Our paths converged in 2019.
We met teaching interpretive training while both working in national parks. We dove into training and, over the coming years, supported over 500 interpreters through 25 courses and workshops on Audience Centered Experiences (ACE), the leading interpretive approach of the National Park Service.
While training rangers across the agency and supervising teams in parks, we asked ourselves big questions about interpretive theory and practice. In a constant feedback loop between classroom training and application in parks, we interrogated the evolving purpose of interpretation and how to best equip, coach, and support interpreters in doing extraordinary work.
While informed by our park service foundations, our learnings now chart a path distinct from and wider than national parks. In 2025, we created InterpWorks, LLC to continue innovating, to bridge theory and practice, and to explore training within the larger field of interpretation.
By radically reimagining the roles of the resource, interpreter, and audience, we teach interpretation that fosters social connection and builds a better world.
Our Experience
Cassie Anderson
Co-Founder
Cassie loves helping people connect with each other. As the interpretive programs manager at the National Gallery of Art, she focuses on collective interpretation, wellbeing, and social connection.
Prior, she helped develop History and Hope for Climate Action: an Interpretive Toolkit, numerous iterations of the park service’s Audience Centered Experience (ACE) curriculum, and she helped create the 32-hour park service course “Working with Indigenous Knowledges When Interpreting Land, Water, and Wildlife.”
In parks, Cassie worked with Black and white descendant families and park staff at Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial to update key messages, create a junior ranger book, and support the first-ever reunion of descendant families. As the site manager of Muir Woods National Monument, Cassie co-created the viral History Under Construction exhibit. Prior parks include Klondike Gold Rush NHP, Denali NP&P, and Fort Vancouver NHS.
Cassie sings her heart out in a community choir, makes all her friends do art projects, and still uses a paper calendar. Her DnD character is adorable, she ranks restaurants based on their french toast, and she loves sending handmade cards to family and friends. From the University of Washington, Cassie holds B.A.s in anthropology (gender studies, diversity) and political science (human rights).
Jacob Dinkelaker
Co-Founder
Jacob thinks the coolest thing a person can learn when visiting a cultural site or museum is something about themselves or the people they are with. A 15-year veteran of the National Park Service (NPS), he is currently the interpretation, education, and volunteers program manager at The White House and President’s Park.
With the NPS, Jacob has over 10 years of experience in dialogic interpretation. He has developed programming for the public, staff dialogues around relevancy, diversity, and inclusion, and national train-the-trainer Audience Centered Experiences (ACE) courses, curricula, teaching workbooks, and contributed to an audience-centered junior ranger book. Before the White House, Jacob has also worked at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Eisenhower National Historic Site, and the Natchez Trace Parkway. At the Natchez Trace, he was instrumental in starting the conversation and dialogue with descendants of the enslaved people from Mount Locust Plantation, helping to identify an enslaved person’s burial location in a local church cemetery.
A resident of Washington, DC, Jacob lives in the historic Shaw neighborhood, delights in riding public transportation around his adopted home city, and being vulnerable on stage by creating and playing with others doing improv comedy. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jacob loves Skyline Chili and his beloved hometown Cincinnati Bengals. He holds a bachelor’s degree in archaeology and history from the College of Wooster and a master’s in applied history from George Mason University.