Our Team

Maija Pukkila

(Scandinavia Program Manager & Instructor)

Maija comes from Finland, growing up by the clear lakes and quiet green forests. She is passionate about being in water in all its forms, meeting peo…

Mairi Stone Padgett

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mairi Stone Padgett is a Director at Landmark Learning. Mairi is a WEMT and wilderness medicine instructor with over 20 years of experience leading t…

Mara Gans

(Instructor)

Mara has wanted to be a NOLS instructor since she was a kid, and finds that working as a real NOLS instructor is much more rewarding than her childho…

Marc B. Randolph

(Board Member)

Marc Randolph was the co-founder and first CEO of the movie and television streaming service Netflix; however, Marc’s career as an entrepreneur spans…

Marco Johnson

(Senior Instructor)

Marco took his NOLS Field Instructor Course in 1985 and has worked 630+ weeks in the field. Marco took his NOLS Wilderness Medicine Instructor Course…

Marc Yeston

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Marc loves to train NOLS Wilderness Medicine students. He took his initial EMT course in 1981 and became a Paramedic in 1983. After working for a few…

Marissa Bieger

(Instructor)

Marissa grew up in Buffalo, New York and fell in love with climbing in New Hampshire while studying mechanical engineering at Northeastern University…

Marjorie Mazie

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Since 1991 Mazie has spent much of her time working with service learning and wilderness therapy programs. She also managed a women’s health clinic a…

Mark Crawford

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mark is the Director of Training and Special Projects at North American Rescue Products. He is a Colorado and Wyoming state EMT instructor, a nationa…

Martinique Lewis

(Advisory Council Member)

Martinique Lewis is an award-winning diversity in travel consultant, President of the Black Travel Alliance, both Travel and Leisure, and Travel P…

Mary Breunig

(Instructor)

Mary Breunig PhD has been involved in outdoor and experiential education with a focus on social and environmental justice for 20 + years. She is an A…

Matt Duarte

(Wilderness Medicine Instructor)

Originally from North Carolina – and with an interest in the outdoors born in the Appalachian Mountains – Matt’s steadfast love for wild spaces took …

Matt Halliday

(Instructor)

Matt hails from the Seattle area and calls the PNW home. His "formal" education in the outdoors started on a NOLS course. Since that wonderful experi…

Matthew McGee

(Wilderness First Responder)

Matt has worked professionally as a wildlife biologist in Montana, Wyoming, California, and Alaska, including studies of coyotes, wolves, mountain li…

Matthew Moore

(WFR, PA-C, WFA Instructor)

Matt grew up in New England eventually moving out to Arizona after high school where he took his first WMI WFR course with the legendary Pete Walka i…

Mattie Guelinas

(Wilderness First Responder, RN)

Mattie is currently working as a flight nurse in Flagstaff, AZ where she specializes in pediatric emergency care. In her spare time she is a backcoun…

Matt Stauffer

(Instructor, MA, MD, FAWM)

Matt has brought his experience in the outdoors and medicine to the students of NOLS since the late 1990's. He has worked as an educator and leader f…

Maureen Fox

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Born and raised in Woody Creek, Colorado, near Aspen, Maureen grew up skiing, hiking, and biking in the Rockies. After receiving a BA from Lewis and …

Maurício Clauzet "ToNTo"

(Field instructor)

ToNTo had many different jobs before becoming a NOLS Instructor. Brazilian and engineer, professor, facilitator for corporative team-building were…

Megan Budge

(Wilderness Medicine Instructor)

Megan Budge grew up in the shadow of Utah's Wasatch Mountains and was skiing and climbing by the age of three. The daughter of a mountain guide and a…

Megan Herrera

(Wilderness Medicine Admissions Officer)

Outdoor and adventure-loving mama, recently returned to the US from living abroad in Germany.

Megan Massey

(Instructor)

Megan graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 with a degree in Microbiology and a fledgling passion for rock climbing. That year she took a …

Megan T. Guffey

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Megan is from Mammoth Lakes, California and graduated with a BA in Kinesiology from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. 2003 to present, s…

Melis Coady

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Melis Coady has been an instructor since 2002. Often she can be found jet-lagging for NOLS Wilderness Medicine to teach Wilderness First Responder co…

Melissa Gray

(Vice President of Wilderness Medicine)

Melissa got her start in wilderness medicine in 1985 by teaching with SOLO in Conway, NH, where she also volunteered for various urban and mountai…

Meriwether Hardie

(Instructor )

Meriwether works in climate-smart agriculture, natural resource protection, sustainable rural community development, and wilderness education. Alongs…

Michael Schmertzler

(Chair Emeritus)

First elected to the NOLS board of trustees in 2001, Michael’s term was extended to fill a vacancy and extended again so he could serve as chair i…

Mike Ditolla

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mike became a NOLS Instructor in 2000 and has taught a wide variety of skills for the school including skiing, mountaineering, caving, canyoneering, …

Mike King

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mike grew up backpacking and climbing in the southern Appalachian Mountains. After thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and working with at-risk youth h…

Mike Lorr

(Instructor)

Mike (he/him/his) started his NOLS journey by taking a Wind River Mountaineering course in 2011 and has taken many courses since. In 2023 he took his…

Mike Moxness

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, RN)

Mike is a registered nurse living in Anchorage, Alaska, where he spent much of his career in the emergency room. He received his first EMT certificat…

Mike Schiller

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mike has been an EMT since 1997, a WEMT since 2001 and teaching for NOLS Wilderness Medicine since 2003. A serial entrepreneur, Mike is currently CEO…

Mike Shaw

(Wilderness First Responder)

Mike has been working in outdoor education since the mid 90's. In this time he has led canoeing, kayaking, caving, climbing, mountaineering, backpack…

Mike Zawaski

(Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician)

Mike has been teaching for NOLS Wilderness Medicine since 2000. As a mountaineer, scientist, and science educator, he looks at the world in a d…

Mimi Stone

(Wilderness Medicine Instructor)

Mimi got hooked on the mountains after taking a NOLS course in the mid-1970's. She started climbing, and then worked as a NOLS field instructor for t…

Missy White

(Instructor, WFR)

Missy began her outdoor career canoeing the swamps of southern Louisiana. Tired of the hot, flat, and humid lands, she headed to Wyoming in 1988 and …

Molly Campbell

(Instructor)

Molly is a NOLS Wilderness Medicine Instructor and Professor of Nursing at Linfield University. She began with NOLS as a cook in the Alaska kitchen w…

Molly Graham

(Advisory Council Member)

Molly has worked in the technology industry for the last 15 years. Most recently, Molly was the Chief Operating Officer of Lambda School, an online s…

Molly Herber

(Instructor)

Molly loves the smell of her backpack and does her best writing before 7:00 am. You can find her running and climbing on rocks in Wyoming.

Muthoni Muriithi

(Program Manager, NOLS East Africa)

Muthoni Muriithi is the Program Manager of NOLS East Africa. She took the local educator course in 1997, and then received a scholarship to take a se…