Case Statement

To continue high quality service to its students and programs around the world, the National Outdoor Leadership School will update and expand its international headquarters in Lander, Wyoming. Through renovations and new construction, NOLS will create a campus —a hub for the worldwide NOLS community. NOLS is raising $10 million in support of the international base camp campaign.

Gathering at Base Camp

Incredibly excited and a little apprehensive, a group of new NOLS students comes together for the first time in the lobby of the historic Noble Hotel in Lander, Wyoming. Each student has his or her expectations, goals, and apprehensions. They have different backgrounds, accents, skin colors and occasionally languages, yet they will soon work together to travel safely as a team in remote, wild country. Their adventures along the way will leave a lasting impression on each of them.

This scene is recreated in Lander more than 80 times a year as NOLS courses meet for the first time in the Noble Hotel before embarking on their Rocky Mountain expedition. And with a slight change in setting, similar scenes are occurring around the world — as groups gather at the campo in Patagonia or on the farm in Alaska or at any other of NOLS’ eleven locations.

Guided by Our Mission

Founded in 1965, NOLS is the international leader in wilderness education. The school's mission is to be the leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment. With over 60,000 alumni from all 50 United States and more than 50 countries, the school currently enrolls over 3,000 students each year on courses ranging from 9 to 95 days.

NOLS students receive an education that is unavailable anywhere else. Graduates leave the school with a connection to the land and an ethic about how they relate to the natural world. That connection is grounded in personal experience and an extensive environmental curriculum.

The Leader in Wilderness Education

A NOLS course is real adventure — nothing canned or staged about it. Students learn to live and travel safely and confidently in some of the world’s most spectacular wilderness. When they return home, usually far from wilderness, they are changed — the differences stem from their new skills and competence.

NOLS Students

Students of all ages and from all walks of life learn practical leadership skills — valuable lessons about themselves and how they interact with others. They take home skills they use on personal expeditions and at work and school.

NOLS students are a diverse group. The NOLS student body includes thousands of people, mostly high school and college age, but also stretches to encompass land managers from the United States and at least 5 other countries, outdoor professionals, teachers, and astronauts. Our youngest students are 14; our oldest are over 60.

New Programs

NOLS has grown over the years in the numbers of students, the the locations of its wilderness classrooms, and the scope of its courses. NOLS recently partnered with the Wilderness Medicine Institute, the nation’s foremost wilderness medicine training organization. In addition, by building specialized training programs, NOLS Professional Training makes NOLS' education available to new individuals and other organizations. These two programs allow NOLS to reach thousands more people each year.

The Lander Base Camp

Through nearly four decades of steady growth, much remains constant at NOLS. The student experience is still at the heart of every NOLS program. And the base of international operations is still Lander, Wyoming — a small western town on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains, selected by NOLS founder Paul Petzoldt in 1965. From Lander, the school’s administration serves all NOLS programs.

Planning for Growth

Without question, NOLS has grown beyond its bootstrapped beginnings. In addition to new programs, student days on traditional courses have grown at about 4.5 percent each year. Even in the eighties it was clear that facilities in Lander were inadequate to accommodate this growth, but there were other more pressing issues. School-wide infrastructure and increased scholarship funding were more urgent, and so were addressed first.

Supporting Excellence

NOLS is committed to improving the student experience and maintaining excellence in all NOLS programs. That commitment underlies school-wide planning. As the school has grown, fundraising has become an integral part of that planning. But fundraising alone isn’t enough; it has value only in its positive impact on NOLS students and programs.

NOLS began an annual fund in the1980s to provide scholarship support for students. The annual fund has grown from $30,000 in 1986 to nearly $890,000 in 2003. In 1994, NOLS successfully completed a $1.5 million capital campaign to fund facilities improvements at its locations around the world. In 2000, the school reached its goal of raising $8 million for the NOLS endowment, which now provides a permanent source of funds for scholarships and outreach.

Room to Grow

Expanded and efficient administrative facilities are essential to NOLS‚ continued success. By 1999, NOLS had offices in three locations spread out over 2 city blocks; the school had clearly outgrown its Lander facilities. The time had come to address this need. Faced with the prospect of leasing more office space in downtown Lander – an option that is both financially and operationally inefficient – NOLS has embarked on a project to address future needs for administrative and educational space.

The school is committed to providing a setting with which staff can do their jobs most effectively, with a constant focus on the mission and the student experience.

A Vision for the Future

NOLS is building for the future. The school will create a dynamic downtown Lander campus through real estate acquisition, renovation of the school’s existing properties, and construction of new office and classroom space.

The Lander campus is the portal through which all NOLS students access the worldwide NOLS community. For the first time in its history, the school will conduct its global operations from a hub designed to best suit its unique needs. Staff will work more efficiently and will be more accessible to students. The student experience – from the wild Australian outback to the remote reaches of the Yukon Territory’s South Macmillan River – will be even more powerful with a stronger foundation.

The decision to create a campus in downtown Lander is truest to NOLS' mission for the following reasons:

• This plan is the most environmentally responsible. NOLS will build in a simple, sustainable fashion, and more importantly, avoid contributing to sprawling development.
• This option maintains valuable interaction between international headquarters and NOLS Rocky Mountain staff and students.
• By staying downtown, NOLS maintains the experience of a small western town for its Lander students.
• This plan is among the least expensive of all workable options.
• As one of the largest employers in Lander, NOLS will remain a vital part of the downtown economy.
• By maintaining ownership, NOLS will continue to steward the historic Noble Hotel and therefore stay connected to part of its history.

The Plan for a New Base Camp

The school's steadfast commitment to its mission guides the design and construction of the Lander campus. First and foremost, by maintaining a presence in downtown Lander the school is recycling existing buildings and avoiding edge-of-town sprawl. Throughout the base camp construction and renovation, builders are using durable materials requiring simple maintenance. In the new headquarters, we have constructed a building with a projected 100-year lifespan. Working within a reasonable budget, the new building incorporates "green" design elements and materials.

International Headquarters Building

A prerequisite to the success of the international base camp campaign is ownership of the necessary downtown property. A Lander physician donated the largest parcel well before the project began. The new international headquarters–a 50,000-square-foot office building–now stands at this location, which is ideally located within the campus. The headquarters building consolidates all of NOLS' international administrative departments, currently divided among three disparate locations. The building is designed to meet the school’s unique operational and telecommunications needs.

The Noble Hotel

The school will remodel the historic Noble Hotel, which was built in 1917 as a stopover for travelers en route to Yellowstone National Park. There are two key elements to the renovation. The first is upgrading the building to current building and fire codes; the second is to improve the space for students and instructors. In remodeling the first floor, offices will give way to a student lounge, classrooms, and an expanded library. Remodeling of the exterior façade, including the Main Street entrance and the lobby area, will restore historic design elements to the building.

Base Camp Finances

Now is the time to focus on this international base camp campaign — the continued excellence of the student experience and the excellence of all NOLS programs depends on it. Having successfully addressed branch school facility needs and completed the endowment campaign, the NOLS board of trustees made the decision to begin construction of the headquarters portion of the Lander campus in June 2000.

Because this need is immediate and pressing, NOLS invested $2 million of the school’s reserves to start the project. To fund construction, the school is borrowing approximately 70% of the building’s cost on tax-free bonds.

Given the urgency of the facilities need, the bonds are an inexpensive source of funds. Total expenditures would have increased by hundreds of thousands of dollars had NOLS been forced to move into additional leased space while waiting to raise the necessary money to begin construction. The increased expenses and operational inefficiencies rendered this option untenable and irresponsible.

NOLS is raising unrestricted dollars, with the intent of the board of trustees being to fund the international base camp initiative.

NOLS is raising $10 million in support of the new international base camp.

Return to Base Camp

Those eager, apprehensive students have a different air about them after their NOLS course. And the difference is notable, even from a distance. Driving down Main Street in Lander, you can always spot the NOLS students — and it’s apparent too, in Lander and at NOLS locations around the world, which groups have completed their courses. Their step is more purposeful — almost a swagger. Those students know they have accomplished something noteworthy and they know new, important things about themselves. They’re different; they’re better.

Join us

The world and wilderness need leaders, now perhaps more than ever. NOLS students return home to use the leadership skills they’ve learned. NOLS is taking steps to provide its unique, important education well into the future. Join us in this transformative endeavor. The NOLS international base camp in Lander will be the foundation for the school’s continued excellence around the globe.