received an MBA from the University of Michigan, and spent nine years in finance with Intel Corporation, working with everything from an internet start up to a $2.5 billion factory construction project.

In 2002, he made a career shift, moved back to the Twin Cities and spent 9 years as the President of Youth Frontiers, a non profit organization who partners with schools to improve school climate, reaching more than 100,000 students annually.  

Outside of work, Jack is active in his church and community and enjoys travel and time with his wife, Laura, and their three children, Elisabeth (age 21), Catherine (19) and Timothy (5).

Ten years ago Poppy helped launch the VOBS Twin Cities program.  In that time, we’ve served over 9,000 students. 

Now Poppy serves VOBS as the Director of Foundation Relations and Learning, ensuring we have the resources we need to provide access to Outward Bound courses for all young people by cost-sharing with our partners.  She also loves to dig into our impact, best practices and understanding current research, helping VOBS incorporate a reflective process to understand our strengths and improvement opportunities. 

Suellen served in the Peace Corps in Nepal, building a library and teaching kids in a remote village. Her Outward Bound Course was pivotal to her success in Peace Corps. When talking about the experience she says, “I would never have completed Peace Corps without my Outward Bound course.” She later returned to VOBS as a staff member. Before taking on the role of Program Director in 2007, Suellen worked as an Instructor, Course Director, and Instructor Trainer for many years. In 2004, Suellen and three other OB instructors took some time off to plan a three-month, 1000-mile women’s dog sledding expedition across the Canadian Arctic. They called their expedition Artic Quest. The expedition was successful in achieving their expedition goals as well as in raising awareness and scholarship money for future VOBS students.

you’ll find Holly tearing up over all the moments of impact she sees on a daily basis here at VOBS.

In her role as the Director of Marketing and Communications, Holly brings her natural story telling ability as she shares student stories to anyone and everyone who will listen. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Public Relations from the University of St. Thomas, later returning for a Masters of Education in International Leadership. She spent over 10 years doing communication and recruiting for her alma mater (for both the undergraduate program and the law school) and another two years launching a new line of online certificates through Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Outside of VOBS, you can find Holly back on the rink or links coaching high school hockey and golf, at her family lake cabin living it up, in her garden weeding and talking to her plants, or at home snuggling with her two adorable rescue pups.

He also educated himself on what human activity is doing to the environment and tries to make lifestyle choices to minimize his impact and help heal the Earth. He is fortunate enough to share the stewardship of a summer cabin on a small lake and a few acres of woods and fields in the Avon Hills of Central Minnesota and it is his happy place.

Jay’s many interests and activities over the years have included running marathons and triathlons, playing in a folk music group and with a west African drumming group, Latin dancing (and even a bit of teaching) and organic gardening.  His winter focus over the last decade has been Nordic skiing – he hopes to complete his 8^th American Birkebeiner in 2021 although it will be a strange pandemic version of this much-loved ritual of winter.   He is primarily a skate-skier but plans to get back into classic skiing also because he can’t wait to explore the woods and waters around Homeplace!

Jay’s motivation to return to VOBS, other than the opportunity to work with awesome people, was that he believes that two qualities we need a lot more of in today’s society are compassion and resilience.  Development and nurturing of these qualities is central to the mission of Outward Bound and he can’t think of a better way to contribute than to lead the financial stewardship of VOBS.

These days, her favorite activities are snowshoeing, trail running, and learning new skills (she took up pickling in 2019 to rave reviews – look out Minnesota State Fair!). While in Southern California, she spent many weekends volunteering with cleanup on the LA River and on a trail maintenance crew and is eager to find new volunteer and stewardship opportunities in Minnesota.

Mary found VOBS after deciding to return to Minnesota and knew immediately it would be a perfect fit – marrying her love of the outdoors and desire to join a mission-driven organization. Mary’s excited to roll up her sleeves and get to work!

Favorite food: Spam sandwiches. We can blame my Kauai-born grandmother for that one.
Favorite color: Sage green. I want to say that I liked it before it was trendy, but probably not.
Favorite thing to do outside: Plan a big high-mileage day, but then decide to “call it” halfway through and take a nap on a sunny rock for a couple hours.
Favorite quote: “Please don’t injure yourself, you’re very clumsy.” -my dad

since she was a teenager, and has been leading trips across the country and around the world for more than 15 years. Before coming to VOBS she also directed an outdoor program for teenagers with physical and developmental disabilities.

Greta came to VOBS as an instructor in 2010 and has since led everything from winter dogsledding and cross-country skiing expeditions to summer Intercept courses. Over time, however, Greta transitioned out of the field and into the Admissions office. She now serves as the Director of Student Services. Her diverse life experience and sincere desire to make personal growth opportunities available to everyone make her an incredible asset to families as they learn about Outward Bound, get enrolled and prepare for their expeditions. If you want to learn more about the Voyageur Outward Bound school and the courses we offer, or if you’ve got questions about how to pack for your upcoming course, give Greta a call; She’ll be happy to help!

After taking a turn at what felt like hundreds of different jobs and roles, it became clear that Samantha’s real passion was people—listening to them, helping them experience the world, sharing experiences with them, and seeing their minds open to new perspectives.

The stars quickly aligned and after the right conversation while working at a gap year fair, Samantha found the opportunity she needed to dive into her passion of people, Outward Bound.

Since joining the Outward Bound family in the Northwoods of Minnesota, Samantha has fallen in love with the challenge of the outdoors, working with students of all ages and backgrounds, learning about herself through others and the outdoors, and just enjoying her backyard—the Boundary Waters.  In her free time, Samantha spends as much time as possible mushing. If you ask her, the best place at VOBS is the dog yard, the best season to visit is winter, and the best sound to hear is someone saying  "Ready dogs... Let's go!" 

After living in Kentucky for 18 years, Ed wanted to see new places, so he enrolled in a small Quaker school called Earlham College in Indiana. He chose the school largely because of their renowned Wilderness Program. As a freshman he participated in an optional 22 day pre-orientation wilderness canoeing trip in Canada and got involved with the Wilderness Program immediately afterwards. At Earlham he taught rock climbing, backpacking, canoeing, and took course work in environmental studies and environmental history. After graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor’s of History, Ed came straight to Outward Bound to not only pursue his passion in the art of outdoor living, but also to help others discover the awe for challenge, growth, and fun gleaned from human involvement in the natural world.

Tessa also spent some time as a senior naturalist in Homer, Alaska. 

Tessa came to Outward Bound in 2015 as an instructor and now works on our Student Services team year-round as a course advisor.  When Tessa isn’t busy helping prepare students and families for their expedition, she gets out alongside our students as a field instructor in the winter and summer seasons!

It is evident that Tessa has sought out a life filled with adventure in her professional and personal life. In 2014, Tessa was a part of the 8 Rivers North Expedition, where she and her crew paddle over 900 miles in 60 days, connecting 9 different rivers in the Canadian Arctic ending on the Arctic Ocean.  When she is not working Tessa spends her time thinking of the next adventure. She also enjoys exploring the local flora and fauna, canoeing, baking bread, and spending time with her community here at her home in Ely, Minnesota!

After spending a few years working in a laboratory studying water quality, Megan was eager to get back into working with kids in outdoor education. This brought her back to Ely where she worked at the Camp Widjiwagan Outdoor Learning Program before coming to work for the Voyageur Outward Bound School. Here at Outward Bound Megan loves getting to talk to families about all the opportunities they can have in the wilderness, and seeing how much students grow and change through experiential education. When she is not working you can find Megan out paddling in the summer, cross country skiing in the winter, and making lots of homemade pasta with friends and family. 

Bud came to VOBS, first as a student on an 8-day dogsled course. From that expedition, Bud recalls, “as we rounded the first corner on the frozen river a bald eagle flew overhead, our dog team trudged through the snow, and I instantly fell in love with the beauty of the Boundary Waters.” That was 2010 and Bud has been here ever since doing everything from instructing to training the dogs. Bud claims his colleagues as the most positive community of people to work with and his backyard/office as the most beautiful in the world. He has only taken a few hiatuses since he settled down in Minnesota. One was a four-month assignment working for Outward Bound in Hong Kong. The others have been to undertake expeditions on Manitoba’s Bloodvein River, Wabakimi Provincial Park in Ontario, and two dogsledding expeditions in Hudson Bay. In his little downtime Bud enjoys spending time with his daughter, disc golf, photography, mountain biking, ski-jouring, kite boarding, snowmobiling, canoeing, and anything else that keeps him outside and moving.

including time as a naturalist and teacher at the country’s first accredited Environmental Learning Center; director of an expedition-based drug and alcohol prevention program for Native American youth in Minneapolis; founder and director of an education program in rural Nepal for youth at-risk for human trafficking; and facilitator of semester study abroad programs across the world.

Whether it’s in the wilderness or overseas, when Dan is not at home in northern Minnesota, he still loves to travel and explore.  His adventures have included expeditions in Hudson Bay, the Himalayas, and a birch bark canoe trip from Lake Superior to the Pacific.  More recently, when he is not working with staff and students at Homeplace, Dan, and his wife Greta, enjoy facilitating introductory Outward Bound adventures with their two young boys (and VOBS instructors-in-training), Michael and Andrew.

His passion for outdoor adventure and the strong experiential education focus in his graduate career drew him to Voyageur Outward Bound School.

Jesse loves rock climbing, mountaineering and long, tough days on the water. He has been on a handful of high-altitude mountaineering expeditions and also spends some of his time teaching in the Leadership Minor at the U of M. The transformative powers of time spent outdoors, working within a team is what excites him most about Outward Bound!

For the past five years, Abby has been working with students at the Voyageur Outward Bound School paddling in the summers and mushing dogs in the winters. Working as an Outward Bound instructor and course director has been a wonderful outlet for Abby’s passions and values – living in the woods, getting others to laugh and smile, and leading through compassion and service to others.

Working as crew leader doing trail work at Minnesota Conservation Corps led to teaching environmental education at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, which introduced her to Voyageur Outward Bound School.

As much as Andrea is content to get to work in the wilderness, it has always been more about the people she gets to work with than solely about the outdoors alone. During the past seven years, Andrea has been enthusiastically working with students at the Voyageur Outward Bound School, striving to provide meaningful learning experiences that lead to personal growth and a huge sense of accomplishment.

You name a job at the school and Ledoux has done it. Currently, she is the Logistics Manager at our Ely basecamp.

Of her current post, Ledoux says, “It’s a perfect job for me; I get to create systems that make gear and food an easy part of packing for a course. I truly enjoy working with all of the instructors – they are loud, entertaining, and inspire me every day with their love for their students.” When she’s not fixing something, cleaning something, or organizing something in the Trips building, you can find Ledoux running a small carpentry business, learning to skate ski in the winter and spending her springs coaching The Bears, a local Little League baseball team. Go Bears!

In addition to his service at VOBS, Brian has also worked for a variety of other organizations including a wilderness therapy program, the Burgess and Hayward Outdoor Education in Cape Cod, Outward Bound Australia, and an emergency relief group in Haiti where he served as the Logistics Coordinator following the 2010 earthquake. When not at work Brian will most likely be found traveling the world, climbing mountains, exploring wild places and pushing himself to find adventure wherever he goes.

Rekindling his love for the fresh waters of Minnesota, Brad enjoys spending as much time as possible soaking in the scenery of the largest freshwater lake in the world (by surface area), Lake Superior. Brad recently completed his Masters of Environmental Education at the University of Minnesota Duluth and is excited to bring his passion for Minnesota's wild places back to the metro region as Staffing & Training Director for the Twin Cities Center. When not assisting staff in delivering world-class outdoor education programs, Brad can be found bike commuting, enjoying local foods, or floating local rivers on his stand-up paddle board. If the lakes are frozen, look out for him skiing local trails, winter camping, or seeking out adventures in the higher elevations of the Rockies.