Our Program
We provide education and expert insight to help you accelerate into the next phase of your career.


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How to Apply
Share more about yourself and engage with our team to explore whether we’re the right resource for you, or learn more in our Admissions Q&A Video.
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Public Classes & Events
Begin your journey with BreakLine with our free virtual classes and events.



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Communities We Serve
BreakLine works with outstanding women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans.
How it Works
Get access to pre-screened candidates from all walks of life who are ready to join your team within weeks.
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Partner with Us
Connect with our team to access our vetted pool of exceptional candidates.

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Partner Education
Discover the best practices we use to build top-performing teams.
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Our Partners
We team up with 200+ companies to help them fill their highest-priority roles.
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Our Team Reflects 
the Communities 
We Serve

Join Our Team

Our Team Reflects 
the Communities 
We Serve

Our Team Reflects the Communities 
We Serve

About Us

BreakLine is a social venture that helps outstanding women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans accelerate into their next careers.

You can learn more about our origin story and values, and meet the team below.

Featured In

Our Founding Story

Founder & CEO, Bethany Coates, shares the origin story of BreakLine Education - a company hyper-focused on helping high-performing women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans pivot into top companies.

Our Values

We are resilient 
problem solvers.

We are resilient problem solvers.

We are creating a new form of education and access. 

We are honest.

We understand honesty is proactive. 

We share energy.

We are bold and courageous. We hold space for sensitive conversations.

We support our tribe.

We are loyal to one another, to our organization, community, and mission.

We believe margin 
delivers mission.

We believe margin delivers mission.

We are accountable for measurable outcomes, period.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence is a habit, not an act.
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Casey Deeds

Operations

Casey joined BreakLine shortly after graduating from Stanford University where she majored in Product Design. She competed as a striker on the Stanford Varsity Field Hockey team all four years, claiming a conference champion title her senior season. While at Stanford, Casey worked for Stanford Academic Computing Services as a Lead Tech and managed a team of students responsible for campus technical support. She’s the proud daughter of a former Naval Aviator.

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Ann Ernst

Operations

Ann joins the BreakLine team from a background in mechanical design and reliability engineering at Northrop Grumman. She comes to BreakLine motivated to make an impact on diversity and representation in the tech industry. She has previous experience chairing the Pathways Professional Development committee at NGC and is highly passionate about resource accessibility and community-driven career development. Ann graduated from Loyola University Maryland with a BS in Mechanical & Materials Engineering. She was also a Captain on the varsity women’s volleyball team and led them to their first conference appearance. She loves staying active, creating art, traveling, and giving back to her communities.

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Sergio Padilla

Admissions

Sergio is a United States Air Force veteran and BreakLine alum. He served as a Personnel Officer for 7 years, including tours to Afghanistan & Honduras. People Operations is his passion, and he has since led recruiting & HR teams in education, retail, and hospitality. He is excited to further BreakLine’s efforts in connecting high performing veterans, women, and people of color to meaningful careers in tech. Sergio was born and raised in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico and now lives in Alaska where he & his wife, Courtney, who is active duty in the Air Force, take full advantage of the great outdoors.

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Rachel Mitchell

Talent Recruiting

Rachel joins the BreakLine team with a passion to serve this community well! As a military spouse, she lived in Europe for 5 years and visited over 30 countries. Her work experience centers around customer service (mostly in retail banking). Rachel holds a B.A. in Business/Economics from Wheaton College and an MBA from Webster University. Rachel enjoys being active, in her free time she loves doing spin classes, skiing when she’s close to the mountains, and running with her dog Bella. She is happily married to a former Army Ranger and together they have the most beautiful daughter, Liberty Kay

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Alexandra Downey

Customer Success

Alexandra joins BreakLine with a diverse background, including working at startups, the UN, on Wall Street, and for social enterprises. The variety of her experiences lends itself to her curiosity and inquisitiveness about people and their histories. Alexandra is passionate about telling the incredible stories of the BreakLine community and the many possibilities they inspire, as well as connecting BreakLine to even more extraordinary human beings and partners. She earned an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business and a BA in English and History from Loyola College in Baltimore.

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Diane Chan

Partnerships

As a first generation Asian American, Diane is very passionate about diversity & inclusion. Before joining BreakLine, Diane served the American public in various roles in the federal government. She founded employee resource groups promoting DEI and was the Chief Communications Officer for the Interagency Veterans Advisory Council, which served 70+ veteran groups across the federal government. Diane strongly believes in creating opportunities for others to grow and succeed. Diane earned her BA in Psychology & Communications and MS in Communications Management from Simmons University. Diane is a proud sister of an Army vet.

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Natalia Peddycoart

Customer Success

Natalia joins Team BreakLine with experience working in nonprofits, local government, and higher education. Her most recent work at San Diego State University focused on career development for professionals ranging in experience level. Natalia is driven by BreakLine’s belief that excellence is transferable and that companies should reflect our diverse society. She is a first-generation college student and she holds an MS in Social Work (Administration and Policy) from UT Austin and a BA in Psychology from the University of San Diego. She lives in San Diego with her husband and dog where she enjoys camping, traveling, and DIY projects.

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Andrew Blevins

Talent Recruiting

Andrew comes to BreakLine after having worked with us as a partner in many of his previous companies. He has built, led, and scaled recruiting functions for multiple high-growth startups and was fortunate enough to enjoy multiple IPO journeys in his career. Outside of work, Andrew considers himself a fitness junkie; but also enjoys pursuits of the mind with his friends, such as board games, trivia, and the card game Bridge.

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Mack Gladney

Customer Success

Mack joined BreakLine after 4 years in the web hosting industry. During that time she managed a book of business totaling over $11M in ARR while partnering with a portfolio of strategic customers and identifying tactics, strategies, and best practices needed to achieve needs and goals. Motivated by the drive to help create major shifts in generational wealth, she uses her super-power, communications, to continually facilitate and champion the success of BreakLiners in top-tier tech roles.

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David Garcia

Admissions

David served in the United States Army for 4.5 years in aerial recon and intelligence with 2 combat deployments in Iraq. His passions and sights are set on constantly improving the experience of workforce development by investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. David’s experiences and passions are in military veteran career coaching and advocacy, technical recruitment, and program management in educational spaces. When he isn’t in the office, he’s often spending time with his family, following combat sports, investing time in multiple avenues of nerdery, or wondering what his next meal is going to be.

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Hunter Jennings

Engineering

Hunter joins BreakLine from Elegant Seagulls, a leading creative agency in Marquette, Michigan, where he served as a senior front-end web developer. At Elegant Seagulls, his focus revolved around creating custom, interactive, and high-end React and Next.js websites for renowned clients like Audible. Prior to his time at Elegant Seagulls, Hunter worked as a front-end developer at Guidehouse (formerly PwC Public Sector) in Washington, DC. He was an integral part of a team that developed Angular-based web applications for esteemed organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense and FEMA.

Hunter earned his B.S. in Business Marketing from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017. His passion for design and product drove him to self-teach and pursue a career in web application development in 2018. When he’s not immersed in code, Hunter resides in Richmond, VA, with his partner, Katy, and their beloved dog, Buoy. During his free time, he enjoys playing disc golf, staying active by lifting weights, and exploring the outdoors.

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Dan Arpoika

Engineering

Dan joins BreakLine from Elegant Seagulls, where he was the lead backend developer. His primary responsibility was to work with clients to design, build, and maintain a future proofed technical solution that aligned with their business requirements. One of those projects includes the current BreakLine web application. Greatly inspired by BreakLine’s mission, he is eager to bring his experience to the team and improve the existing technical infrastructure to enable the team to work more efficiently and create even more opportunities for others.

Dan graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Northern Michigan University. In his free time, he enjoys off-roading and working on vehicles. Dan currently lives in Clarkston, MI with his fiancé, Matteson, and both enjoy the outdoors.

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Zayn Knaub

Customer Success

Zayn joins BreakLine from MuleSoft, where he was a top-performing Senior Principal Customer Success Manager. He was responsible for partnering with MuleSoft’s strategic, high-tech customers in order to help them accomplish their digital transformation objectives. Zayn is also an alum from one of BreakLine’s first-ever programs. Prior to attending BreakLine, he was an active duty Intelligence Weapons Officer in the US Air Force. Zayn received his BS from the Air Force Academy in Geospatial Sciences and his MA in Diplomacy – International Terrorism from Norwich University.

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Shari Schussel

Customer Success

Shari joins Team BreakLine after 15 years in educational counseling and program development both in public and startup spaces. She is passionate about supporting the BreakLine community to tear down barriers that have prevented top performers from making an impact in tech. She was the first in her family to attend college and earned her Masters in Educational Counseling and BA in psychology at Azusa Pacific University. Shari and her family love outdoor adventures. She is also a proud sister of an AirForce vet.

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Candice Pounders

Talent Recruiting

Candice is the Talent Match Maker that challenges Top Talent to find their career dreams. The majority of her career has been spent setting up new engineering business ventures for major aerospace and defense giants. She graduated from the University of Georgia (GO DAWGS) with a Marketing degree and is a few classes short of her Master’s Degree in Data Analytics from LSUS. She is thrilled to be working in a startup environment and learning about all the innovative work that is being done across the globe. In her spare time, she loves spending time with family and friends.

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Molly McFadden

Customer Success

Molly joined Team BreakLine after three years in Trust and Safety at Meta, where she worked on the U.S.-based Data Policy Investigations team and Business Integrity Escalations team in Dublin, Ireland. Before working for Meta, Molly served for four years in the Army as a Military Intelligence officer stationed in Germany. Molly graduated from Harvard in 2015, with a degree in History and Religion. She’s a passionate advocate for professional and educational accessibility and in her free time she enjoys reading, running, and finding cheap flights to exciting destinations.

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Natalie Reynolds

Customer Success

Natalie joins Team BreakLine with the hope that she’ll be able to impact lives in the way that BreakLine impacted her own. Before joining the team, she worked in the fitness industry and in IT recruiting. She’s passionate about the opportunity to make a positive impact on DEI in the tech industry and helping individuals from underrepresented communities achieve their career goals.

Natalie graduated with a B.S. in Communication Studies from Texas Christian University where she also enjoyed cheering on the Frogs as a member of the dance team. Outside of work, Natalie is passionate about fitness, exploring outdoors, and finding the best restaurants in the area (she’s a huge foodie). Natalie currently lives in Denver with her husband, an Air Force veteran and proud BreakLine alum, and their three fur-babies, Duke, Dutch, and Teddy.

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Olivia Hahn

Customer Success

Olivia joins the BreakLine team after graduating from Boston College with a degree in Communications and a Minor in Journalism. She competed for 4 years on the Varsity Field Hockey team and was awarded All-ACC Academic Honors. While at Boston College, Olivia was a member of SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee), Team Impact, and was a columnist for The Heights (Boston College Student Newspaper). In her free time, she loves to cook, paint, and coach!

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Lauren Faul

Education

Lauren joins the BreakLine team after having worked largely in the Department of Defense arena for more than a decade. Covering ground on Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, non-profit sector, and as a government contractor, she consistently acted as a liaison between various and multiple entities to develop engagement plans that created partnerships and preserve missions. Lauren is a certified Life Coach and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Texas A&M University. She is a proud military brat and grateful wife of a BreakLine alum and Marine attack pilot.

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Bethany Coates

CEO & Founder

Before founding BreakLine, Bethany was an Assistant Dean at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she led social impact education. Earlier in her career, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Co, a leading management consulting firm. She earned her BA from Princeton and her MBA from Stanford. She has served on the advisory boards of a number of nonprofits and social ventures, including Brilliant.org, PROMOTE, and Samaschool. In 2018, she was honored to receive the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service on behalf of the BreakLine team.

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Craig Holbert

Talent Recruiting

Craig joins BreakLine having spent the majority of his career in Talent Acquisition positions supporting the Aerospace, Defense, and Intelligence sectors with industry-leading contractors including Lockheed Martin and Leidos. He is excited to extend that background with the Talent Recruiting team in order to help make dreams come true for future participants in the BreakLine community. Craig received his MBA from Binghamton University, and his bachelor’s degree in Communications from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. He enjoys spending time with his daughter, Tess, and outdoor activities including running and hiking when the Northeast weather permits.

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Bailey Mirador

Talent Recruiting

Bailey joins BreakLine with a background in technical recruiting and a focus on promoting DEI practices across all areas of talent acquisition. Having worked on hiring teams at early-stage start-ups and large public companies, Bailey has experience recruiting on niche and hard-to-fill roles while maintaining a positive candidate experience. Bailey’s passion for helping people find their dream job drew him to BreakLine and he is energized to work with the communities we support. Outside of work Bailey is an avid sports fan and hones his skills in the kitchen with new recipes every week.

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Caroline Slater

Customer Success

Caroline was a scholar athlete at Stanford University, majoring in Science, Technology, and Society. She captained the Varsity Women’s Field Hockey team to the program’s first ever conference championship in her senior year. While at Stanford, Caroline served as the Director of Technology and Communications for Stanford’s pre-professional club, Stanford Marketing. She is also the proud sister of an Army veteran.

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Halle Gill

Customer Success

Halle joins the BreakLine team from a Program Management role at an international development organization called Population Services International. During her time at PSI, Halle worked to support a Strategy & Insights team along with a Health Systems Strengthening team through streamlining partnerships, financial management, stakeholder engagement, and outcome achievement. Halle additionally played D1 field hockey at Georgetown University, where she got to help create a Mental Health support coalition for student-athletes. She recently completed her advanced degree at Georgetown in health policy, social impact, and advocacy. Halle has a passion for connection and empowerment, loves to travel, and is an avid runner, biker, and hiker.

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Karina Roger

Customer Success

Karina joins the BreakLine team with a background in coaching, mentoring, and health. She is passionate about helping others achieve and succeed in their ultimate goals. She is very motivated by what BreakLine has to offer to those in underrepresented communities and is committed to helping BreakLiners transition into the tech sector. Prior to BreakLine, Karina worked as a health coach, guiding users to make healthy lifestyle change. She received her B.S. in Nutritional Sciences from Penn State and MPH from The George Washington University. Karina is originally from Puerto Rico and is happily married to an Air Force veteran. She loves to travel, explore the food scene, and spend time with her two four-legged children, Alfi and Oreo.

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Katie Randolph

Customer Success

Katie joins the BreakLine team after three years of working as a data analyst for Berkeley Research Group in their healthcare performance improvement practice. At BRG, Katie was responsible for optimizing patient care by encouraging and facilitating engagement with hospital data. Katie previously interned for BreakLine on the outreach team for several years while in college and is excited to be back. She is passionate about building relationships, and is thrilled to assist BreakLiners in finding their next careers in tech!

Katie graduated from Cornell University where she earned her B.S. in Biology while competing as an NCAA Division I volleyball player. Outside of work, she loves working out, being outdoors, and cooking.

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Brianna Taylor

Customer Success

Brianna joins the BreakLine team after seven years working as an Occupational Therapist in a variety of healthcare settings. She earned her Master’s degree from Thomas Jefferson University and is excited to bring her experience to the BreakLine team. Prior to becoming an Occupational Therapist, she competed as a Division I gymnast at Kent State University where she helped lead the team to their first ever NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championship. She loves traveling, being outdoors, and reading. She is also the proud wife of an Army veteran.

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© 2022 BreakLine. All Rights Reserved.
© 2022 BreakLine. All Rights Reserved.