Lou has always loved being outdoors, from climbing trees as a kid in Iowa, then climbing mountains in Colorado. Her first stop at NOLS was for the Fall Semester in the Rockies in '76. She studied music and toured Europe with the Luther College Concert Band. She led backpacking trips, and studied outdoor education and psychology, graduating from University of Northern Colorado. She lived, explored and worked in many places and roles, including teaching, recreation, and recreational therapy in Utah, archaeology in the middle east, and singing in a folk-rock duo, "Those Two Women". She couldn't stay away from NOLS, though. In the late 1990s, her step son, Vince (former NOLS Instructor), talked her and her husband, Doug (a Wyoming native), into moving to Lander. She first worked in the Noble Hotel for a year, and has been working as an Admission Officer for NOLS Expeditions since then. In 2002, she journeyed to Alaska for the Prince William Sound Sea Kayaking - Prime. She continues her Admission Officer work, but added the Enrollment Support Supervisor role in 2015. She and Doug have enjoyed making Lander their home - backpacking, hiking, fly fishing, and gardening. She continues to be amazed by the beauty of this land and the power of NOLS.