Welcome to my NOLS Staff Profile!
The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) posted a staff profile on my work as a NOLS Instructor and NOLS Professional Training Program Coordinator.
Check it out: NOLS Staff Profile: Matt Lloyd
Matt Lloyd
Position at NOLS:NOLS Professional Training Coordinator
NOLS Course:Winter Ski Course, 1998
While Matt Lloyd dreamed about working outside when he was younger, he never imagined he would become a NOLS Instructor. On the second-to-last night of his NOLS Winter Ski course, Lloyd’s instructors gathered the group to talk about how they had become NOLS Instructors. “That’s what I want to do,” thought the 2000 University of Vermont grad about living outside and working to preserve the environment. And so he did.
After working at NOLS for almost five years, Lloyd brings a good mix of NOLS perspectives to his current position as a NOLS Professional Training Coordinator. Straight after college, he interned at Headquarters before moving to the admissions office and taking his Instructor course in 2001. Since then, Lloyd has worked in publications, as a program supervisor for NOLS Rocky Mountain, and representing other instructors in the NOLS Instructor Association. “The end product is the most exciting and the most important part, having that experience and teamwork with instructors and students together,” Lloyd says. “But so much goes on behind the scenes that most people never know about.”
Now he gets to participate in both sides, from exploring new routes for customized courses to including specific elements and then taking all of that planning into the field as an instructor.
This avid skier traces his love for the outdoors back to his roots in Scandanavia and Norway, as well as his own backyard in Pennsylvania. “A microcosm of wilderness surrounded by urban,” Lloyd calls his childhood home and its surrounding land. Upon returning from his student course, he discovered survey stakes in these woods and tore them out of the ground. He then wrote the local newspaper and land advocates protesting the development and also admitting his actions. Today, Lloyd’s microcosm stands untouched, and his story motivates and inspires students to value the wilderness and hopefully become involved when necessary.
Lloyd sees NOLS Professional Training as the next adventure, the new peak that furthers his goals and fuels his passion. “I can’t think of a better place to work,” he says. “There are so many interesting and fun people to work with, where you can be yourself and have fun.”
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