Michael Schmertzler

Current Position on NOLS Board of Trustees: Chair
Elected to Board: (first term) June 2001; (first term extended) June 2007 and June 2008 to serve as Chair
NOLS Courses: 1994 Alaska Brooks Range course, 1995 Winter Ski course in Wyoming,  1995 Mountaineering course in the Pacific Northwest        

Michael received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1974 and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1977. He also attended graduate school at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton in 1975 and was a special student at Yale University in 1995-1996.

Michael is currently chair of the Investment Committee of Credit Suisse First Boston Equity Partners and a director of a number of its portfolio companies. He is a Governor and Treasurer of the New York Academy of Science, a Trustee of Phillips Academy Andover, and a professor at Yale University. He was previously a managing director of Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc, president of Morgan Stanley Leveraged Capital Funds, a managing director of Shearson Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, and a managing director and chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb.

A licensed pilot, Michael is also a photographer, musician, and an enthusiastic skier and tennis player. In addition to his other NOLS courses, he was part of an alumni sea-kayaking trip to Nantucket, a Red Desert goat-packing trip with his son, and the Gannett Peak mountaineering course in 1997. Michael is also the proud graduate of a WMI Wilderness Upgrade for Medical Professionals (WUMP) course! He lives with his wife, Kuni, and their two sons in Connecticut.