MountainStar Bend

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MountainStar Family Relief Nursery’s Executive Director Kara Tachikawa graduated from Willamette University and has been teaching and managing educational programs for over 20 years. She has been in senior and executive leadership roles since 2014. Ms. Tachikawa is certified as a Master Trainer with the Oregon Center for Career Development through Portland State University. She joined MountainStar in August 2019 as Program Director and was promoted into the Executive Director role in August 2021. Some key points of her leadership style are inclusion, empathy, and empowerment, while also focusing on planning and forward movement. Ms. Tachikawa’s responsibilities include providing strategic leadership, financial management, fundraising, and board development for the organization.

HR & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

Shelly Partridge is a passionate and experienced HR & Operations Director. Shelly believes that collaborative partnerships are the key to success. She is invested in being a strategic partner and leader of staff, managers, executive management and board members. Shelly has been in Management and Executive Leadership roles since 2008, she has been an active member of both local and national chapters of the Society of Human Resource (SHRM) since 2018 and earned the SHRM-CP credentialed certificate of Proficiency in 2022. Shelly joined MountainStar in February 2020 and has focused on helping enhance the employer brand by engaging in HR best practices and driving to be an “Employer of Choice”. Shelly leads with integrity, open-mindedness, compassion, and a sense of humor. Areas of expertise include strategic planning, employee engagement, employee relations, performance management, finance, budgeting, compliance, benefits, compensation and operations management. Shelly and her husband Chris moved from the Seattle area to Central Oregon in 2000 to raise their family here. In her free time Shelly enjoys spending time with her family and friends, boating, camping, dirt bike riding, snowboarding, pickleball, live music, exploring new food, and traveling.

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

As Development Director at MountainStar, Ms. Micken is responsible for fundraising efforts across Central Oregon, supporting servcies at five separate locations. This includes overseeing traditional fundraising campaigns and events, marketing and social media, volunteer recruitment, and community outreach. Ms. Micken has a B.A. Anthropology from Muhlenberg College and prior to her development career worked as an archeologist for GCM, Services out of Montana. With over 15 years of development experience, Ms. Micken began her career with Habitat for Humanity in Charlottesville, VA. She then transition to a K-12 federal advocacy organization, the Alliance for Excellent Education, in Washington, D.C. In 2018, Ms. Micken moved to Bend with her family and joined MountainStar.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Program Director Amanda Smith oversees Relief Nursery services at all 5 locations. Ms. Smith has worked in the early childhood education field for 20+ years and has been on staff at MountainStar for 19 years. Ms. Smith completed her Assoicate's at COCC and has over 1000 training hours in this field. Ms. Smith’s experience includes positions with Child Care, Head Start and Family Resource Center. She is the current Board President of the Central Oregon Chapter of Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children. She has volunteered with CASA (Crook and Deschutes County) and Big Brothers/Big Sisters (Crook County).