Jack Lee

Executive Director

Jack Lee is proud to be the Executive Director of Voyageur Outward Bound School. He has a varied background that includes leadership positions in both business and non profit organizations.  After graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1987, he worked in commercial banking in Cincinnati,

Poppy Potter

Director of Development

Poppy is an educator at heart and passionate about helping people discover things that help them move confidently through the world. In her 30 years of work in experiential education, she’s held many roles from instructing to program directing, from grant writing to training, and from managing safety to program quality.

This is Poppy’s second employment with the Voyageur Outward Bound School.

Suellen "Sully" Sack

Director of Program and Safety

Suellen currently serves as the Minnesota Program Director. She was first introduced to Outward Bound as a student on an 81-day Minnesota to Mexico winter semester course in 1994. She later begged her way in as the dog care person, and has since worn many instructor and administrative hats during her 18-year tenure at Voyageur Outward Bound. In 2009 Suellen was the winner of the Josh Miner Award (Outward Bound USA’s highest employee award).

Raised on a dairy farm in Bemus Point, NY, Suellen holds a B.S. from Fredonia State and an M.S. from Cornell University in chemistry. She is equally adept with a canoe paddle, chainsaw and dog team.

Marlais O. Brand

Director of Partnership

Marlais knows that challenge and adventure change lives. As Director of Partnership at Voyageur Outward Bound School, Marlais connects partners to the power of group learning and outdoor education. She teams with schools, colleges, nonprofits and businesses to put people on course for character and leadership. Marlais is an Outward Bound alum, teacher, trainer, writer, and mother. She loves to travel everywhere but considers Lake Superior her True North.

Holly Noble

Director of Marketing and Communications

Being a native Minnesotan and having spent the majority of time in the Midwest is relatively rare at VOBS.  Except for a brief stint in England during grade school, Holly’s life is deeply rooted in the area.  You see aspects of this heritage in her ‘Minnesota Nice’ (yet stubborn) attitude and true belief in the local regionalisms like Duck, Duck, GREY Duck, soda is actually pop, hockey isn’t just a sport but a way of life, a hotdish is acceptable for any situation, and having intense feelings of guilt when she isn’t able to enjoy a nice day.

Though much of her life has been spent on ice rinks and golf links, rather than the wilderness, she has found incredible commonalities between the power of athletics, and the power of Outward Bound. With an unyielding belief that we are all truly capable of anything and yet we’re stronger together, 

Jay Lyons

Finance Director

Jay Lyons comes to VOBS from a career serving nonprofit organizations and cooperatives. Most recently, he served seven years as Finance Manager of Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op in St. Paul, MN. Prior to that, Jay was a consultant in finance and accounting for many nonprofits, which is how he first encountered VOBS. He was engaged to guide VOBS through its first two financial audits as an independent organization in 2012-13. After leaving his consulting gig for the co-op, VOBS kept a place in his heart and he had the idea that this was an organization to which he would someday like to return.  And it happened!

Jay hails from White Bear Lake, MN and has lived most of his life in the Twin Cities, outside of stints as an organic farm apprentice in Wisconsin and a volunteer and staff member for Common Hope, an education and health care nonprofit in Guatemala.  Jay is an alumnus of the University of St Thomas with degrees in Finance and Computer Science. He wasn’t raised in an “outdoorsy” family – his only youth camping experience was a church group BWCA trip.  But in early adulthood he discovered a love for the outdoors.

Mary Zantopp

Human Resources Manager

Mary was born in Miami, Florida into a big family of girls. She spent weekends and holidays running around the Florida Keys, Everglades National Park, and Ocala National Forest -- fishing, paddling, swimming, and sailing. When she was a teenager, her family relocated to Thunder Bay Ontario. Mary actually stayed behind to finish her senior year, under the agreement that she would choose a University closer to “home.” Mary settled on Minnesota State Moorhead for college, but ultimately moved to Los Angeles.

In LA, Mary grew in her HR practice at a variety of organizations, focusing heavily on HR process development and cultivating relationships between teams. It was in Southern California that she discovered a deep love and respect for the backcountry, exploring hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada, the High Deserts, and along the coast.

Tessa Olson

Director of Student Services

Tessa grew up in southern Minnesota and found her way to the northeastern corner of the state when she attended college at the University of Minnesota Duluth. There she received a bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Relations.  Every summer while Tessa was in college she travelled even farther north to the Gunflint Trail where she had access to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  During these summers Tessa fell in love with canoe country expeditions! 

These experiences fostered in her a rich appreciation for the wilderness and a desire to share these experiences with others.  It was these summers that led her to peruse a post-graduate certificate in Environmental Education, which has turned into a career in the outdoor education field.  Tessa has taught people of all ages in Minnesota’s northern biome for the last 6 years as a naturalist, educator, and instructor.

Libby Fena

Course Advisor

Libby Fena has been paddling the lakes and rivers of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters and Canada since she was young. In 1990, she was part of a 50-day, 700-mile women’s expedition in Canada’s Northwest Territories, following a river to the Arctic Ocean. She has paddled several rivers to Hudson Bay, as well as in Manitoba, Ontario and Texas. She has also backpacked in Minnesota, Texas, Utah and Montana.

Libby worked for VOBS for 10 years in the 90’s as an instructor, course director and staff trainer in Minnesota, Manitoba and Texas.

Megan Thiele

Community Programs Course Advisor

Megan grew up in southwest Wisconsin and spent a week every summer visiting Ely, MN with her family. The many trips to the Northwoods as a kid, mixed with a love of camp and adventure led her to study Environmental Science at Luther College in Decorah, IA. Throughout college Megan spent her summers at a camp in Wisconsin working with middle school youth and leading canoe trips on the backwaters of the Mississippi River. Giving young people an opportunity to experience the outdoors and step out of their comfort zone quickly became a passion of Megan’s.

Bud Ahrens

Ely Winter Program Director

Bud, originally from Cincinnati, now has family all over the country including parents in Kentucky, a sister in Boston, and a beautiful daughter in Northern California. Bud’s first taste of Outward Bound was as a teenager when he graduated from a 22-day course out of Baltimore. His experience as an OB student helped steer him toward Ohio University and a degree in Adventure Recreation. After completing his degree Bud worked a variety of jobs including management of an outdoor gear store, a wild land firefighter in California, an EMT-B on an ambulance in Cincinnati, and operator of a bridge climb between Kentucky and Ohio. In these roles he has rescued men from a wrecked helicopter in a burning forest, cleared a baby’s airway, and worked hard to change students’ lives for the better.

Dan Blessing

Ely Summer Program Director

Dan grew up in Minnesota, spending as much of his summers as possible on Lake Superior or any number of Minnesota’s other 10,000 lakes. Dan has been with Voyageur Outward Bound School since 2006 and can no longer imagine living or working anywhere else.  He has played many roles for the school and is currently our Ely Summer Program Director. In this role he oversees programming at VOBS wilderness basecamp, affectionately called Homeplace, between April and November and focuses on staff training in the off-season.

In addition to his service at VOBS, Dan has played roles for a variety of other youth-serving organizations

Jesse Brown

Logistics & Program Support Manager

Jesse is originally from Prior Lake, Minnesota where he grew up playing hockey in the winters and waterskiing in the summers. His love for the outdoors started with Boy Scouts and in the early years of college, Jesse pursued adventure more and more with backpacking and paddling trips with friends. 

Jesse holds a B.S. in Sport Management and a M.Ed. in Youth Development Leadership. He spent the first part of his career working in sport-based youth development at the Twin Cities nonprofit organization, Homegrown Lacrosse.

Abby Dare

Associate Program Director of Staffing

Abby is a mid-western kid. She and her three sisters grew up near the Twin Cities engaged in athletics, band, and heading west whenever summer vacation came around. She attended the University of Wisconsin – Madison, graduating with a degree in Physical and Health Education, and Adaptive Physical Education.

During her time in Madison, Abby was committed to a student organization that focused on student leadership and group development through paddling the Wisconsin River and high ropes course initiatives.

Andrea Doerr

Intercept Associate Program Director

Andrea is originally from Wyoming and Colorado, where she grew up hiking in the summers and Nordic skiing in the winters. There's always been some Midwestern inside her however, and she is pleased to call the Land of 10,000 Lakes home. 

After graduating from Colorado State University with a B.S. in Zoology & Biology, Andrea desired a way to connect her love of experiential learning with her love of being outside. Fortunately, Minnesota provided a number of great institutions with missions combining those passions. 

Rachel Hedlund

Texas Program Director

Rachel has spent the better part of her life paddling on the lakes and rivers of Northern Minnesota and Canada. Hailing from Minnesota, she grew up going on paddling trips with YMCA Camp Menogyn, and spent many summers guiding 20 to 50-day whitewater-canoeing trips throughout the far north of Canada. Although the mountains drew her briefly to Colorado, where she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Colorado College, Rachel has been unable to escape the draw of extreme environments in both Minnesota and Texas, and works year round on both borders.

Anne “Ledoux” Grignon

Logistics Manager

Ledoux got her start leading wilderness canoe trips in Canada in 1980. As her mom likes to say: “When I sent you to summer camp I didn’t know you’d be there forever!”. Ledoux has spent hundreds and hundreds of days on trail with students and counts those days among the best in her life so far. The first thing on her mind during a big rain or snowstorm these days is wondering who is in the field and how they are doing.

Ledoux has been at Voyageur Outward Bound 20 years.

Brian Liggett

Texas Program Director

Brian is from Chicago, IL. His first taste of adventure came when he was introduced to rock climbing at the age of six. From that experience, his interest in outdoor adventure has expanded to the realms of mountaineering, kayaking, canoeing, surfing, snowboarding, and anything else that gives him an excuse to be outside. Through the National Outdoor Leadership School, Brian graduated an Outdoor Educators in 2006. He has been working in this field ever since and has been with the Voyageur Outward Bound School since 2010.

Brian Minor

Head Logistics Coordinator

Brian grew up in Evanston, Illinois as an urban explorer of sorts, spending long summer days riding his bike along the magnificent Lake Michigan shoreline and getting to know the nuances of Chicago's public transit system. His love of the outdoors was not sparked until his early twenties, a development that continues to confound his city-dwelling family, most of whom aren't into mosquitoes.

Morgan Moores

Technical & Support Program Manager

Morgan grew up splitting his time in Minnesota and Canada. Once the school year was over, he made a yearly migration into the Canadian wilderness to spend his summers exploring with his family and friends. Although he spent more time in Minnesota going to school, his most formative experiences were in the wilderness, facing hardship and challenge with his peers.

He attended camp Wanapitei in Ontario for 17 years, both as a student and an instructor. The camp focused on remote, Northern expeditions and formed the backbone of Morgan's deep passion for whitewater paddling.