Catherine Bédard-Bayne
Catherine Bédard-Bayne has served as a full time French teacher for the Denver Public Schools since 1989. For the past 9 years she has been teaching on DPS Channels 22 and 48 French supplemental Culture/Language interactive classes at the Elementary/ Middle and High School levels. In the fall of 2005 she will be teaching online for the new DPS Online H.S. Previously she taught French at the University of Colorado in Denver for 10 years teaching in the classroom and online, was the director of the Foreign Language Institute in Denver from 1983- 2000 and co-authored French textbooks for FLES programs for the Denver based “Language for Kids” publishing company. She received an M.A in English from Bordeaux University, an M.A in Linguistics/FLE from La Sorbonne University in Paris, a PhD (ABD) from Paris VII University and in 1987 a teaching license from the University of Northern Colorado.
Wayne Loosbrock — Vice President and Secretary
Retired from the military as a Lieutenant Colonel, Wayne Loosbrock is currently pursuing an M.Ed. in Secondary Education from Old Dominion University in Virginia. He is one course away from obtaining a Colorado teacher’s certificate in secondary social studies. He plans to substitute teach in the Colorado Springs school system and to teach full time in the near future.
Wayne has a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor’s of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. As an undergraduate, he majored in international politics, graduating cum laude, and became proficient in Spanish, French, and Portuguese. He took courses in Spanish at the Universidad Católica in Quito, Ecuador, and attended the Portuguese Institute at Georgetown University. He also worked as a research intern for the Soviet-Latin American Project at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies. In law school, Wayne co-founded and acted as the first Managing Editor of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal.
Wayne spent over twenty years in the U.S. military. As a Spanish interpreter in the Army for four years, he provided support for the Panama Canal Treaties negotiations and their implementation. As a Judge Advocate (attorney) in the Air Force for over sixteen years, he performed myriad legal tasks, many with an international flavor, having been stationed overseas for over six years, in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Korea. In addition, he taught undergraduate law courses at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for three years. He also taught at the University of Maryland and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University while stationed overseas. Wayne has traveled extensively throughout Latin America, Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Wayne is an enthusiastic supporter of CoIS, for there is no better way to learn foreign languages and cultures than through an immersion program that begins at an early age. Having been there and done that, he understands the importance for Americans to better understand and communicate with the world around them.
