Tradewinds School is built by educators, scientists, designers, and leaders who understand what gifted learners need—and what too many schools fail to provide. Our team brings decades of combined experience in gifted education, school leadership, product design, and psychology—and teachers selected from over 100 applicants in a nationwide search. We're building a school designed from the ground up for the minds that think differently.
About Our Team
World-Class Leadership and Teaching
Carl Sabatino
Head of School
Carl is a nationally recognized leader in differentiated education and school design. He served as Head of School for Bridges Academy in Studio City, California—starting in a dentist's office—and grew it into an institution known for rigorous, personalized instruction that meets gifted learners where they are. Under his leadership, Bridges expanded to a second campus in Seattle and became a model for how schools can maintain intellectual rigor while personalizing the learning experience.
At Tradewinds, Carl brings expertise in curriculum design, teacher development, and creating school cultures where gifted students thrive socially and intellectually. He understands the specific challenges that come with educating bright, intense learners—the asynchronous development, the social complexity, the need for intellectual peers—and has built schools that address them directly. His vision is clear: gifted learners deserve schools built for them, not retrofitted around them.
Teachers
We received over 100 applications as part of our nationwide search. Carl has hired hundreds of teachers in his career and has a keen eye for talent. The teachers we've hired are the best of the best.
Amber Spahn
Teacher
Amber holds a Master's degree in Literacy Education and a teaching license in early childhood education (PreK–4). She has tutored students from pre-K through fifth grade for many years and has taught grades 2–4, with experience across all core subjects and a focus on 4th grade math and gifted and talented extension.
Beyond her own classroom, Amber has coached fellow educators in blended learning and technology integration, designing instructional resources and leading professional development workshops. She has also spent multiple summers leading wilderness trips and community service projects in Hawaiʻi, working closely with local community partners. At Tradewinds, Amber brings hands-on experience with gifted learners, a talent for differentiated instruction, and a genuine enthusiasm for rethinking what elementary education can look like.
Julia Hunckler
Teacher
Julia is a marine microbiologist and educator based in Kāneʻohe. She is completing her Master's in Marine Science at Hawaiʻi Pacific University, where she discovered a new microbial species from deep-sea hydrothermal vents and subseafloor basaltic aquifers. She has presented at NASA's Astrobiology Conference, served as a NOAA grant proposal reviewer, and joined an NSF-funded research expedition to the Juan de Fuca Ridge aboard an oceanographic vessel with a deep-sea ROV. She uses AI and computational tools daily in her research—writing scripts, analyzing genomic data, and debugging code—and sees enormous untapped potential in how AI can support learning.
Julia brings teaching experience from preschool through college: she has taught everything from preschool to sixth grade, served as a special education paraprofessional, substitute taught across Oʻahu, taught STEM science at a classical academy using Socratic discussion to guide students through college-level material, and currently works as an adjunct professor in microbiology at Chaminade University. She was herself a gifted student—an Intel International Science and Engineering Fair finalist in high school. She believes deeply in productive struggle: guiding students without giving away answers, providing scaffolding when needed, and letting curiosity drive the learning. At Tradewinds, Julia brings real scientific practice into the classroom and a teaching philosophy built around inquiry and discovery.
Founders & Board
Andy Szybalski
Co-founder / Board Member
Andy is a product designer and AI entrepreneur who has built world-class digital experiences. At Google, he led the design of Google Street View. At Uber, he shaped the product and design for Uber Eats.
He founded Tradewinds after watching his own highly gifted 7-year-old navigate Hawaiʻi's schools. Watching his son's intellectual hunger be stifled in one-size-fits-all classrooms, sparked a conviction: if we design products carefully for millions of users, shouldn't we design education carefully for the children we claim to serve? Andy holds a BS and MS from Stanford University in Computer Science and Art, and brings that intersection of technical depth and design thinking to how Tradewinds approaches instruction and technology. He sees Tradewinds as the hardest and most important design problem he's ever worked on.
Dr. Heidi Meck
Co-founder / Board Member
Heidi is a clinical psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience, licensed in both California and Hawaiʻi. She brings her expertise in social-emotional development to the gifted learners of Tradewinds. She deeply understands the asynchronicity, perfectionism, intensity, and anxieties that can accompany a gifted mind.
Throughout her career, Heidi has worked with children, adolescents, and adults navigating eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and body image issues. She understands how crucial the school environment is when it comes to supporting the specific vulnerabilities of gifted learners. At Tradewinds, Heidi ensures that intellectual rigor is paired with genuine social-emotional support—not the generic "wellness" language that most schools default to, but a real understanding of what children need to thrive.
Jason Gelles
Board Member
Jason is an Emmy-winning writer and producer who spent over a decade as Head Writer and Co-Executive Producer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He has also written for Late Show with David Letterman, Everybody Loves Raymond, and The Oscars, among other shows. He studied Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.
Jason lives in Kailua with his family and is deeply involved in Hawaiʻi's education community. He teaches speech and debate at Le Jardin Academy, volunteers as a college coach for ScholarMatch, and is currently in the college advising certificate program at Teachers College at Columbia. At Tradewinds, Jason brings a storyteller's instinct for what makes ideas land, along with a genuine commitment to expanding opportunity for young people.
Advisors
Dr. Tanya Gamby
Advisor
Tanya is Vice President of AI Learner Development at Southern New Hampshire University, where she designs AI-supported systems that integrate learning science, psychology, and adaptive feedback to cultivate whole-person skills for the AI era. A clinical psychologist by training with more than 25 years of experience, she leads cross-disciplinary teams building human-centered AI systems designed to strengthen human capability in a rapidly changing world.
Tanya has deep roots in Hawaiʻi—she is a past president of the Hawaii Psychological Association, a former board member at Island School (a HAIS/WASC accredited K–12 school on Kauaʻi), and has started and run a nonprofit in the state. She has consulted for the U.S. Department of Education and advised schools, universities, and healthcare systems on scalable, evidence-based approaches to human development. As a homeschooling parent of gifted children (now in college), she brings firsthand understanding of what these learners need. Her work focuses on embedding wellbeing, self-regulation, and other foundational human skills directly into learning platforms.