Board Members
Lisa Baker, President
An Engineer by trade, Lisa has changed professions to become a stay at home bookkeeper which allows her to follow her passions of travel, golf and spending time with friends and family. Lisa, along with her husband Royce and three sons Jack, Sam and Luke have always placed a strong emphasis on the importance of education. In 2011 Lisa joined the HYTES Board and has witnessed how life-changing an opportunity for education can be to any child.
Scott Muzychka, Treasurer
Scott is a bean counter with a passion for travel. Scott’s family places a very high value on education and they support the work HYTES does in providing education. As one of the original co-founders of HYTES, Scott has been actively involved since HYTES’ inception in 2006.
Jan McGregor, Director
Jan McGregor has been a HYTES volunteer and Board member since 2006 when her daughter Glenna taught in a secondary school in Tanzania, bringing home stories of enthusiastic and eager youths striving to get an education but so often blocked by a lack of money for school fees… an amount of money that is small by Canadian standards but insurmountable for youths in Africa. Jan also spends many hours walking her dog Gypsy and cross-country skiing and hiking in the mountains with her husband Cam and daughter Glenna.
Elisa Woodard, Director
Elisa Woodard is a Consultant with software company OpenText. She loves HYTES simple but effective focus on education as the key to bringing equity and balance to the global community. An avid traveler, she looks forward to visiting HYTES supported sites in the future.
Sandra Gohill, Director
Sandra is a wife, mother and former nurse who loves to travel and experience different cultures and places. In addition to being a tourist in many countries, she has been able to volunteer in Nepal and Peru.
Sandra has been a HYTES volunteer since 2015. Sandra’s husband was born in Kenya. During a family visit to East Africa in 2011, they were able to visit a school in the Kibera slum in Nairobi. They witnessed first hand the desperate need for assistance. A few years later Sandra was introduced to HYTES through a friend and recognized immediately the much-needed assistance this organization provides.
Maria Degethoff, IT Specialist
Maria Degethoff started volunteering with HYTES in 2017. Maria travelled to many countries and heard from locals about the lack of financial assistance for education. “If you’re born poor, you stay poor,” was an unsettling theme that many of the locals expressed. Upon her return to Calgary, she looked into non-profit organizations that she could volunteer with to help children in other countries reach their education goals, and she has been with HYTES ever since. In her daily life, Maria is a dental hygienist and enjoys snowboarding, spending time with friends and family, and travelling.
Favour Simoongwe, Director
Favour Simoongwe is an educator who has taught in Zambia and in Alberta, Canada including in Morley at the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. Through this diverse experience, Favour has developed a special connection and passion for the education of the highly vulnerable in society. This is why he joined HYTES in late 2017 as a volunteer, and a board member in early 2020. In 2018 and in 2019 Favour visited the HYTES sponsored students in Zambia and saw first hand the incredible difference this organization is making in the lives of the students and their families.
Together with his wife Fiona and their three children, Favour has been fortunate to call Cochrane, Alberta home for the last 20 years (and counting) where he enjoys nature walks and bike rides by the rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the meandering Bow River Valley. The Simoongwes also enjoy camping within Canada, and traveling internationally.