In 1995, I was a public school teacher with great passion for bringing my students outdoors. However, no matter how hard I tried, it simply was not possible, even though the school was located on hundreds of wild acres. I grew up in the mountains of northern Colorado, where almost daily I was out in the woods discovering the plants and insects of my back yard. I was deeply in love with nature, and I still am. I wanted to give my students a similar experience to what I had as a child, a daily dose of nature discovery. I offered and immediately filled summer nature camps in the mountains of Boulder County. Thus, Wild Bear Science School was born.

I knew that being outside made my students happier and more productive. Little did I know that in today’s electronic world, this simple act of bringing children into nature would be so critical. I have often wondered, without having the experience of loving your backyard, who will be the future stewards of the earth? Who will care enough to protect nature? This idea in 1995 has led to serving hundreds of thousands of people of all ages, organizing volunteers to preserve and clean up 260 acres of what is now Mud Lake Open Space, and planning and building a net positive nature center to serve the local community and its visitors. I built a team to raise over $12M toward that capital campaign and led the way to organizing the community to plan Boulder County’s only all ages nature center.