The TEAM
Empathy Mentors
Sarah Rose
Empathy Mentor
Sarah Rose is an artist, a homemaker, a mystic, & an entrepreneur. She believes in the power of empathy to elevate our relationships & our lives to the highest degree. She loves working with individuals on a 1:1 basis, hearing their stories & reflecting back at them their innate qualities of tenderness & care, stirring to life the deeply layered aspects of the soul & innermost essence. She believes empathy is an innate human quality that, with devotion & relational support, anyone can develop more of, for the heart in its true form is a wellspring of love whose waters run eternal.
Yana Goncharenko
Empathy Mentor
Yana grew up in Russia in the North Caucasus region where Russian Christian population mixed with Muslim communities. The childhood that Yana went through, dysfunctional family relationships, social anxiety, abusive relationships, turned Yana to spiritual path at 29 years old when she realized that she was in a state of a deep depression. Since then Yana experienced, learned and is still practicing different healing modalities that help her to move through life and allow her to be in service others and their health. Yana uses inner child healing, shadow work, somatic therapy and embodiment practices (yoga, TRE technique, breath work) to make you aware and let go of unprocessed trauma on all levels of your being on top of providing an example of femininity.
Shelly Duryea
Empathy Mentor
Shelly is a mother to her two beautiful children Aubrey and Owen, whom she loves boundlessly. Shelly is strong in her faith with God, though she happily works with those who are on their own path. She is a great example of femininity and brings her passion for caretaking and nurturing to those who didn't get enough of it in their past. Shelly excels at being present for those who work with her as a feminine role model.
Ashley Dotson
Empathy Mentor
Ashley is one of the first clients to go through the Pass the Torch 'Elevated Service' program where she has gone down the hard road of achieving optimal health while integrating our service into her and her family's life. She is a mother to three children and is a devout follower of Jesus Christ. Ashley is a Certified Massage Therapist and has been working 1:1 with the health of her clients for several years prior to becoming a full-time mother. She now does something similar here at Pass the Torch as an Empathy Mentor to those who really need someone there for them in their lives as a positive feminine role model.
Competency Mentors
Ryan Bludau
Competency Mentor
Ryan is a father before he is a SERE trainer and General Contractor. Ryan for many years has led a movement called the 'Reclaim Project' locally in Spokane, WA where he provides mentorship to gentleman seeking to be strong and competent men. Ryan will also bring some of these men onto the jobsite with his contracting work to further teach competency. He has also fathered three foster children, three of his own biologically, and two step-sons. He is very passionate about providing the role model that many are without that he provides with those he supports now in his family and community.
Andrew Aponick
Competency Mentor
Andrew Aponick is an Applied Physiologist, Psychospiritual Mentor, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Health and Fitness Instructor and is currently studying to be a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach. On top of that, Andrew is a tree-climbing arborist! Andrew has been working with his clients to achieve their health and fitness goals for over 20 years. Andrew has chosen to live in service to others as he is a recovering addict who has overcome great adversity throughout his life. In addition to training, mentoring and coaching, he also ran a nonprofit called Solutions Institute, dealing predominantly in disaster relief, emergency first response, and humanitarian aide. While Andrew firmly believes in living in service to others, he also understands the importance of self-knowledge, self-care, self-work, and ultimately, self-love. Andrew believes that without a solid spiritual foundation, much of what we do is surface level and is simply the re-arrangement of the psyche. In other words, Andrew approaches healing and self-work from a top-down perspective (psychological), bottom up (bodily/somatic) and inside out (spiritual) perspective.
Management Team
Asa Santiago
Founder, Competency Mentor
Asa has been on a long road to healing not only emotional trauma, but systemic disease, where both contributed to his dysfunctional identity. Asa struggled with his masculinity for most of his life, and it wasn't until 2021 that when he balanced his minerals through fasting that it all changed. After learning competency from Northwest Survival School, he theorized that the fast simply met his current state of competency and adjusted the minerals accordingly to reach a balance that affected his hormones. Asa has since developed a Systems Science process with his client base via Gut Goals LLC. The "Empathy Construct' and the 'Competency Construct' utilized with the Pass the Torch process to help people find who they really are is a very similar model; this is done by providing positive examples of competency (masculinity), and femininity (empathy) that influence those seeking support to make better health choices that can lead to changing their lives in a profound way. Asa has been guiding the health of his clients for over 5 years through Gut Goals LLC, and has utilized his obsessive learning ability from ADHD to read thousands of scientific studies that are the core of his self-education. Asa has consulted medical physicians, therapists, natural doctors, business professionals, small and large businesses, and so on...Asa is a Certified Functional Nutritionist from Functional Nutrition Alliance, and a Certified WFR and Survival Guide from Northwest Survival School.