Session Presenters
Tim Beckham
Tim Beckham has been the Vice President of Oregon Driver
Education Center for 7 years. He also has been a Trainer of Trainer for Western
Oregon University for 5 years. Tim has worked with ADTSEA and ANSTSE on many
projects from National Teacher Training workshops to presenting seminars on How to Teach
Virtually. He was awarded the Teacher of Excellence in 2020 and has presented
at multiple conferences across the nation, including WTSEA and past PacNW conferences. He has been married to his beautiful
wife for 18.5 years, has 7 children, two of which are licensed drivers and he
truly believes in the value of driver education.
Whitney Bennett
Whitney Bennett is the Safe Routes to School Coordinator for Commute Options in Central Oregon. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara and pursued sustainability planning at CalPoly San Luis Obispo, where she received her Masters in City and Regional Planning. She has worked in environmental, land use, and transportation planning since 2003. Throughout her career, she has been an advocate for integrating active transportation through urban design, community engagement and education. Whitney has also worked as a wellness educator, working with children and adults to incorporate more healthy mobility into their daily lives. Her focus is to create resources that nurture a balanced transportation system where children and adults feel safe to explore mobility options that support an active lifestyle and encourage environmentally responsibly habits.
Troy Costales
Troy has over 23 years serving as the Safety Division Administrator. He's helped lead the transition and revitalization of driver education in 1999-2000 when the legislature moved the driver education program to the Safety Division. Troy worked with the legislature to bring parity in terms of financial support, access to curriculum, instructor development, no- and low-income subsidies for parents, and oversight for all driver education instructors and programs in the public and private/commercial setting. He established the DMV test waivers for teens that complete the driver education program and created and supported the Driver Education Advisory Committee. He represented Oregon’s driver education program and state highway safety offices in the creation of the Novice Teen Driver Education and Training Administrative Standards. Troy will be retiring from state service in May 2021 after 36 years of public service.
Richard Greene
2.5 years DE instructor, 2 years as a managing member of Columbia River Driver Education. Presented at 2020 PacNW and ADTSEA conferences on using Virtual Reality in Driver Education Training. Oregon DEAC member.
Piloting use of virtual reality as a driver training tool for past year as part of a ODOT DE Pilot.
Rich Hanson
Rich Hanson has been involved in many different activities related to traffic safety education. He has conducted teacher training in 17 different states and Canada and worked on curriculum development in 5 different states. He was awarded the National Teacher of the Year in 2006 from ADTSEA and the Richard Kaywood Award in 2019.
Rich served as a Trainer of Trainers for WOU from 2002 to 2020. While there, he did training classes, curriculum work and helped develop the Oregon model of teacher training. Rich was asked by the national association to participate in a working group to write the national standards for instructor training and helped develop the national training curriculum.
He has done a myriad of other things in traffic safety but his passion lies in making teens safer drivers in any way possible.
Lindsay Huber
Lindsay has been working at The Street Trust
since 2017 working on education and encouragement programs related to driver
education and Safe Routes to School.
Jeff Lango
Jeff Lango, is an Occupational Therapist and Certified Driver’s Rehabilitation Specialist. He is the Executive Director of Alpine Rehab. & Wellness Inc. which he founded in Portland in 2003. He has been practicing over 25 years as an Occupational Therapist and has been involved in adaptive driving for over 20 years. He received his adaptive driver’s training from the Veterans Administration in Long Beach, CA in 1995. He is a member of both the American and Oregon Occupational Therapy Association. He is also a licensed driving school and licensed driving instructor with the State of Oregon. He was the past President of the Pacific Northwest Association for Driver's Rehabilitation Specialist.
Tom Musick
Tom Musick has
been with the National Safety Council for more than 6 years. He is involved in
several key transportation safety initiative for the Council, as car crashes
continue to be a leading cause of preventable death in America. To educate
consumers about important safety efforts that can help them understand how to
remain safer on the road, Tom works to promote vehicle safety, positive safety
culture, and the role of technology. He also contributes to a variety of other
NSC programs involving distracted driving, speeding, impairment, teen driving,
fleet management, and other topics.”
Drew Pfefferle
Drew is the Coordinator of the Safe Lane Transportation Coalition in Eugene, Oregon
Brett Robinson
Mr. Brett Robinson has been involved in the highway traffic safety arena in the areas of driver education, driver licensing, driver testing, commercial driver licensing and motorcycle safety for almost 30 years. He is the Co-founder and President for Highway Safety Services, LLC (HSS) located in Indiana, PA. HSS is a leading company for consulting services in highway traffic safety and driver's license test administration. HSS provides management services for several national traffic safety associations.
He worked for the Highway Safety Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrations (AAMVA) prior to forming Highway Safety Services, LLC in 2005.
Among various responsibilities, Mr. Robinson serves as the Secretariat for the National Association of Stakeholders in Traffic Safety Education (ANSTSE); the Executive Director for the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (ADTSEA); and the Executive Director for the National Association of State Motorcycle Safety Administrators (SMSA).
William Van Tassel, Ph.D.
In his role at the AAA National Office, Dr. Van Tassel is
responsible for developing, implementing, and evaluating AAA’s driving safety
programs. He is a three-time Chair of the NHTSA-funded Association of
National Stakeholders in Traffic Safety Education (ANSTSE), and is
currently the President of ADTSEA. Dr. Van Tassel has been qualified as
an Expert Witness in legal trials, has published multiple peer-reviews
articles, and has been quoted on driver safety issues in publications including
U.S. News & World Report, and The New York Times. His interest in
expert driving also extends to his lifelong hobby of competing in sports car
time trials.