What is Roadmonkey?

Paul von Zielbauer launched Roadmonkey in 2008 to give motivated people the chance to dive deep into a foreign culture and work hard for people in need. From 1999 through 2009, he was a staff correspondent for The New York Times, covering state government, private security firms, the military justice system and the war in Iraq. He has traveled in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America by train, boat, motorcycle, tram, bicycle, chicken bus and occasionally by car. He completed a Fulbright Scholarship for Young Journalists in 1997 while living in Berlin.

In 2005, The Times nominated Paul’s investigative series on privatized prison healthcare for a Pulitzer Prize. Paul graduated with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He received a B.A. from Iowa State University. He speaks German, Spanish and Vietnamese. He was born & raised in Aurora, Illinois.

Heather Rees is Roadmonkey's chief operations officer. For more than a decade, she created and ran programs that improved communities in New York City, Guatemala, Afghanistan and Rwanda. In 2002, she co-founded a women’s health organization on the University of North Carolina campus. In 2005, Heather ran community-rebuilding projects in post-hurricane Guatemala. In 2008, she founded the NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund. She's been a consultant to the Fair Trade Foundation, Artisans United for the Development of Atitlán (Guatemala), and Business Council for Peace. Heather earned a Masters of Science in Gender, Development, and Globalization from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy/Political Science from UNC.

Heather, a native Texan, is a certified yoga instructor, loves to run, bike, hike, kayak and ski in the backcountry near her Colorado home.  

Alexis Margolin is Roadmonkey's director of volunteer projects & nonprofit partnerships. When she's not developing kickass volunteer projects for Roadmonkey expeditions, Lex is a marketing manager at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, connecting people with jobs and vice-versa. Before Manhattan, there was Denver, where Lex created an after-school dance program for AmeriCorps, and the Children's Museum of Denver where she managed school and family membership programs. When she's not managing stuff and solving Roadmonkey's tech problems caused by idiotic Facebook engineers, she climbs rocks (indoor & outdoor), surfs Long Island waves, and snowboards wherever there's powder. Her secret talent is pickin' her banjo. Lex earned her Masters in Public Administration from NYU's Wagner School of Public Service and a Bachelor of Arts in Native American Studies from Tufts University.

Stef Levner is a Roadmonkey expedition leader emeritus and an informal advisor/strategist. She's closing in on an MBA at Cornell University, avoiding death by cubicle after 5 years in corporate public relations. As a college student, Stef helped research, write and edit Let’s Go travel guides for Barcelona, Peru and Indonesia.

Stef graduated in 2004 with honors from Harvard University, with a focus in International Relations. She was captain of the Radcliffe rowing team in 2004, a 2003 NCAA champion and a 2nd team All American. She grew up outside Washington, D.C. but we heard a rumor she's moving to San Francisco to pull off some ridic post-MBA ideas.