Elected to the NOLS Board:  2004
NOLS Graduate: 1991 - 25 and Over Wind River Wilderness, 1994 - Trip Leader Seminar, 1997 - 25 and Over Winter Ski Course, 2002 - Chesapeake Sail Seminar, and 2002 - 30 and Over Alaska Sea Kayaking

Susan began her affair with the outdoors and with NOLS on a Wind River Wilderness course in 1991. She claims, in the corny words of John Denver, “to have come home to a place she’d never been before.”  Since then she has taken a Leadership Seminar in the Cascades, a Winter Skiing Course in the Teton Valley, a Sea Kayaking Course on Prince William Sound, two alumni trips and a handful of seminars and reunions.  She strives always to be either on a trip or planning to be on a trip.  She also enjoys the day trips and happy hours of the very active NOLS DC alumni chapter.

When she’s not on a trip she works to promote the cause of human dignity and freedom at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research organization in Washington, D.C.  She handles government relations for Cato and also helps out with donor relations.  Susan is a lawyer by training and has represented clients as varied as landowners against whom telecommunications companies have trespassed and national campaign committees trying to steer their way through the campaign financing maze.  Her favorite role in the legal world was teaching legal reasoning and writing at the Catholic University School of Law.

In addition to the Great Outdoors, the Great Books are Susan’s other consuming avocation.  She is geographically fortunate enough to take advantage of the educational outreach programs at St. John’s College in Annapolis.  The programs provide Susan the opportunity to explore the fundamental questions of the human condition through a close reading and discussion of timeless great works of literature, philosophy, and political discourse.  Susan flirts with the idea of learning to play golf.

Susan was elected to the NOLS board of trustees in 2004 and currently chairs the Public Policy Committee and serves on the Alumni and Development Committee.