"Safe Driving is No Accident" 1-(800)-452-0402
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OUR INSTRUCTORS / STAFF
 

J.C. Fawcett – Administrator and Instructor

JC has been teaching Traffic Safety since 1997. When he's not working, he's flying around the Puget Sound with fellow instructors and friends as he is a private pilot. He's married with two beautiful daughters.

Bridget Johns – Administrator and Instructor

Bridget joined Defensive Driving School in 2001. She and her husband have four boys (one deceased) and two girls. She enjoys reading, traveling, and volunteering at the Paramount Theatre. She has a BA in English and TESOL certificate from Western Washington University. She began teaching English overseas in 1995 and loves working with young people.

Brett Fawcett – Marketing Director

Brett does all the graphic design and marketing for the company. His latest project was the full color student workbook and is currently working on putting the classroom presentations in Flash. He and his wife Katie love spending time with their son Jackson. Brett graduated from Western Washington University with a B.A. in Music in 2002.

Katie Fawcett – Human Resources Director

Katie is originally from West Linn, Oregon. She grew up in a large family of ten children. She enjoys dancing, music, sewing, photography, and spending time with her family and friends. She was married to her husband Brett in 2007 and they had their first child, Jackson, in 2010. Katie received her undergrad degree in finance from Brigham Young University in 2006. She went on to receive her Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, from Seattle University in 2009.

Pamela Cornell – Instructor Trainer

Pam’s been teaching Driver’s Ed since 1991 and with our company since 2003. She enjoys working with teen-agers because of their enthusiasm for life and fresh outlook on their future. Pam owns a piano school teaching group lessons to pre-school through elementary aged children. She also has a BA in Math from Seattle Pacific University.

Larry Pierce – Lake Stevens Franchise Owner

Administrator and Instructor Larry was raised in Moses Lake, Washington, and is a graduate of Arizona Automotive Institute. He is committed to training new drivers how to drive safely as they interact with other drivers. Larry enjoys teaching students in the classroom, as well as working with them individually on their driving skills.Interests include spending time with his family and boating activities.

Carol Howie – Lead Instructor

Carol has been with Defensive Driving School since 1989. She enjoys teaching in the classroom and also behind the wheel. Carol is one of our National Safety Council defensive driving course instructors and holds a teaching degree from the University of Washington. She loves reading historical fiction and spending time with her husband, children and grandchildren.

Verla Douge – Lead Instructor

Verla Douge is the mother of five grown children (one deceased) and has been married to her husband Richard for nearly two thirds of her life. She has experience with the Mukilteo School District as a teacher’s aid in the special education program. Occasionally, she is able to use sign language for teaching our deaf driving students. Verla started teaching driver’s education in 1998 and has been with Defensive Driving School since 2000. She enjoys teaching the teenagers and meeting the adults that come here from all over the world to learn to drive.

Gayan Pillai – Lead Instructor

Gayan comes to us from the South Pacific in the Fiji Islands. He has spent more than 28 years in the aviation industry and is a qualified pilot and an air traffic control instructor. He holds an Aviation diploma as well as being a paralegal. Gayan started teaching driver education in 1996 and joined Defensive Driving School in 2005, teaching out of our Kent location. He also teaches the National Safety Council’s Defensive Driving Course. Recently, Gayan was selected as the Instructor Representative for the Department of Licensing’s Driver Training Schools’ Advisory Committee. Gayan and his wife Angeline have three boys.

Valerie Ward – Office Manager

Valerie is our office manager and has been with Defensive Driving School since 2007. She and her husband have 7 children and a growing number of grandchildren. "I wish I had been involved with Defensive while my children(now grown) were teens. They would have had much better training out on the roads. Since working here, I have learned a lot about driving defensively as an adult who has driven for years"..

Barbara Lewis – Instructor

Barbara has a MA from the University of Illinois and a long background of teaching English in college and university settings in this country as well as in the Middle East and Europe Now she enjoys teaching driver's education to teens because she believes it is a place she can make a difference.“I really want my students to understand the responsibility they have as drivers and to know what they need to be safe on the road.” When she is not teaching driver's ed., she likes photography, golfing, hiking and camping..

Barbara Wheeler – Instructor

Barbara has been teaching Driver's Education since 2001. She lives in Bellevue and has 3 children. She also works on the Microsoft Campus driving the Shuttle buses.“I love all kinds of sports watching and playing. I played soccer for 22 years for several teams in the Washington State Women’s Soccer Association..

Tad Lawrence – Instructor

Tad teaches both classroom and behind the wheel classes at our Woodinville location and teaches skid training. He also is employed full time with the Northshore School District. He has been with our company since 2007..

Brian O'Meara – Instructor

Brian has been working with Defensive in Issaquah since 2002 and loves working with teens and their families. He’s gets excited when another child out of these families is ready for driver’s education and comes to our school. Brian and his wife of 15 years have two beautiful children. He loves sports, Forza Motorsport 2, and especially his Man Cave where he enjoys movies and a game room. Brian incorporates many experiences into student instruction from growing up in Shoreline, serving in the military and Desert Storm, and working for the USPS. He was also born on September 11..

Jenay Schmoker – Instructor

Jenay loves teaching and joined our school in 2008. She is an artist at heart and loves to create things. Jenay is the mother of five children, including two sets of twins..

Kit Zell – Instructor

Kit began teaching traffic safety in the 1990s. He is a full time teacher for the Marysville School District. He teaches at our Snohomish location and enjoys riding his bike..

Amanda Kerr – Instructor

Amanda is studying to become a full time teacher. She teaches out of our South Everett location..

Nicole Mauge – Instructor

Nicole has been teaching Traffic Safety Education since 2007. She has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in Psychology and is going back for her teaching certificate. In her free time she likes to stay active, as well as spend time with friends, family and her pup..

Jon Gilbo – Instructor

Jon has been teaching drivers ed since 2000 in Snohomish county. He enjoys spending his time with family and friends, listening to good music and watching the Lakers!.

Fay Fox – Instructor

Fay has spent 26+ years with Defensive Driving School and has never worked a job he didn’t enjoy. He served in the Army and has worked in the service station business for 20+ years, many of those as an Owner Operator. Fay’s stories about growing up in a large family on a farm are always entertaining and his sense of humor doesn’t skip a beat. He and his wife have raised many children, including dozens of foster children. He is a pilot, mechanic, coach, historian, and overall sports addict.

Glenn Wilhite – Instructor

Glenn comes to us from Kansas where he lived for 25 years and taught third grade. He has a BA from the University of California and MA From Emporia State University in Kansas. He and his other half, Karin have three children between them. They enjoy movies, hiking and jazz music. Glenn also sings with the group Northwest Sound, a Bellevue men's barbershop chorus. He began teaching driver's education with our school in 2005 in the charming town of Snohomish as well as stick shift instruction on the Eastside and in the U-District..

Jean Ebright – Instructor

Jean’s entire adult life has been spent working with children. She drove school busses for 10 years and began teaching students to drive in 1998. She’s also taught Sunday School and other programs for children..

Sue Pierce – Instructor

Sue has been with Defensive Driving School in Lake Stevens since 2004. Sue and Larry are married and have three children, who have all learned to drive defensively with Defensive Driving School. She has a BA in English from the University of Washington, and enjoys reading and traveling..

Mark Sasaki – Instructor

Mark grew up and worked on the family produce farm in Orting, WA. His first driving experiences came from a tractor along with other farming equipment. He now lives in Seattle where there are probably more traffic signals in a square mile than there were students in his high school.

Phil Olander – Instructor

Phil has been teaching traffic safety since 2006. He teaches out of the Lake Stevens and Mukilteo locations..

Jim Charvet – Instructor

Jim is a graduate of the University of Washington and has retired after 30 years of teaching high school English and photography. He has been teaching drivers education for 27 years. He has been married forty years, has three daughters, and enjoys the challenge of staying mentally alert at an old age..

Eric Thompson – Instructor

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German Yuen – Instructor

After 25 years in the jewelry business, German retired, only to make a comeback as a driving instructor. For the past 11 years, he has been coaching youth sports and three years ago he began refereeing youth soccer games. In his free time he likes to play soccer and spend time with his wife, daughter, and son.

Sally Boyce – Instructor

Sally grew up in England, drives a School bus in Monroe. Enjoys cooking for and spending time with her kids and friends. Likes to play outside, skiing, kayaking hiking etc. Spends most weekends up in the snow at Stevens Pass. Became a driving instructor in 2009..

Sam Kuyper – Instructor

Sam earned his BA in Japanese from Central Washington University and taught English in Japan for 10 years. He is currently a teacher at Redmond High School teaching Japanese. Sam's grandfather worked as a traffic safety instructor for over 30 years. After returning to the US from Japan, Sam decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. He has been with Defensive since 2007. When he is not working, Sam enjoys spending time with his twin boys, playing the piano, and reading Japanese novels..

Aubrey Provisor – Instructor

Aubrey and his wife have lived in Seattle since 1970. He started teaching Drivers Ed. in 1996. He’s a motorcycle buff and rides to work everyday. He is passionate about teaching and tells his students that he’s “not demanding, he just has high standards.”.

Bryan Davis – Instructor

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Shelia Lovell – Instructor

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Natalie Scalf – Instructor

Natalie comes from a family of driving enthusiasts and educators who believe driving can be both safe and fun. It is important to Natalie her students understand traffic laws are not designed to be punitive, rather they are designed to keep the public safe and to keep traffic moving. A daughter of a military officer, Natalie has lived all over the United States and Europe. She has lived in Seattle for eleven years, spending the last three in West Seattle..

Sarah Hendrickson – Instructor

Originally from north Idaho, Sarah enjoys the weather here. She has Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Portland State University. While teaching English to refugee students in Egypt, Sarah discovered how much fun it is to work with teenagers. In her free time she enjoys traveling, reading, hiking, and being pulled around by her dog..

Bill Goodrich – Instructor

Bill has been with Defensive since January 2011. He has been teaching teens and adults for 20 years. He has a Masters Degree in Theatre Arts and Drama, as well as a degree in Music. He loves helping people learn, Acting and singing as well as proper driving techniques..

Isaac Kim – Instructor

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Matt Carpenter – Instructor

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Will Thornton – Instructor

Will has been teaching driver safety since 2005 and draws from a wealth of experince prior to Defensive driving school. He also teaches for Sears driving school as well. His passion for driver safety stems from his loss of his only son in 2003. His greatest goal is to spare other parents from what he had to endure. Will lives in Bellevue and is a writer and web site developer.

Rick Bartlett – Instructor

Rick has been teaching traffic safety since 1988. He has a Master of Science degree from the University of Idaho in Sport Science. He stays active by being a Boy Scout leader in my boy's troop and an avid bicyclist. He is married with 3 children. .

Michelle Stowell – Instructor

Michele lives in Granite Falls. Her two daughters enjoy college life in Boston and Seattle, and are Defensive Driving graduates who maintain their super hero driving status' when on our county roads. Michele loves to write, tutor and study world religions when away from the joys of the car and classroom. She believes that every teen is a gifted asset to all existence..

Albert Cvitic – Instructor

Albert first discovered how much he enjoyed teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia teaching English to High School students. He recently moved to Seattle from Cleveland where he taught Ballroom Dancing, and now performs with a local Folk Dancing troop at events and festivals. "The weather here, compared to the Mid-west, is fantastic, and the scenery is amazing. It's no wonder that people drive a little slower and seem a little more distracted on the highways around here," he says with a wry grin, "but seriously, I love being outside in the sunshine, and being in the car offers that. The job is challenging, but I have a brake on my side of the car, and that keeps me calm," he says with a wink and a nudge..

Tyson Williams – Instructor

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Desiree Burman – Office Staff: Certificates

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Sheena Perry – Office Staff: Customer Care

Sheena is currently enrolled at Renton Technical College in the Computer Science program and has plans on continuing until getting an Associates degree at RTC. Then continuing education at an undecided university to get a Masters degree. When not in class or at work, she takes time to catch up on missed TV shows throughout the week, watching movies On-Demand (or one of her hundreds of DVDs) and spending time with family members..

Christina Dreyer – Office Staff: Scheduling

Christina has been with Defensive Driving School since 2009. She's happily married with 2 daughters and was previously a stay-at-home mom. Prior to having children, she served in the Air Force as an Information Manager..