About Us

Mission

The Teaching With Small Boats Alliance (TWSBA) strengthens the sustainability and effectiveness of member organizations. Through networking and partnerships, TWSBA champions organizations that use maritime skills, arts, and trades as vehicles for individual growth and community development.

Core Values

TWSBA and its members are committed to:

Generous sharing of knowledge and expertise
Inclusion, Social Justice, centering disenfranchised voices
The radical potential and importance of experiential learning to change society and peoples’ lives for the better
The beauty and power of the maritime environment to lift people and communities to move them forward.
Borderless thinking; working locally while sharing work, ideas, and impact internationally.

Vision

Over the next five years, by harnessing TWSBA’s powerful commitment to knowledge sharing and professional collaboration, our member organizations will refine their purpose, practices, and best uses of resources for the greatest social and educational impact.

TWSBA will motivate its members to identify and creatively address community needs while developing organizational resourcefulness and sustainability.
TWSBA will elevate its member organizations by recognizing and encouraging both proven models and agile practices that emphasize hands-on learning and service to both mainstream and marginalized populations.
TWSBA will validate member organizations by promoting peer review, transparency, and quantitative and qualitative assessment. Further, TWSBA will unify and make visible the value, meaning, and potential of our member organizations and the maritime resources they steward.

Board of Directors

Juan Pablo Sarmiento Torres is TWSBA’s first Executive Director. He comes to us after three years leading the Sailing Program at Rocking the Boat. He is an experienced sailing instructor with an emphasis in advanced cruising and keelboat education. He also spent ten years working in post-production, advertising, and documentary filmmaking. Originally from Colombia, Juan Pablo holds a bachelor's degree in Film and Anthropology from Denison University. He looks forward to connecting member organizations with each other, producing shared resources and initiatives, and continuing bringing diversity to the maritime world. In his free time, Juan Pablo can always be found at the nearest movie theater or magazine store.
Contact Juan Pablo: ed@twsba.org

Chair Joe Youcha developed and runs Building To Teach, a train the trainer program for hands-on math instructors. Building To Teach reintroduces the building process as a context for math instruction and brings more effective resources to young people who need math skills. Started with funding from the Office of Naval Research, and national in scope, the program utilizes all of Joe’s experiences as a wooden boat builder and non-profit executive.

Vice Chair Robin Mills also serves as the Program Director for Northwest Maritime in Port Townsend, WA. She came into this role in 2018 after a career as a maritime educator starting with the Pacific Crest Outward Bound Sea Program in 1996 as a Instructor / Captain and then onto a collection of tall ships serving as AB / Deckhand. Motivated to bring experiential maritime education to the public schools, from 2003 -2005 Robin worked as a public school teacher and partnered with programs sponsored by the Wooden Boat Foundation (now NW Maritime), many of these programs she continues to support today. During her time at home, caring for her three children from 2005-2018, she, her husband and children ran a commercial fish tending business for 5 years in Alaska. Now, as the Program Director at Northwest Maritime and her work with TWSBA, she combines her experience of maritime jobs and education.

Treasurer Patrick McBriarty works at All Hands Boatworks in Milwaukee assisting the Executive Director, support of programming, and new initiatives the last three years. Prior to this he was part of a small group of volunteers in 2016 who developed the Chicago Maritime Arts Center, coordinated programming for two years and was on the board of directors. With 30-years of sailboat racing he is a big advocate for getting people on the water and playing around with boats. A masters in economics and 25-years of business experience with sales, operations, manufacturing, and (SAP) business consulting he brings a variety of experience to the Board. He also authored an award-winning history book, Chicago River Bridges, co-produced a documentary on the topic, is author of three children’s picture books, and co-hosts the Windy City Historians podcast. He still enjoys sailing, cycling, travel, and with a recent purchase -- house renovation projects.

Tom Brandl served 29 years as a U.S. Marine Corps officer. After retiring, he worked in the defense industry until 2014 when he founded Tidewater Wooden Boat Workshop where he is Executive Director. TWBW serves disadvantaged youth in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia through the building of wooden boats and other nautical activities. Tom has over 23 years of experience teaching and mentoring youth. His love of wooden boatbuilding started when he attended the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine in 2011. He has returned almost every summer since then to increase his boatbuilding knowledge. Tom’s board experience includes his community civic league and the Virginia Marine Trades Association.

Adam Green started the volunteer project that would become Rocking the Boat in 1995 during a semester off from Vassar College. Influenced by his experience teaching kids about the Hudson River aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, he developed a program that used the process of building and using wooden boats as a way to educate and empower young people from underserved communities. He has received numerous awards and accolades for Rocking the Boat, including an Echoing Green Fellowship, a Union Square Award for grassroots organizing, a Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award, and in 2014 was named one of 25 international CNN Heroes.

Graham McKay is the master boatbuilder and Executive Director at Lowell’s Boat Shop, a working museum located in Amesbury, MA. His role is to oversee the general operations of building high-end traditional boats for discerning customers to the centuries-old Lowell’s tradition and teaching students young and old the boatbuilding tradition of the shop. He also acts as the curator of the museum. Previously, Graham spent time as a schooner captain, commercial diver, commercial fisherman, and fisheries scientist. He also sits on the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources and is a member of the Mystic Seaport Museum’s watercraft committee.

William “Bill” Nimke is executive director/founder of All Hands Boatworks, Inc. (est. 2013). For more than 30 years, he has championed project-based, experiential education and mentoring for Milwaukee-area youths. Before AHB, Bill founded and directed a public charter high school. Bill was a founding member of Pier Wisconsin, which built the S/V schooner, Denis Sullivan. He was its first education director for eight years, where he developed the education programming for thousands of K-12 students and the public. He is a past recipient of the Distinguished Informal Science Educator of the Year award from the National Science Teachers Association.

Inka Petersen is a wooden boatbuilder, educator, and sailor with many years of experience in commercial boatyards and non-profits alike. Formerly based in the SF Bay Area, she now is the youthwork liaison at the Arbeitskreis für historischen Schiffbau in Ostfriesland e.V. in Emden, Germany. When not on or under a boat or teaching, Inka enjoys carving spoons, making art, gardening, creating community, and hanging out with her dog Lola who is also the boatyard and youth group supervisor.

Secretary Lory Newmyer: I am the retired Executive Director of the Hull Lifesaving Museum (1992-2013), where I designed and ran the Maritime Apprentice Program, serving Boston’s most high-impact youthful offenders, and year-round open-water rowing programs in Boston Harbor. I’m now an artist (wracklinetextiles.org) and yoga therapist (lorynewmyeryoga.com) living in Hull, MA.

Regional Facilitators

Meet Alex Severino, TWSBA's East Coast Regional Facilitator
Alex is a program manager for Rocking the Boat in the Bronx, NY with a background working in diverse environmental organizations. She specializes in alternative and outdoor education combined with behavior therapy. Fun fact: Alex is also a graduate of Rocking the Boat. Alex can be reached at eastcoast@twsba.org

Meet Jordan Irving, TWSBA's Midwest Regional Facilitator
Jordan lives in Detroit and while working for the Green Door Initiative, a community group promoting environmental sustainability and workforce development, Jordan partnered with the University of Michigan's Dettroit River Story Lab. That's where she caught the "building boats with kids" bug. Currently she is Ombudsman for the public transit system in Oakland, MI and still very involved with the Detroitt River Story Lab. Jordan can be reached at midwest@twsba.org

Meet Katelyn Kean, TWSBA's West Coast Regional Facilitator
Katelyn's work is aligned at the intersection of maritime education, community development, and organizational strategy. As Associate Director of Development and Government Relations at Northwest Maritime (NWM), she supports programs that connect young people and their communities to the water through hands-on learning, including the Blue Schools Initiative. Before joining NWM, Katelyn worked with the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where she helped expand access to collections and created programs that celebrated the region’s maritime heritage. She brings over a decade of experience in museums and nonprofits and is passionate about helping organizations build partnerships that strengthen community connections to the maritime world. Katelyn can be reached at westcoast@twsba.org