ABOUT SHERRY

Sherry Stofko, MSN-Ed, EMS-RN, CEN

Sherry has lived, worked, and played in the Reno-Tahoe area since arriving as a traveling nurse in 2002. She has wide-ranging nursing experience and has practiced in twenty different hospitals across the United States. Her passions in healthcare are emergency/pre-hospital medicine, resiliency, and clinical education. She is board-certified in four nursing specialties and holds a master’s degree in education. Sherry spent more than a decade as a hospital-based educator. Sherry is proud that what started as Capricorn Healthcare Consultants, LLC, with one contract in 2017, has grown into a celebrated and successful regional education and consulting company, now known as Upskill Healthcare Education.

Sherry's recent awards:

Lifetime Leadership Award nomination 2024
Nevada Nurses Association

“50 Under 50”

2019, 2020, 2024
Nevada Nurses Association

Healthcare Hero, Healthcare Educator of 2020

Nevada Business Magazine

Nurse Educator of the Year 2020
Northern Nevada Nurses of Achievement

Sherry is ICISF-trained as a member of the Tahoe Sierra Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team, and a founding member and the President of the High Sierra Nurses in Professional Development.

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Meet the Team

Adjunct Instructor

Pre-Hospital Subject Matter Expert

JENNIFER DRENNAN, RN

Jen has over 20 years of experience as a critical care nurse, with most of her nursing career spent working in Pediatrics, ER and EMS as a flight nurse. Jen has also spent a considerable portion of her career in education—specifically teaching EMT, PALS, BLS and ACLS as an AHA instructor and believes humor and humility are good for the soul and great facilitators to learning.

Jen is the mother of a special needs child which consistently places Jen on the other side of the healthcare spectrum and as such, has stoked a passion for teaching healthcare providers how to have more confidence when providing care to those populations of patients.

Adjunct Instructor

Emergency Medicine and Ski Clinic Subject Matter Expert

TAMI BURNS, RN, AAORN, CEN

Tami has spent 31 years aggressively keeping humans alive from the Sierra Nevadas to Bolivia and Peru, because apparently she has commitment issues with just ONE mountain range. This 2014 Nurse of the Year does emergency medicine, wilderness improvisation, and mental health advocacy like she's trying to save humanity! When not saving lives, she attacks outdoor activities like– mountain biking, backpacking, camping and ALL the skiing styles – then pretends yoga and meditation make her zen (spoiler: they don't). She's obsessed with sunflowers and black labs for reasons that probably make sense to her. Married to a wildland firefighter/ski patroller because apparently they're competing for who can have the most stressful job, raising two kids who think everyone's parents are adrenaline junkies. Warning: she'll heal your trauma, roast you gently, then absolutely annihilate you on any trail while humming Joni Mitchell!

Adjunct Instructor

Emergency Department and

Ski Clinic Subject Matter Expert

SHAWN WATSON, RN

Shawn has been an RN for nearly 30 years. His experience has been in critical care and emergency care for most of his career. For ten years, Shawn was a well-respected clinic manager for on on-hill emergency medical center at Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe. Shawn is currently a house supervisor at a 200 bed hospital.

Adjunct Instructor

Maternal-Newborn Subject Matter Expert

TAMMY MELROSE, RN-C,OB

Tammy landed in Reno/Tahoe as a traveling nurse in 1995 from Saskatchewan and immediately went rogue – that "assignment" at Tahoe Forest Hospital became a 30-year takeover of Labor and Delivery, Postpartum, and the Nursery. Armed with her 1993 Canadian Nursing degree and absolutely no chill, she's been the unofficial mayor of chaos ever since.

Between catching babies and wielding her Inpatient Obstetric Nursing Certification like a weapon, she channels her Fire Captain Dad's lifesaving spirit by fostering kittens that need saving. Her idea of vacation? Solo Yellowstone trips where she stalks wildlife for 18 hours, watching animals do absolutely nothing – and loving every second.

She's got her Perinatal Bereavement Coordinator Certificate, which means she can handle life's toughest moments with grace, then immediately show you 200 photos of that grizzly bear who totally posed for her. Three decades in Reno/Tahoe has only made her more spectacularly herself.

Adjunct Instructor

Pre-hospital Subject Matter Expert

KEVIN GREEN EMT-P

Kevin Green has been in Emergency Medical Services profession for over three decades and in the fire service for 27 years. He has worked as EMT, Paramedic, and Flight Paramedic. He worked as a FF/PM, Fire Apparatus Operator, and Captain in the Fire Service. He has been an instructor in ACLS, BLS, ITLS, and PALS for over 25 years.

Kevin is a Training Center Faculty in all disciplines and an ITLS State Board Member. He has a B.S. from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is passionate about education, and an ambassador for the profession. Kevin draws insights from real life scenarios and practical knowledge and passes that knowledge to his students.