CASET Bios
Gifford Asimos currently serves as a teacher and School-to-Career Coordinator at Helix Charter High School in San Diego, teaching AP Economics, Economics and Virtual Enterprise. Additionally, Giff currently serves as an Adjunct Economics Professor at Cuyamaca Junior College. He serves on the Economics Education Foundation of San Diego Board of Directors as a Teacher Representative and Treasurer. He was named Helix Charter High School Teacher of the Year in 2003-2004 and recently won the Key to Change Publishing Pathways to Excellence Award. Giff completed his undergraduate studies in Business Economics at Colorado College. He received his Business Education teaching credential from the University of Colorado at Denver and his M.B.A. from National University.
Joanne Benjamin taught a variety of courses and received many teaching awards during her 25-year career at Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California. She also was Mayor and Council member for the Town of Los Gatos for 16 years. She has also worked as a content developer for online AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics courses, an economics item writer for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and as a consultant to a number of organizations for economic curriculum and lesson plans. In addition to teaching, she has served on the Advisory Boards for the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She is a past president of CASET (California Association of School Economics Teachers). Joanne received multiple bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a secondary school teaching credential from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dawn Cushing is a middle school teacher at Rancho Cucamonga Middle School, and Treasurer for CASET.
Gregory Fisher, a social studies teacher for the last 18 years, currently teaches at the California Academy of Math and Science (located in Carson, California) for the Long Beach Unified School District. He has been committed to economic education in California as demonstrated by being a CASET Board member, a former GSE Economics reader, a NASDAQ Award Semi-Finalist, a Capital Markets Contest winner, and a previous presenter at CASET conferences. He lives in south Orange County.
Kim Gibbs
Brian Held teaches AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, and World History at Loyola High School of Los Angeles. He also serves as the Varsity Soccer Assistant Coach. Brian served as an AP Grader in Economics in 2005 and 2006. He received his Masters in Economics & Global Economics from California State University, Los Angeles. Brian received his Masters in Education, Instruction Technology from Grand Canyon University and his B.A. from Georgetown University.
Roland Lewin is in his 20th year teaching economics and math. The last fourteen have been at Dos Pueblos High School in the Santa Barbara High School District. Dos Pueblos won the 2006 Los Angeles Capital Markets Contest. Roland has also coached Economics Challenge teams that have won the So. Cal championship 7 years in a row; won the California State championship 5 out of last 6 years; and placed 2nd in the nation in 2002. Roland has been a CASET board member since 2001, and was a 1999 co-winner of the $5,000 Excellence in Economics Education Award from the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE).
Brian Shank teaches economics at Ponderosa High School in Shingle Springs, just east of Sacramento. He graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1974 and has been teaching for 27 years, one of which was overseas in the nation of Andorra. Brian is currently Ponderosa’s Social Studies Dept. chair and the Economics coordinator for his district. He has twice won the State Championship in the David Ricardo Division of the Goldman Sachs Federal Reserve Economics Challenge and has twice been Western Regional runner-up. He was selected for the National Council on Economic Education’s Foreign Study Tour to Ukraine and Lithuania where he observed and consulted with educators in the field of Economic Education in those former Soviet Republics.
Sharon Turner is a retired teacher and past president of CASET.
Maury Zapata teaches economics at Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, CA. He was an Advanced Placement reader for the College Board in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2003 and 2004. In 2004, his David Ricardo Econ Challenge teams won the southern California and State competitions. In 2005, his team won the Western Regional Econ Challenge and placed 4th in the national competition in New York City. He has been a California Association of School Economics Teachers (CASET) board member since 2005, assisting in organizing the annual CASET - Economics in Education conference. Maury serves as an Assistant Coach for the Lincoln High Academic Decathlon team. Maury received his BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MA in Economics from the California State University, Los Angeles.
Petar Zegura has been a teacher at Moreau Catholic High School since 1973. He has implemented an interdisciplinary/cross-curricular emphasis on economic education, economic concepts, and an economic way of thinking. Petar has been an advocate for economic education with local chambers of commerce and Rotary clubs. He has presented at economic education workshops for the Center for Economic Education at California State University, East Bay. Mr. Zegura has worked to increase the networking among San Francisco Bay area economics teachers and to provide access to materials, strategies, and professional development opportunities, particularly for new teachers of economics. He has field-tested new materials for the NCEE as well as participated in their International Program. Petar has provided advice and counsel to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on the development of new publications, and was a recipient of the 2006 Adam's Apple Award.
