Meet the NVCCE Team

Our Staff

The NVCCE Staff members are passionate about engagement in our History and Government. In fact, NVCCE is not the only community organization they are a part of. Our staff members also participate in many community organizations such as the Nevada Coalition for Suicide Prevention, Voices in Voting, National Charity League Sierra Nevada, Washoe County Zoning Advisory Board, Nevada Department of Education Blue Ribbon Commission, Nevada Civics Advisory Panel, and the Northern Nevada Council for the Social Studies.

Christine Hull, Program Director

  • Christine brings a wealth of experience to our organization with over 15 years of teaching experience through her time spent in Nevada, Virginia and California. While working as the Social Studies Curriculum Specialist for the Nevada Department of Education, she organized and managed the National History Day in Nevada program. Christine has always loved integrating technology into her classroom being one of the first “paperless teachers” teaching in a one to one environment as well as taking the leap into online learning in the early stages of virtual schooling.
    Christine holds an undergraduate degree in Social Science from San Diego State University, a Masters of Education from the University of Nevada, and a graduate certificate in Leadership & Curriculum Development in Education Administration from Johns Hopkins University.

Pamela Olsen, Office Manager

Civic Engagement is important because…

the opportunity to educate people in the roles & responsibilities of civil society & public officials at this time is more important that ever

  • Pamela has a degree in accounting from Western Nevada Community College where she also taught accounting and double entry bookkeeping for 8 years. She also taught the outreach class for Nevada State Prison system in Carson city for 6 years during the same time frame. This was an open entry, open exit accounting system that was certification based rather than grade based, focusing on the skill set. They also run an internship program for re-entry into society for persons who was in a job development program to have sustainably in the real world. She worked for Nevada State Museum for 8 years, doing payroll, AR / AP accounting and word processing / data entry on various projects for both the Carson City and Las Vegas locations. She split my time between the two locations.She worked as a manager at various airports for Frontier Airlines and Continental Airlines, which also included payroll, tax reporting, landing fee tracking, baggage service, customer service and below wing ground handling functions. Her largest staff was at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport included 290 staff, and a contract for airport security employees (before TSA). She was in the airline industry for 27 years. She created budgets and managed employees and interacted with FAA and Airport administrations at 31 airport over the years.She has been manager of employees and accounting (payroll, AP, AR, taxes and insurance for Bonneville Race Track, Godfrey Trucking (Dick Godfrey, owner) , and Rocks Travel Plaza (Dave Rock, Owner) in Salt Lake City, Utah.She was also the treasurer for Nevada Coalition for Suicide Prevention for 12 years, a position that ending December, 2021, where she developed my skills on Quick books and class (grant) tracking.

Denise Paxton, Professional Learning Director

  • Denise was raised in Northern Nevada. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary/Special Education and a Master's Degree in Behavior Disorders as well as earning a National Board Certification in Adolescent Social Studies. Denise is a retired teacher of 30 years of service teaching Elementary and Middle School for the Washoe County School District. She received the Gilder Lehrman History Teacher of the Year for Nevada, created curriculum that has been published nationally with Achieve The Core, Equip, and Project Tahoe, trained teachers in Writing Across the Curriculum for the LIghthouse Charter Schools in Chicago, and has been a presenter at the George Washington Summer Teacher Institute.

Civic Engagement is important because…

every voice matters

Civic Engagement is important because…

tomorrow rests on today's informed engaged citizenry.

Program Coordinators

Our work with students and teachers across the state would not happen without this group of volunteer coordinators. They have a passion for making an impact on their communities through our inquiry based programs. They believe that building skills through authentic assessment.

Karleighn Goodale, Northeastern District Coordinator

  • Karleighn is a native Nevadan, born and raised in Reno. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Nevada, Reno and taught in Washoe County School District at the elementary and middle school levels for 10 years. Prior to moving to Northeastern Nevada in 2018, Karleighn participated in the James Madison Legacy Project and has continued to pursue professional development and student engagement in civic learning ever since. Karleighn currently works as a K-12 librarian and literacy strategist in Elko County School District. She looks forward to working with teachers and students in Northeastern Nevada on the many amazing programs facilitated by the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement!

Will Hull, We the People District Two Coordinator



  • Will pushes pixels around until they look pretty. He is a non-profit consultant and web developer based in Reno, Nevada who works as an Internet Solutions Consultant at Blackbaud. His passion lies in non-profit fundraising, advocacy, online marketing and creating graphics and coding web sites; most notably for the non-profit sector.

    Will was lucky enough to work with many Congressional offices on Capitol Hill and nationally recognized non-profits in Washington, DC to manage their online and e-mail marketing campaigns as well as their social media and Web presence.

    Working with Blackbaud since 2012, he deploys non-profits on both the Luminate Online platform with TeamRaiser, a peer-to-peer fundraising product, advocacy and online marketing modules and the Sphere platform working with Friends Asking Friends, also a peer-to-peer fundraising product.

    Additionally, Will’s educational background is well founded to serving the public and non-profit sectors. He holds a Masters of Public Administration with a Concentration in Nonprofit Management from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nevada, Reno in Political Science with a Spanish Minor. His background includes performance measurement, program evaluation, research and statistical methods, among others, that serves to augment website visitor analysis and development cycles.

Jenna Garcia, We the People District Two Coordinator



  • Jenna is a native Northern Nevadan. Her interest in civic education began at Reed High School when she participated in the We the People Program. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She returned to Nevada in 2013 as a law clerk for the Honorable James Hardesty on the Nevada Supreme Court. She currently works as a criminal defense attorney at the Alternate Public Defender’s Office. Jenna has been involved in We the People programs for the past 5 years. She is married and I has one amazing daughter named Lexi who is 3 years old.

Saha Salahi, We the People District Four Coordinator

  • Saha is a sophomore pursuing a B.A. in Communication with a Brookings Public Policy Minor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. In 2019 she graduated from West Career and Technical Academy with a College Ready Diploma, inspired to make a difference in the world as she took her first steps towards college. Saha is the Las Vegas Fellow for IGNITE National, Summer Research Intern for Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute and recently served as a District Intern for Nevada Congressman, Steven Horsford. In the community, she has served over 150 hours of volunteering, which span from being a teacher’s assistant for elementary level students to organizing and fundraising food and book drives for the local K-12 schools. As a product of Afghan-American parents, Saha plans to advocate for minority groups and use her voice to bring about equal representation at a local and national level. As an alumni of the We The People Program, Saha is excited to start carrying out the role of Congressional District 4 Coordinator for the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement.

Carol Mcgrew, We the People District Three Coordinator

  • Carol is a Nationally Board Certified Middle School US History and Civics Teacher. She has been involved with the We the People program since 2010 as a teacher, mentor and Competition Judge. She has also escorted students to the Middle School We the People Invitational and the National History Day Competition. She currently serves as the District 3 Coordinator for We the People. At the district and state levels, she served on the Nevada Social Studies Standards Committee and was the President for the Southern Nevada Social Studies Council.

    Carol has been teaching for 24 years and earned her Bachelor’s Degree from California State University Northridge and Masters from Grand Canyon University.

    Carol is also a mentor teacher for our professional development programs and serves on our Technology Task Force.