No igloo this time!

Hello from downtown Salt Lake City, where Outdoor Retailer has again taken over the Salt Palace for a weekend of new gear, networking, and other festivities!

It's too hot for us to build an igloo, but the NOLS Bus has been parked outside the Salt Palace, representing the school to folks attending the show as well as folks on the street. Our fearless marketing team has been busy meeting with different brands and roaming the halls of the show to find NOLS grads. We've been snapping mug shots of NOLSies around the show and displaying them at the bus.

Some of us found time this morning to go to a press conference regarding the release of a report quantifying the importance of outdoor recreation to our nation's economy (pdf). It was pretty exciting stuff--the study showed that outdoor recreation contributes $730 billion to the US economy, between gear and travel and job creation!  It blew me away to find out that 6.5 million US jobs (or 1 in 20!) owe their existence to the outdoor industry.

We'll keep you posted as the weekend unfolds. Cheers!
Amy Rathke
NOLS Social Network Engineer

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NOLS grads infiltrate OR!

It's no secret that the outdoor industry is filled with NOLS grads. From retail store employees to product designers, this year's Summer Outdoor Retailer convention in Salt Lake City is sure to be crawling with NOLSies, and not just those manning the NOLS Bus outside the show.

We're on a mission to get in touch with as many NOLS grads as possible this weekend. Stop by the bus, have your photo taken, and share your favorite story from the field with us! See you at the show...

Amy Rathke
NOLS Social Network Engineer

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A Family for NOLS

A Family for NOLS

This past July, NOLS experienced the rarity of having nearly an entire family embarking on NOLS courses simultaneously.  Over five weeks, Dr. Nancy Sutera and three of her four children, Justin, Peter and Joy, all completed NOLS courses out of the Rocky Mountain Branch.  The Sutera family was not new to the outdoors, but Nancy’s high school friend, a former NOLS instructor, recommended exploring the Rockies while learning the invaluable skills and wilderness ethics on a NOLS course. 
    Nancy, Peter and Joy experienced western backcountry through Wind River Wilderness coursesWRW Courses  and were able to travel similar terrain and crossed the continental divide.  Justin was farther north in the Big Horn on a Wyoming Adventure CourseADR Courses , but despite being in different locations Nancy expressed how they all shared the enriching  “common experience” of a NOLS course.  Nancy spoke highly of the outdoor skills training, but in particular appreciated the emphasis on Leave No Trace (LNT) and Expedition Behavior (EB), the cornerstones in wilderness ethics that were impressed upon her children. 
    For siblings like Joy and Peter, living in the same house can be hectic, but these two Suteras bonded like the rest of their “course-mates” for what turned out to be an eye opening month in the outdoors.  Joy, 19, described feeling incredibly “competent and confident” after her 16 and Over Wind River Wilderness course and has found a newfound interest in wilderness medicine complementing her studies as a biology major on a pre-med track at State University of New York Geneseo. 
    Now that the course is done, Nancy has returned to her dental practice with her husband Paul, Joy and Justin will be returning to school and Peter is starting State University of New York Binghamton in the fall.  Like most NOLS graduates, the Suteras  will take their month long experience with them wherever they go and will continue to be a family of NOLS supporters.  Future NOLS courses are on the horizon for the Suteras, possibly bringing the whole family on an alumni course along with their youngest Lena,13, who has yet to take a NOLS course and join the new Sutera family tradition.   

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