The Wooly Team
The people behind the madness.
The people behind the madness.
Despite the ridiculous amount of time she appears to spend on Facebook running the Woology group, Kelly is actually a full-time, National Board Certified Spanish teacher. And in her copious free time, she is a frequent contributor of nuggets, hints, readings, packets, and whatever else Jim throws at her. She has also worked behind the scenes on several of the videos, sneaks in front of the camera once in a while, and has been trying to convince Jim to put an ostrich in a future video (so far unsuccessfully). Like Carrie, living a couple of hours from the Wooly office, most of her work for Sr. Wooly is done via email and text message, which judging by her omnipresence online, is okay by her. She has no pets. When not doing all this work, Kelly is an avid soccer fan, playing year-round and always ready to cheer for Forward Madison Football Club (Go Flamingos!). In the winter she also plays curling, a sport she picked up a few years ago in a last-ditch attempt to discover if she is a prodigy at an Olympic sport. She isn't.
In Lima, born and raised, Jeffrey is part of the engineering team at SenorWooly. He earned his bachelor's degree in Economics, spending his early career navigating the LATAM startup scene from the Strategy and Investment side. In 2023, he took the leap into engineering, flipping the table on his career path. Starting with a coding bootcamp, he immersed himself into the world of algorithms and code, ready to tackle new challenges. When he's not glued to his screen, Jeffrey splits his time between surfing the waves and scaling cliffs, depending on the day's mood. And if you ever need to find him, just follow the scent of coffee – his lifeline, his vitamin C (Coffee, that is).
Hailing originally from the Pacific Northwest of the USA, Haven always liked playing with computers. Though it wasn't the games that caught his attention but rather the never ending curiosity to want to know how things worked. Never doubting that Computer Science was right for him, he has not looked back after graduating from the field in university. Having experienced traditional language learning techniques first hand he is thrilled to now be able to help bring better 21st century online options to a wider audience through Señor Wooly.
After some years of touring the world with his designer degree under his arm, he landed in The Down Under, where he finally found the path of the UI/UX hopping on top of his kangaroos pals. Beautiful years passed but the calling was always singing in his heart, until one day, and after 4 years of surfing the cold waves of the Tasmanian sea, he decided to return to his beloved and tranquil land in Colombia to live the serene lifestyle of his dreams. There he interweaves his love of nature with the Wooly philosophy to create user experiences as organic and relaxing as the mountain breeze.
Kaitlin Leppert was born and raised in Wisconsin, and yes, she loves cheese. Although she initially had no desire to pursue Spanish or teaching in college, a last-minute decision inspired by a high school trip to Costa Rica changed her path. Witnessing firsthand how languages can bring different communities together, she decided to become a Spanish teacher. She holds a bachelor's degree in Spanish education. With over a decade of experience teaching Spanish to students in grades 5-12, Kaitlin has developed a deep passion for language instruction. Outside of the classroom, she has dedicated many years to supporting other language teachers through conference presentations and her podcast, blog, and YouTube channel, offering valuable insights and practical advice on language teaching. Outside of her professional life, Kaitlin loves to travel and attend concerts, always seeking new experiences and adventures. At home, she dotes on her beloved cat, Gracie, who believes Kaitlin’s full-time job should be catering to her every wish.
From a very young age, Nate’s greatest passion has always been music. Starting with humble beginnings figuring out musicals by ear on the family piano, all the way through earning a Bachelor of Music from Columbia College Chicago, Nate has been unable to avoid the music constantly running through his head. After fruitless years of searching for a musical outlet, he was snatched from the jaws of artistic obsolescence by Jim Wooldridge – and their lives would never be the same. Nate is the songwriter-in-residence at Señor Wooly. When he’s not sitting in the back of the warehouse strumming the day away, you can find him making really tiny adjustments to the Nuggets, putting a Señor Wooly sticker in that package you just ordered, or creating some odd new connection between Wooly stories that didn't exist before (obviously the trash Sam deals with in Los quehaceres ends up on the barge at the end of Qué asco. Obviously.)
Juan Carlos has been expressing himself with paints, colored pencil, crayons, acrylics, and anything else that he can dirty his hands with for as long as he can remember. After briefly considering a career in electronic engineering after high school (what was he thinking?) he followed his instincts, and in 2005 began studying graphic design at TALLER 5 where he excelled in drawing, human figure-painting, and, of course, illustration. Like all good illustrators he has embraced the hermit-lifestyle. He spends nearly all his time locked up in his Bogotá, Colombia art studio drawing, painting, studying, and working to improve his craft. On the rare occasion that he pokes his head out of the studio, he loves travel.
Jodi Stokdyk grew up in a Wisconsin town where cows outnumber people five to one. She knew she wanted to be a Spanish teacher when she was just a freshman in high school and hasn't looked back since. She finished her BA in Spanish and Education and eventually ended up teaching at the very same high school she graduated from. She now teaches 7th grade Spanish, 8th grade Spanish, Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and a combined 3 and 4 class. Her favorite part about teaching at her small, hometown school is getting to watch her students' language skills grow over the years. When she isn't teaching, she loves hiking, biking, collecting Lego, and starting projects that she has no intention of ever finishing.
Full-time teacher, author, curriculum developer/trainer, and Head Nugget Chef at Señor Wooly, Carrie Toth works around the clock creating new materials to facilitate instruction in the classroom. Carrie was a 2015 finalist for ACTFL’s national Teacher of the Year and draws on ACTFL's proficiency descriptors and 90% target language recommendations in her work. When she isn’t with her students, cooking up bite sized chunks of language for the website, or training teachers… Wait… She’s always doing those things. Thank heaven her husband and grown up kids are not too demanding! Carrie lives 4 hours south of the Wooly office so she has to remote in… her dogs are never included in any of the office fun. She has two cats too… but like all cats, they don’t want to be included.
Margaret Vigilla grew up in the bustling city of Metro Manila, Philippines. A graduate of Psychology, she found her way to Señor Wooly, where she works as Customer Support, combining her love of helping people with her passion for teaching and understanding how people learn. A creative at heart, Margaret enjoys digital arts, writing poems, crafting miniature DIY houses, and is an avid fan of anime and The Lord of the Rings films. Outside of work, she loves spending time with her husband, son, and two dogs, always seeking new ways to blend her creativity with everyday life.
Jim Wooldridge is still a little uncertain how he got here. It seems like just a short time ago, he was writing silly little songs to help his middle school students memorize preterit AR verb conjugations. Fast-forward 10 years, and he has created over 30 story-based music videos, is currently working on his 6th graphic novel, has been a featured keynote speaker at events like iFLT and CCFLT, and has built a language-acquisition website that is used by 20,000+ teachers around the world. When he’s not obsessing over his next creative production, Jim tries to find serenity by putting together jigsaw puzzles. Jim Wooldridge lives in Skokie, IL with wife, two children and two dogs (both of whom like eating jigsaw puzzle pieces).
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