2023 Speakers

Phil is originally from Canada and moved to Las Vegas in 1999. His work experience spans over 38 years in various roles within government including HazMat training and response coordinator, police officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Federal Ranger with Bureau of Land Management, Air Quality and Permit Specialist and the Nuclear Waste Program Manager for Clark County since 2007. In 2015, he also became the Economic Development Liaison for the County working on providing connection with investors and government totalling more than $29 billion.

He sits on 7 Non-Profit Boards in various capacities including STEM Board for Clark County School District, Warrior GMR Foundation, Movement Gives Foundation, Energy Community Alliance Economic Development Chair, Western Governors Association and Western Interstate Energy Board. He owns three small businesses that focus on the mining,energy and business development as well as rugby match officiating and events.

In 2018 he founded and is the Chairman of The Rugby Foundation (501(c)(3) Charity U.S.A.) in an effort to Grow the Game Globally through community engagement programs while helping youth development personal character values that support better individual growth and success thereby building better communities. Currently, The Rugby Foundation has programs in 15 countries with plans to expand to over 20 before the end of 2022.

Salty Thompson’s vision for American rugby has transformed the growth and the future of the sport. His dedication to the education and development of young players has created a pipeline that will sustain the success of the USA Eagles for years to come.

A native of Northern Ireland, Salty began his rugby career at Regent House School and was an Ulster u19 and u23 player. Salty attended Loughborough University, England, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Sports Science and was a dual-sport athlete, competing in track and rugby. 

Salty’s coaching career started and continues with Tempe Rugby. He coached Atlantis 7s and the Southern California Griffins in 15s and 7s before taking on the role as USA u19 Boys Head Coach in 2002. He coached USA Age Grade teams, u19s, u20s, and High School All American levels until 2018. That timeline included seven u19 IRB World Championships, the inaugural 2008 World u20 Championships, and the 1st World Trophy in 2009. In 2010 he became the Head Coach for the High School All Americans until 2018. 

During his era with USA Rugby, Salty and his staff helped nurture over 40 Eagles, 35 Eagle 7s, and even more Collegiate All Americans. The current MLR rosters contain over 35 American players that came through the USA Age Grades during Thompson’s tenure. 

Salty retired from a 25-year teaching career to become the Director of Eagle Impact Rugby Academy (EIRA) in 2013. Since EIRA’s creation, the program has produced significant numbers of High School All-Americans, u20s, Collegiate All Americans, MLR, and Eagles (both 7s and 15s). Through EIRA, Salty has led the charge in closing the gap in the global game of rugby and influenced thousands of young ruggers nationwide.

Coach Lindersmith is the head coach of the University of Minnesota Men’s Rugby program. His coaching background includes coaching women, men, youth, high school, and select side rugby.   

He has spent 20 years as a player for his home Clubs of the San Diego Old Aztecs (USA), Mid Northern RFC (NZ), and the Coast Guard Select Side.   

He has also served as the Team Manager for the US Men’s National XVs Team, USA Falcons Sevens, and the San Diego Breakers in PRO.  

He currently serves as the Director of Operations for Premier Rugby Sevens professional league.

Although Leah Berard’s rugby career spans over 20 years, it is her 14 years as a professional referee that has taken her all over the world to places like Barbados, South Africa, Hong Kong, England and Russia, just to name a few. Her passion for the development of the sport even saw her travel as far as South East Asia, where she employed her rugby knowledge and experience to help grow the skill set of up-and-coming referees in that region.  

Impressively, Berard was the first woman to referee in a men’s professional rugby competition anywhere in the world and is still the only American to referee a Rugby World Cup final (2013).   

She was most recently involved in rugby youth development, running rugby awareness campaigns for school students in the state of Minnesota. Despite officially stepping away from rugby in 2020, Leah continues to referee D1 college football, with her ultimate goal being to one day officiate in the NFL.  

Originally from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Berard has lived in St. Paul, Minnesota for the last 20 years. She currently lives with her special cat, Onyx George.

I joined Thomas More Rugby at the beginning of the Fall 2022 campaign. Mainly working with the forward pack and focused on set pieces. As well as recruiting domestic students. We had a very successful season going undefeated in regular season and making it to the semifinals of the NCR D1 Playoffs.  

Prior to joining Thomas More I had the privilege to coach at The University of Rio Grande and American International College. I have been very fortunate to enter my fifth year of Coaching Collegiate Varsity Rugby and heavily involved with financial aid.  

My 15 year playing career in composed of playing mainly second row which is rooted from high school rugby in Wisconsin for Lake Country RFC and the Wisconsin Selects, American International College in Massachusetts, and Professional rugby in Texas with the Austin Huns.   

All of this was made possible by loving support by friends and family, amazing coaching staff and colleagues, and outstanding athletes along the journey.   

To speak again at the Wisconsin Rugby Summit again this year has become a great honor, and great to see more and more young adults get involved with rugby.

Dustin Steedman enters his second season leading the men's rugby program and had the interim tag of head coach removed following the 2020-21 season. Steedman guided the team to a 3-5 record in 2020-21 and saw the team place third at the Mount St. Mary's 7's tournament. In the USA Rugby national 7's tournament, the Panthers finished in fourth place.

He has been working with the men's rugby program since April 2017. He also is the CEO of DL Search Group based out of Fenton, Mich. He has a bachelor's degree in business administration and marketing from Baker College. He is also an assistant JV football coach at Linden High School since 2014.

Ashley Potvin-Fulford is the current head coach for the University of New England Women’s Rugby team. After four years of guiding the UNE Club Women's Rugby team to both 15’s and 7’s regional and national championship appearances, Potvin-Fulford was named as the head coach of the Nor'easters' 16th varsity sport, which began action in 2016-17. During the championship portion (fall) of the 2017-18 season, UNE's varsity program captured the inaugural National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) Tier 2 Cup title. As NIRA evolved in 2019-20, she led the squad to the NIRA Division III Championship Game. The Nor'easters made it back to the NIRA final in 2021-22 and again in the 2022-2023 season. Currently, Ashley also serves in several leadership capacities including acting as co-chair of the Athletics Community, Equity, and Diversity Committee, the advisor to the UNE Female Athlete Alliance, and as the Division III NIRA coaches' chair. Ashley is currently working towards her Maters in Social Work at UNE’s Portland campus.   

As a coach, Ashley is dedicated to a player centered-approach and holistic approach to coaching. She is an advocate for helping her student-athletes get the best possible experience in college athletics which includes touring abroad. In 2018, her squad traveled to Ireland, and this year’s squad is scheduled to head to England and Wales in March 2023.   

Ashley is a 2011 graduate of Norwich University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Education while competing on the varsity ice hockey and rugby teams. After graduation, Ashley made her way back to her hometown of Biddeford, ME, became a teacher and coach of soccer, softball, and ice hockey in the Biddeford School System. In 2012, while playing with Portland Women’s Rugby Club, Ashley also accepted a volunteer head coaching position as the University of New England Women's Rugby Club.           

Outside of the higher education landscape, Ashley serves as the executive director and founder of the organization A Running Passion in honor of her late husband, Coach Will Fulford, which helps provide scholarships, apparel, shoes, and opportunity to athletes grades 3-12 in southern Maine that participate in the sports of cross country and track and field. Ashley is also the founder and director of the Girls Got Game Sports Camp at UNE which offers non-sport specific training and a holistic approach to teaching athletic skills and healthy habits. Ashley currently resides in Biddeford and in her spare time enjoys running, hiking, reading, traveling, and spending time with her pets.

Michelle Reed has been involved in rugby since she stepped on the pitch in the spring of 98’ for the Eastern Illinois University women’s club team. In fall of 98’ the program became the first club in the country to elevate to varsity status. During her senior year, Michelle led her team as captain to the USA Rugby College Championship at Princeton University as the number 3 seed. After her playing career, she joined the coaching staff as the first female assistant coach for the program.   

After a 3-year stint, she moved on to the high school rugby scene where she helped with the Waubonsie girl’s rugby club for almost two years. Her full-time job outside of coaching high school rugby was in athletics at Northern Illinois University as Senior Academic Coordinator for Student-Athletes. There she developed the First Year Experience Class for student-athletes while mentoring students in academics and life skills. She left the athletic department to join the university police force after a shooting on campus. As a police officer, Michelle became a paramedic, was a victim’s advocate, and was on the Critical Incident Response Team.   

Even though she enjoyed her policing career rugby kept calling. It called her all the way to Connecticut to work with a former teammate and friend as an assistant coach building Quinnipiac University’s first NCAA D1 Women’s Program. At Quinnipiac, she took on a dual role and was hired as an Assistant Athletic Director for Academic Services for Student-Athletes.   

After four years, Michelle was hired at Sacred Heart University as the first head coach of the program. She worked with the university to transition the team from club to NCAA D1 in 2015. The program competes in the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) league. During her time at Sacred Heart University, she led the team to runner up at the NIRA Tier 2 championship in 2018 and to 7th in the country after qualifying and competing in the Rugby Collegiate 7’s Championship in Atlanta in May of 2022. She has had 29 All-NIRA Academic, 11 All-NIRA Team, and 3 Honorable Mention recipients while at SHU.   

In September of 2020 Michelle was elected the NIRA D1 Coach’s Chair where she collaborates with the other chairs and the commissioner on league events, issues, and promoting women’s rugby at the NCAA level.   

Through her varying careers and work on building different rugby programs, Michelle’s philosophy has always been “people first”. She believes this approach, no matter how slow it may take to build it, will cultivate a long lasting and successful team culture. It truly starts by knowing who you are, what you value, and making it visible every day.

Jake has been coaching referees since 2018, and refereeing for over a decade, including HS Boys & Girls State Finals, D1 Men league play, Qualifier 7s, NCR and D1A playoffs and 7s. He brings 20 years of playing experience across nearly all positions to his refereeing. He seeks to work with coaches and players for the most enjoyable game for players and fans.

Alex Goff has been around rugby his entire life. His earliest memories are of watching his older brothers play while his family was in England, and Alex himself played rugby at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School in Elstree, Hertfordshire, and then later the University of Rochester. 

He is a co-founder of the Budd Bay Rugby Club in Olympia, Washington, and in fact, scored that club’s first points—his one and only try for the team.

A journalist by trade Alex began writing about rugby in earnest in the mid-1990s and since then has been at the forefront of rugby journalism in the United States. In 2001 he started his own news outlet, and let worked for Rugby Magazine and United World Sports before going back on his own in 2014. That was when he formed Goff Rugby Report, which remains the chief news outlet for youth, high school, and collegiate rugby in the USA. 

Alex was the first person to rank college teams, which he did in 2004 and has done ever since, and the first to rank high school teams. He continues to champion the game and the players that make it special, and as he has done for over 20 years, does a bit of coaching on the side. 

Alex Goff’s work can be found at GoffRugbyReport.com and he is also active on social media with video interviews and commentary … and, of course, he continues to rank everything.

Nic Tyson started playing rugby his sophomore year of high school. He moved on to the University of Wisconsin and then the Wisconsin Rugby Club. The WRC won a national championship in Division 2 in 2013 and was runner-up in 2012 and 2015. 

Tyson was invited to play with the Midwest Select Side in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Based upon his play at the NASCs, he was included in the USA Eagle Player Pool for Rugby World Cup 2007. 

Tyson started his coaching career at Middleton High School in 2005. He then joined the University of Wisconsin coaching staff in 2008. The club placed 2nd in Division 2 Nationals in 2009 and was promoted to Division 1. Tyson took over as head coach of the Badgers in 2014. With Tyson as head coach, Wisconsin won Big Ten 15s, Big Ten 7s, and competed at the national level for both codes. They won the Plate Championship at the CRCs in both 2016 and 2017. 

In 2018, Tyson moved on to Lindenwood University as a full-time assistant coach. He specialized in defense and set pieces. While there, Lindenwood consistently ranked in the top-4 nationally in 15s. In 7s, Lindenwood won both the CRC and the D1A 7s championships in 2018 and 2019. 

Tyson also served as head analyst for the USA U20/U18 program at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center in 2018. 

In August 2020, Tyson moved back to Madison, WI and took over as head coach of the Wisconsin Rugby Club. The team participated in its first Division 1 season since 2009 winning games against Palmer, St Louis Bombers, and the Milwaukee Barbarians.

Joe Lippert is a native of Pittsville, Wisconsin, and has been involved with rugby for over eighteen years as a player, coach, referee, administrator and fan.  He led the Wisconsin Rugby Club to a Division Two National Championship in 2013 after a runner-up finishes the previous season.  In 2019, at the helm of Lindenwood University-Belleville, Lippert led the Lynx to a D1AA 7s National Title.  Several players from his LU-B teams have since been drafted into Major League Rugby (MLR) and gone on to professional careers. 

Along with Wisconsin and Lindenwood-Belleville, Joe has been a head coach of the Wisconsin Rugby Selects, Iowa 7s Selects, Palmer College of Chiropractic, and McKendree University.  He continues to play with the Bremer County Bucks (Waverly, IA) whenever possible and referees match around the Midwest.  Joe has lived in several foreign countries and played rugby internationally many times with the Southerners Sports Club (Bangkok, Thailand) and other touring teams. He still plays and referees when possible but loves his job as an assistant coach at Iowa Central CC.  And, his favorite rugby player is his wife and fellow Wisconsinite, Grace Hovde.  

Lippert is a proud Wisconsinite with a passion for mentoring young people and helping them make good decisions.  In his free time he enjoys hunting, reading, investing, world travel, supporting the Green Bay Packers, and helping around the family farm and woodlands.  He is also a part-time adjunct instructor of business at Iowa Central.

Eddie Abel is an Indiana native who has spent the last seventeen years coaching Indiana and Midwest-based teams at all levels. 

Eddie started coaching in 2004 when he founded Broad Ripple Park Youth Rugby. The program has produced one current Eagle (Bryce Campbell) and several other u20 and High School All-Americans. At the same time, Eddie helped revive the Indiana Select Side. Eddie took ten Rugby Indiana Select Side teams to the Challenge Cup over a four-year span, winning six titles and three runners-up. After leaving the Rugby Indiana program, he founded the Indy Speed all-star program. The team only competed for one summer but had a successful trip to the Rocky Mountain Challenge in Denver where its three teams finished a combined 11-1 and won two of the three age groups. After that Eddie helped found EIRA Midwest under Salty Thompson's EIRA program. Eddie spent five years running the Midwest for EIRA, winning several Rocky Mountain Challenge tournaments with the EIRA Midwest team, and serving as head coach and assistant coach for several EIRA national team tours. 

In 2021 Eddie left EIRA to restart the Midwest Thunderbirds program for u15-u19 players. The program will look to provide HP opportunities to all Midwest players as it runs camps, plays in domestic tournaments, and tours internationally. In 2021 Eddie was also named Interim Head Coach at his alma mater Indiana University where he led the program to a top 10 ranking and several high profiles wins including beating #20 Iona 55-14 on ESPN.

Mike LaMere is the Regional Manager of Sports Medicine for Prevea Health.  He has been a Licensed Athletic Trainer for 27 years working with multiple sports at the high school, college, and professional levels.  He has 26+ year experience working with rugby as a medical provider.  

He specializes in performance enhancement, concussion management, and biomechanical analysis.  He also specializes in medical coordination of large sporting events such as the Cellcom Marathon, PGA Championship, Boston Marathon and most recently the Ryder Cup.

Jessica Burda Leslie leads the Brand Communications team of the Wisconsin Badgers telling the stories of one of the country's leading NCAA Division I and Power 5 athletic programs. Jessica also works as a Coaching Educator for USA Rugby and World Rugby. 

She also played competitive rugby for 20+ years and helped lead the Wisconsin Women to a 2015 USA Rugby national championship and 2016 runner-up finish. She's been a coach and administrator, most recently coaching with Oregon (Wis.) High School Boys and serving as a USA Rugby and World Rugby coaching educator. 

She earned a 2019 Premiership Rugby Scholarship to train with professional teams in England. Through her professional expertise in social media, communications, and marketing and her love of rugby, she strives to help grow our sport at all levels.

David played rugby for 45 plus years, mostly in New Zealand. David was the San Diego Mustangs President as well as Director of Rugby for Torrey Pines. He also previously sat on SCYR’s Member Council, on both the U8-U12 and Boys High School Competition Sub-Committees.

Brian Gleason is the current vice-president of Wisconsin Youth Rugby, Inc. and previously served on the executive boards of the Wisconsin Rugby Football Union as the VP of Youth Development, and an At-Large officer of the Wisconsin Rugby Referee Society. Introduced to rugby in the spring of 1998 at UW-Whitewater, Brian went on to play 13 seasons with the Fox Cities Gargoyles Division III men’s club and is currently actively refereeing throughout Wisconsin.

A level 200 rugby coach for nearly a decade, Brian has coached flag rugby and tackle rugby at levels K-12th grade for many years and aided in the formation of a new flag, middle school, girl’s high school programs, as well as the rebranding of a high school boys program.

A secondary level special education teacher for the past +8 years and candidate for school administrator certification, Brian is familiar with the pedagogy and standards-driven curriculum that is prevalent in schools today. This knowledge aided in developing a 20 session summer school curriculum, that was successfully implemented in two different school districts and integrated rugby instruction into existing summer school phy. ed. courses. With the aid of Guy Hagen and MLR, Brian will be leading the effort to spread newly developed curriculum tools in Wisconsin. The course titled “P.E. Curriculum: Getting rugby into a school near you” will highlight lessons learned in the effort to grow rugby scholastically.

Good mental health is not just the absence of a mental health diagnosis, rather it refers to your overall psychological well-being. The way you feel about yourself and your ability to manage feelings and deal with difficulties. 

Amanda Huber is a licensed Mental Health and Substance Use therapist who has worked serving youth as young as 4 through later adulthood in both inpatient and outpatient treatment settings. Her goal is to help improve mental health awareness and provide practical ways to implement mental wellness in coaching. 

Amanda has also played competitive rugby for 12 years and helped to restart the Oconomowoc Senior Women’s club and has been the club president since 2018. 

She has also been an assistant coach alongside Katie McNeil since 2014. Coaching at both the collegiate and the high school level.  They have continued to implement a focus on mental wellness alongside rugby skills and knowledge with great success in their program.