Adam and Anna Grundhoefer – Executive Directors

Adam and Anna love adventure and have a heart for helping teenage boys. They both have a passion to serve and mentor teenagers to empower them to live the life God has planned for them. Adam is originally from Atlanta, Georgia and has been with Teen Challenge for seven years. Adam attended and graduated from Emerging Leaders College and is credentialed with the Assemblies of God. Adam has also served as administrator of the Teen Challenge Lakeside Retreat and Event Center. While at Lakeside, Adam helped facilitate youth events as well as Teen Challenge staff training events.

Anna is originally from Montgomery, Alabama and has been with Teen Challenge for seven years. She met the Lord at a young age and has strived to serve him ever since. Anna considers herself a lifelong learner and has studied Education and Sociology. Anna has served Teen Challenge in the areas of education, direct care, Program Assisting, and Training Facilitator. Through all of this, Anna gained an in-depth knowledge of the program structure and on the job experience. Adam and Anna are happily married and enjoy serving in the will of God by extending hope to hurting families and teens. Their lives were changed completely by the power of God and they fully believe God can still redeem and restore and the lives of others.

Michael Lindsey Smith, M.T. – Lead Counselor

Lindsey was born in Columbus, Georgia. In 1983 he went to Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee where he earned a B.S. in Biblical Theology. Following his graduation, he and his wife founded a church where he was senior pastor for thirty years. While there, he earned a Masters in Theology from Beacon University. In 2015 he and his wife moved to Vero Beach, Florida continuing in ministry through missions work in Haiti. In 2018, he joined the team at the Ranch as a counselor. He is looking forward to putting his pastoral counseling experience to work for the boys and their families, working towards a healthy future.

Lindsey and his wife Angie have been married for thirty-three years and have three adult children: Roger, Beau, and Abrianna.

Eric Campbell B.A – Residential Counselor

Born and raised on the Treasure Coast, Eric grew up seeing his mother and father joyfully serving others. From tutoring other students at his school or simply taking care of the widow across the street, Eric saw his parents demonstrate a passion for service and ministry that he desired to have. At the age 13, he realized and acquired that passion by the work of the Holy Spirit and by the gift of the Gospel. Since then, He has served in his church faithfully in multiple ministries, and served at Christian Campus Fellowship while studying history at Florida State University. He lived in the CCF ministry house for two years, and eventually became a small group leader and coach, helping to train and equip other small group leaders. After college, Eric was working as a substitute teacher, but desperately wanted to share the Gospel with each student, seeing their need for the good news of Christ. Now working at Treasure Coast Boys Academy, Eric gets to partner every day with other direct care staff and the Holy Spirit in seeing life transformation!

Daniel Love – Teacher

Daniel has 15 years of experience working with teenagers as a Youth Minister, substitute teacher and a school teacher for elementary and secondary schools. He enjoys working with young men, and desires to see them reach the full potential God has in store for their lives, both academically and spiritually. His desire to create a love for learning is evident in his passion for teaching toward each students individual learning style. He believes that the Lord has orchestrated every season in his life to prepare him for his service here at Treasure Coast Boys Academy.

Daniel and his wife Rebecca moved to Vero Beach from Jacksonville in July 2018. He has a daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, Benjamin and Gabriel.

Michael Disabato – Direct Care

Michael served in the United States Navy. He is 30 years old and was born and raised in New Jersey. His parents provided him, his two brothers, and one sister a great home to grow up in. Nearing adolescence, Michael started experimenting with drugs and it brought havoc to his life. At a place of brokenness, he went into the Teen Challenge program in New York. It radically changed his life. God put his life back together and gave him a desire to serve others. He is excited to work here at Treasure Coast Boys Academy and see the young men spared the life that bad decisions can create. As a Direct Care staff member, Michael works with the students facilitating the different activities in the evening and on weekends, while building meaningful relationships with the students.

Justin Larson – Direct Care

One morning Justin woke to a conversation with his parents telling him that they were separating. It was one of the hardest conversations he has ever been a part of. Justin did not know who to blame so he just got mad at everyone. His anger started to cause him to act out at home and at school. His parents saw Justen heading down a bad path. They decided to reach out to Teen Challenge for help.

Justin resented his parents in the beginning for their choice. Through the course of the program, Justin’s life was changed. His relationship with his family was restored. As Justin got closer to graduation he decided he wanted to come back and help other kids just like him. He graduated the program, did a year internship, and came back as staff. He works as Direct Care, helping oversee evening schedule and activities.

Shane Benfer — Direct Care

Shane is 29 years old, and grew up in Lancaster Pennsylvania with a very loving family. Shane started with moderate drug use in high school. This then led to opiate addiction forcing him to lose the vision that he and his family had for his life. After years of addiction and various programs, Shane found freedom when he came to Teen Challenge himself as a student and graduated. It is with his great love of Jesus and the Bible, along with his Teen Challenge experience, that led him to his true passion of helping others who are struggling with the things that he went through himself, and helping them find true freedom.

Elias Hindi – 6th Generation Cowboy

Elias Hindi is a seasoned horse trainer who hails from Gunnison Colorado. He has grown up with horses as a 6th generation horse trainer on his father’s side and a 2nd generation horse trainer on his mother’s side. Elias has worked alongside his father breaking and starting young horses since his youngest ages and officially kicked off his career by starting some colts for a family friend at the age of 12. His mother, Deborah Hindi, is a licensed USDF trainer who specializes in performance dressage horses and has helped to refine Elias’ riding skills and broaden his training methods.
Elias’ training did not stop with his parents. He continued his training under Johnny Leverrett who specializes in starting young horses and rehabilitating troubled horses. Elias then came to Florida with his mother and her competition horses to get away from the cold of Colorado and continue his training. While here in Florida, He assisted Leah Winston, a dressage trainer at Martin Downs Equestrian Center, start her talented Oldenburg colt and continued working with her starting other young horses. He also rode under Christian Schacht who is a world renown dressage trainer and clinician from Germany.

Elias believes that each horse learns in its own unique way and should be treated as an individual. His goal is to create a working partnership between horse and rider. For this reason he uses a combination of methods from his cutting, reining, working cow horse and dressage backgrounds. He currently specializes in all those areas in addition to offering spook training. He believes that by using multiple methods his horses will be well-rounded, have better work ethic and will excel in their respective jobs. While being able to train horses, he believes that the youth of today have an opportunity to experience the unique relationships that people can have with horses. He also believes horses have the ability to build a therapeutic report with todays youth and help overcome boys behavioral challenges.

Adam Crocker B.A – Direct Care

My name is Adam Crocker, and I am 24 years old, from Gadsden, Alabama. I accepted Christ at the young age of seven, which catapulted me into a life of constant missions and service. Since I was at a young age, my parents have always done something in Ministry, whether it be my Dad being the Student Pastor, or Mom teaching Sunday School, I saw the Lord really guide them in the way they live. We also lived in Bolivia for four years, when I was younger. At the age of 17, I received the call to Ministry. When I got to College, I immediately got involved with the BCM (Baptist Campus Ministries) at both of the schools I attended. Being involved with that Ministry gave me opportunities to see God’s direction in my calling, including a stint in Youth Ministry. Graduated in December of 2018 with a B.S. in Recreation Leadership, and a minor in Coaching, from Jacksonville State University.

When I found out about the opportunity to work with Teen Challenge, I was immediately drawn to it, because of my passion to impact young people with the Gospel. After growing up with parents who fostered many children over the years, with multiple cognitive and behavioral issues, I see this as an opportunity to be able minister to the young men here.

Robert Tee

Robert started out in life as a Professional Tennis Coach. He was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up and went to school in England. He attended an International Sports School where he played many sports at a high level specializing in Tennis. He was also an accomplished squash player and played with some of the top squash players in the world. In His spare time he plays Golf and does a lot of fishing. He moved to Florida from England two and a half years ago.

After Moving to Massachusetts on a part time basis in 1989 he decided to serve in the US Navy. During his service he spent a large amount of time in the remotest areas of the South Pacific and the Southern Oceans. He was based in Japan and traveled extensively throughout Asia completing a 6 month tour in the Persian Gulf as part of the UN Force. After completing his tours in the Pacific and Indian Oceans he was then transferred to USS Oliver Hazard Perry based in Mayport Florida. Whilst in Mayport hew worked on a new electronics technical support section as well as training reservists in Combat Systems, anti submarine warfare and Mine hunting. Whilst in Mayport he conducted one major tour of the Great Lakes as well as conducting Drug Operations in The Caribbean and Gulf Of Mexico. Upon Leaving the Navy he toured parts of the United States before returning to England.

Upon returning to England he started teaching in schools and continued to do this whilst taking his degree in Education and Sports Science. He also joined as an Army and Combined Cadet Force instructor and served in many different regiments over an eight year career. He returned to Florida to work as a Hydro graphical Surveyor. He conducted water surveys from Savannah GA to The Pan Handle as well as a water flow survey across all of western Florida. He was also part of the survey team for the replacement of the North Jetty at Cape Canaveral.

In his teaching career he has spent the majority of his time working as a housemaster in boarding schools where amongst other things he was also able to sing in many different choirs and keep the tradition of choral music alive. Immediately before coming to Teen Challenge he was working for 2 Charter Middle Schools locally as well as at a specialist autism treatment center where he was working as a behavioral specialist. In his spare time he is also researching special education helping children with Autism, Fragile X syndrome and associated illnesses. He has traveled extensively all over the world and likes to try different cultures as well as their cuisine.

Nicholas Wagner