Learn Spanish in Costa Rica - Spanish Immersion Programs - Intensive Spanish Programs

Our team:

HOME

Spanish Programs

>>> Our Team
Admin & Support
Spanish Teachers

How to Register

Fun in Spanish

Site Map

Contact Us

Calendar
FAQ's
Volunteers

At Conversa we like to believe that we're more than just a Spanish school. Whether you begin contact with us before you arrive in Costa Rica or once you're here, we like to think of ourselves as your host - and we'll do our best to see that your experience in Costa Rica is as good as it can be. Here are a few of the folks that help make this happen:

Dave Kaufman - Director (dkaufman@conversa.net)
Dave obtained his B.A. in Spanish from Ithaca College and began his Spanish language teaching career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic. He served as Spanish Language Coordinator for Peace Corps training programs in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica before obtaining his M.S. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University. In 1975 Dave co-founded Conversa and has been the head of the school ever since.

Andy Kaufman - Administrative Director (akaufman@conversa.net)
Andy obtained his B.S. in Manufacturing Engineering at Boston University in 1997 and began working for Intel Corporation as an engineer in the Pentium (R) chip manufacturing operations. From there he moved on to work in consulting with KPMG (now BearingPoint), working on selection and administration of government IT initiatives. In 2003 he obtained his MBA at The George Washington University in Washington, DC and he's been head of operations at Conversa since then.

Steve Hanson - Academic Coordinator (shanson@conversa.net)
Steve came over to Costa Rica from England in 1982 and has been working with Conversa since then. He was both a French major at the University of Costa Rica and an Education major at Ulacit. He came to Costa Rica shortly after finishing a managerial course at J.Sainsbury in England. He has coordinated both English and Spanish programs over the last 25 years, including the intensive CAPS / USAID program in the late 80's for graduate and undergraduate students going to the USA to finish their college degrees. Since then Steve has worked continuously on improving Conversa's teaching staff as well as on developing new teaching tools and techniques.

Steve Beaudreau - Program Administrator - Santa Ana (sbeaudreau@conversa.net)
Steve came to Costa Rica from Boston in 1985 and began working at Conversa in 1986 as an English teacher. Before coming to Costa Rica, Steve worked for several years as a credit adjuster at Commonwealth Gas and at Cambridge Electric Company. Since he took on the role of Program Administrator at our Santa Ana campus in the early 1990's, he's been responsible for the facelift and continuous improvement of campus facilities as well as its overall operation.

Ana Yanci Ramírez - Office Manager - San José (aramirez@conversa.net)
Ana began working at Conversa in 1998 as our receptionist. Before then Ana worked in customer service and hospitality for a major hotel chain in San Jose. Ana has helped Conversa revamp our back-office operations helping to streamline the different processes that help make our student's experience at Conversa a better one.

Nuria Zumbado - Language Coordinator - Santa Ana (nzumbado@conversa.net)
Nuria joined Conversa way back in 1980 after being part of the Peace Corp's Spanish training crew here in Costa Rica. In 1997, Nuria took on the roll of Language Coordinator out on the Santa Ana campus. Like Otto, Nuria has been working on further developing our teaching staff and our materials. In addition, she has been a member of the ConversaConmigo.com development team from the very beginning.

Admin & Support Staff | Teaching Staff