Maddie has devoted her career to serving the needs of the community. She has worked locally with the Deschutes County WIC program for the last 13 years. Before that she worked with NeighborImpact Head start as both a classroom teacher and Spanish interpreter, and for MountainStar Family Relief Nursery as a home visiting case worker and classroom support. Prior to moving to Central Oregon in 2008 Maddie lived and worked in Peru for 2 years in a non profit childcare center she developed from the ground up, providing essential care, food assistance, and parent training in an extremely impoverished shantytown outside of Lima.

Maddie is often described by her superiors as an out-of-the-box thinker. She consistently brings creative solutions to the table and sees roadblocks as a challenge to surmount rather than a stopping point. With a background in non-profit and social services, Maddie understands the limitations of working within a limited budget and excels in finding ways to stretch money without compromising on service delivery.

During her time with WIC, Maddie has enjoyed varied opportunities for professional development. She participated in a fellowship with NTEN in Portland, earning a professional certificate in Digital Inclusion and bringing an equity lens to WIC partipants who lack the knowlege or resources to participate in telehealth solutions. Maddie spent her fellowship year training not only WIC participants, but also WIC staff to be able to provide high level services remotely. This fellowship was completed just at the start of the pandemic, placing Deschutes County WIC in a perfect position to transition to remote services- something other WIC agencies country wide struggled with adapting. Maddie also participated in two seperate cohorts with the National WIC Association in a program called Health Equity Champions. Maddie was selected to serve twice on this exclusive board bringing equity solutions to nationwide WIC campaigns. She gained extensive project management skills in this role, and has since taken a course at COCC in developing those skills further.

In her personal life, Maddie enjoys traveling with her family, hiking with her dog, and cozy fall activities like puzzles, knitting, and embroidery. If you fly out of RDM airport very early in the morning there’s a good chance you have had Maddie as your gate agent- in her abundant spare time she has a second job that provides the invaluable perk of being able to show her kids the world. Experiencing the richness of cultural exchange is a value she holds most highly, and which has strongly influenced her work across community identifiers of language, class, origin, gender, political views, education, and countless other cultural identity markers. Maddie always finds a way to make a bridge and connect with people.