Kasandra VerBrugghen

Kasandra is a recent transplant to Salt Lake City via Seattle where she was the executive director of the Austin Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the health and lives of urban youth. Through free fitness training, nutrition awareness, and youth development programs, the organization gives kids the tools to improve their self-esteem, their self-respect and helps them develop lifelong healthy habits.

Kasandra grew up in the mountains of rural Washington and moved with her family to Tucson, Arizona, where she finished high school and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Arizona. Following college she taught GED preparation and life skills classes to young and disadvantaged adults for whom traditional learning environments were unsuccessful. Through her teaching, she experienced first hand the personal empowerment and self-determination gained through education, as her students learned to think critically about the world around them and take control over their lives.

In 1996, Kasandra moved back to Washington to further her own education, and for the next nine years worked in program development and management for a nonprofit in Seattle dedicated to education and training in marine safety. In June 2004, she earned a Masters in Public Administration with an emphasis in nonprofit management from the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs. Kasandra firmly believes that her own education has provided her the internal strength and determination to believe in herself and to follow her dreams - one of which was to travel and rock climb around the world; and beginning in October of 2004, she took a one-year sabbatical to do just that.

Drawn to Salt Lake City by her love for the mountains and her husband’s work, she joined Spy Hop at the end of May 2008 and is now committed to supporting a nurturing environment where youth learn to find their own voice and are empowered to follow their own dreams.