CHS Marching Band Staff

Andrew Westgate has served as the Director of Bands at Cedarburg High School since 2024. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 with a Bachelor in Music Education. While studying at UIUC, Mr. Westgate marched in the Marching Illini for four years, and led the sousaphone section as section leader in his last year of attendance. Before CHS, he taught 5th-8th grade band at Willowbrook Middle School in South Beloit for four years, then served as a band director at Webster Middle School for three years. Andrew spends his free time writing music, fishing, camping, trying to keep up with house projects, and playing Underwater Hockey with the Milwaukee Manatees.

Emily Brown is the Assistant Marching Band director at Cedarburg High School. In her full-time position, she serves as the band director at Webster Middle School. She graduated from St. Norbert College in 2022 with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education. While studying in college, she served as the president and director of the St. Norbert College Pep Band. Emily has seven years of experience with marching band, including as a band member and as a marching band instructor. In her free time, Emily enjoys long distance running, reading, and playing with her cat, Noodle. 

Jacquie Ystesund has been working with the CHS Marching Band since 2017. Her responsibilities include guard design, writing and teaching the choreography, along with teaching marching technique to the entire marching band. She loves working with the students and cherishes the moments when kids realize the result of their hard work. Her background in Color Guard includes eight years of performing with the “Accents of Sheboygan”, and for her final two years of eligibility, performing with “The Alliance of Miami” in Florida.  In her years of competition with these groups, hard work resulted in a bronze and a gold medal at the Winter Guard International Championships. In an effort to pay it forward, she started teaching color guard and then spent summers on tour with the Americanos and the Colts from Dubuque, IA. Currently, she is one of the faces in the CHS office, she's married to her high school sweetheart and has two amazing sons who participate in forensics, theatre, jazz band, marching band and more. 

Dale Powers began his color guard and marching band teaching career in 1978. He has designed for many Drum & Bugle Corps including  the 27th Lancers, Sky Ryders, Rochester Patriots and East Coast Jazz. Dale has also written and designed for some of the finest marching bands in the United States including Lake Ridge HS (TX), Eastlake HS (CA),  Dartmouth HS (MA), Blackstone Millville HS (MA), Norwood HS (MA), Blackhawk HS (PA) and many schools from Florida, Ohio, and Colorado. 

In 1980 Dale designed for the first WGI class A champion and in 1981 he founded the Emerald Marquis Color Guard. As the Director and one of the designers/instructors the Emerald Marquis was a World Class finalist for all 20 seasons of their existence which included 10 straight world class medals and a WGI World Class Championship.  

In 2002, Dale assumed the newly created role of Color Guard Director for Winter Guard International (WGI), a position he still holds today. Under his direction, WGI has doubled the number of regional events, developed Power Regionals that are held in arena facilities, and created semi-finals for all classes.

In 2013 Dale was inducted into the WGI Hall Of Fame as well as the Massachusetts Drum Corps and Music Directors Hall Of Fame. 

Dale is retired after working for 23 years with New York Life as a Vice President in the Compliance Department. He enjoys programming and designing drill for marching band shows in addition to his current position with WGI. 

Dale currently lives in Rockland, MA with his wife Elizabeth and their son Nicholas where he enjoys golf and conducting retirement education seminars.