Who We Are

Tammy is a Master’s Level special education teacher who has been in the educational field since 2004; she worked in Yuma, AZ until 2013 as a special education teacher at a local high school after moving there from Washington state, her home state. Upon moving to Phoenix in 2013, she transitioned out of public education and moved into private education in 2015 and created Smart Cactus Educational Services and Consulting LLC in 2017 where she supported families in their home education journey. She enjoys working with learners one on one to support their success, but in the past several years, she was expanded her skills to consulting with families and educational businesses to support learners indirectly.

In addition to teaching, Tammy enjoys coaching soccer and basketball for the Westside Roadrunners Special Olympics delegation in her community. Tammy is married to Curtis, and together they stay busy raising their young son.

Cindy is a Certified Teacher in Arizona and taught 3rd and 4th grade for 9 years in the Litchfield Elementary School District. Cindy started her tutoring business “A Plus Academics, LLC” in 2016 and became an Arizona ESA Vendor in early 2022. Cindy teaches reading, math, and grammar for grades 3rd through 5th and her mission is to partner directly with parents to provide the best education for the unique needs of their individual student. She is experienced working with public school curriculum but her passion is helping families to discover creative learning solutions that meet the needs of their family.

​Cindy holds a Bachelor of Science degree.  Prior to teaching, Cindy was with Mutual of Omaha for 11 years. While there, she served in Health Claims, Quality Control and 8 years as a Human Resources Consultant. She also worked for 4 years helping to run a family resort in Colorado.

​Cindy is married to her high school sweetheart, Chris and is “mom” to Matthew, Blaine and Holly.  The kids are all out of the house now so when not spending time with the family she enjoys hiking, practicing yoga, golfing, pickleball, reading and working puzzles.  She is active as a “Mentor Mom” in MOPS and Desert Springs Community Church.

Chris retired from an 18 year career in Sales, Sales Management and Global Sales Effectiveness with Ritchie Bros, a global equipment sales and marketing company with multiple selling platforms.  There he worked on sales growth strategies, sales execution and sales training. Prior Ritchie Bros, he spent 6 years in the Equipment Finance industry with Citigroup and TCF Bank. He also has experience in the Office Products and Broadcasting industries as well as Commercial Banking. Chris holds a BBA in Finance.

​Chris is passionate about coaching, mentoring and education.  He would like to spend the rest of his career helping people to be very successfully self-employed and helping Parents to provide the best possible education for their children.  His favorite quote is “You can get anything you want in life, if you just help enough people get what they want” by Zig Ziglar.

​Chris is married to his high school sweetheart, Cindy and is “dad” to three great kids.  Chris enjoys, golf, pickleball, hiking, running, reading and working through Cindy’s “honey do” list.  He is active at Desert Springs Community Church.

Johnathan has been building computers since the age of 13. With a curiosity for solving puzzles, technology has always been a strong passion of his. Professionally, he has been in the sales and technology industry for over 16 years. His sales experience also included coaching and developing nationally ranked sales teams with Verizon and ATT. During that time, Johnathan also studied Software Systems Engineering at Colorado Technical University.

Johnathan has always had an interest in the education space. While at Dell Technologies, he worked with the K-12 Schools E-rate program to bring networking infrastructure to schools with low income. This included building and architecting networking systems for entire districts.

​In his personal life, Johnathan and his wife Sarah are raising two beautiful and smart young women. He also has 3 crazy dogs and too many fish to count.  Johnathan likes to spend his time building computers, fishing, woodworking, working on his Jeep, and Jiu Jitsu.