Board of Directors
Jason Cole - President
Jason was born and raised in Texas, and moved to Fort Worth after being stationed in Alaska in the US Air Force. He has worked as an occupational safety and risk management consultant for the last 15 years as a Certified Safety Professional. He has a B.S. in Biology, and is a Texas Master Naturalist.
Jason heard about Camp Quest Texas on a podcast in 2014, and signed his older son up to attend that day. The spirit of freethinking atmosphere of inclusivity made him want to help further the goals of the organization, so in 2015, he volunteered himself, working in the clinic. Jason acted as the Camp Quartermaster from 2016 to 2020, and as the Operations Director in 2021.
Phyllis Clark - Treasurer
Phyllis has worked for a major airline for the majority of her career - in Commercial Receivables Treasury department for the past decade, previously in Telecom Finance. She has been involved with the Houston Atheists as a member since 2005 and more recently was the leader from 2018 - 2022. She is the treasurer of HOPE (Homeless Outreach Providing Essentials ) for Houston, a secular group that distributes personal care items to the homeless once a month. She also served as President of the PBO for her daughter’s robotics team from 2019-2022.
Phyllis first became aware of Camp Quest during the Texas FreeThought Convention in 2011 when her daughter was age 7. Camp Quest had a room set up for kids and they later ended up onstage with Richard Dawkins when he was introducing his new book, The Magic of Reality. When her daughter was old enough, in 2013, she attended CQTX and has attended every one since (along with one summer at CQ Ohio and CQ CO - when she was on the waitlist for CQTX and wasn’t sure if she’d get in).
Her daughter found her space at CQTX and is now a volunteer. When the call went out for someone to fill the Treasurer position, Phyllis couldn’t think of a better fit.
John Meek
As the father of three sons, John has been involved in youth activities for most of his adult life. He held multiple roles at the Pack, Troop, and Council level with the Boy Scouts of America, including running some of the Council’s largest camping and training events every year. He severed his relationship with Scouting in late 2013 after finally coming out as an atheist.
For the past few years, John has been involved with the Dallas area freethought community including volunteering at the CQTX summer camp, assisting with a number of management-level tasks for CQTX, and attending national events such as the Reason Rally and the Camp Quest Leaders Retreat.
Professionally, John is an Infrastructure Architect and Project Manager with over 20 years of experience in architecture, infrastructure operations, and strategic planning of technology solutions.
Kyle Oyakawa
Kyle and his family have been active members of Camp Quest Texas since 2014. That first year, he and his wife volunteered and their three oldest children attended as campers. Now, the entire family will be at camp with a total of four adult volunteers and four campers.
Kyle has served as a cabin counselor and camp director as well as helping with the registration software and website management. He and his family are also active members of Fellowship of Freethought Dallas where he and his wife have served in various leadership roles.
April Smith
April began her Camp Quest journey in 2013 when she signed up two campers and volunteered as a Cabin Counselor, and again from 2018 to present as a Counselor and Camp Photographer. Those two campers also participated in the Phoenix Program and plan to return as adult volunteers this summer!
When April isn’t volunteering at Camp Quest, she spends most of her time talking about Camp Quest and trying to find new ways to share info about Camp Quest to as many people as possible.
In addition to Camp Quest, she previously volunteered with PTOs as a Title 1 reading tutor, with Cub Scouts as a Committee Chair, and as a soccer coach through the MSA. Currently, April works for a venture law firm assisting with entity formation and capital raise closings, is a member of the FOF, is on the Board of the DFW Chapter of the FFRF, and is a Precinct Chair of the CCDP.
Carl Wessels, CPA
Carl is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Government Finance Officer. His greatest love is his wife and family. His favorite hobby is umpiring youth baseball but he is also a private pilot, golfer, blue belt in karate, computer geek, expert blackjack and poker player, and successful stock market investor. Carl is a true jack-of-all-trades.