winning course: Culture and School Success. Michael’s current interests and expertise include assessment, transition, minority education issues and programming, learning disabilities and effective teaching techniques for students in inclusive settings.

Mary Baldwin. Mary has worked diligently at the ULRC for the last 26 years. She is an integral part of the Utah Mentor Teacher Academy providing organizational and secretarial support in the planning and preparation of monthly trainings and the annual Mentor Conference. Mary also provides expertise and support to the annual Utah Paraeducator Conference.

Cheryl Smith. Cheryl joined the ULRC in June,1996. She handles details related to the financial responsibilities of the project, Consortium activities, and the Utah Special Educator.

Ginney Eggen. Ginny comes to us from the Park City School District where she worked as both a middle school resource teacher and a general education English and social studies teacher for the past ten years. She served on the Park City Mentor Facilitation Team which was started to support and offer training for new teachers. She also has teaching experience in the Jordan and Granite school districts in both special and regular education. Ginny’s interest areas include adapting and differentiating instruction, staff development and making inclusion work.

Terri Mitchell. Terri started her special education teaching career (graduated BYU) in Ontario, Oregon in 1992, where she taught children with a variety of disabilities in a fully inclusive elementary school. After a couple years, she returned to Utah to be closer to her family. This is when she discovered her passion for teaching young children. She began teaching preschool in 1996 while getting her Early Childhood Special Education Endorsement (from USU). During her time teaching preschool, Terri created an inclusive classroom that fulfilled the needs of children with disabilities as well as at-risk Title I and tuition paying students. She also supervised and coordinated the Early Childhood Assessment Center for her district.Terri recently joined the UPDC in October. She has extensive experience in training other teachers about appropriate practices with young children with disabilities. She has presented at local, state and national conferences. She has authored and co-authored articles regarding young children with disabilities. She is currently enrolled in the Master’s program in Educational Leadership & Policy at the University of Utah. In addition, Terri is a certified trainer and field consultant for the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation for preschool and infant/toddler curriculums.

Diane Johnson. Diane joined the UPDC staff in October 2001. She has done undergraduate work at Utah State University and graduate work at Brigham Young University. Prior to coming to the UPDC, Diane was a University Supervisor and Curriculum Writer for BYU. For many years, Diane worked as a special educator at both the elementary and secondary levels. Much of her work involved developing and implementing inclusive practices for students with broad range of disabling conditions. Some of her interests and research areas include effective teacher preparation practices, general curriculum access, behavioral interventions, children’s emotional health issues, and language processing disabilities.

Connie Nink. Connie joined the UPDC staff in October 2001. She recently left the Arizona Department of Education where she was an Educational Program Specialist. During her career she has been a special education teacher for preschool-12th grade. She has also been the on-site administrator of a small school with diverse needs. The students at the school were medically fragile, ages six to twenty-one, and preschool students with and without disabilities. Her interest is in finding different methods and techniques to keep more students progressing through the general curriculum.

Loydene Berg. Loydene Berg joins the UPDC after working as a project specialist with Utah’s Project for Inclusion for the past 10 years. She has a broad range of teaching and training experiences with students and educators from preschool to post-high school levels and from self-contained special education settings to fully inclusive classrooms in neighborhood schools. Current work interests include effective education for all students in inclusive classrooms within their neighborhood schools (including building quality friendships and social relationships); facilitating local capacity building by implementing quality strategies and ongoing structures for training and supporting school personnel; technology and web page development.

Hollie Pettersson. Prior to joining the UPDC, Hollie was a special education teacher with experience in Jordan, Granite, and Meridian (Idaho) school districts. She has taught elementary, middle, and high school with responsibilities ranging from self-contained cluster units and youth-in-custody settings to resource and co-teaching classrooms. Hollie earned a B.S. degree in Psychology and a M.Ed. in Special Education, both from the University of Utah; she certified to teach through Utah State University and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Psychology at the U of U. Behavior interventions, empirically proven practices, transition, and mental health issues are her main areas of interest and experience.

Lillie Sylvia Valdez. Sylvia joined the Utah Personnel Development Center in the Fall of 2000. Previously she worked at the Utah State Office of Education starting in Education Equity, moving on to Child Nutrition and then in the Students At Risk Section (SARS). There she was administrative assistant to specialists in behavior working with Utah's BEST Project.