Current Apprentices
Dave Clark-Barol, Spanish Apprentice, was born and raised in Falmouth, MA. Both of his parents worked in the school system and was taught from an early age about the value of education. Before heading to Middlebury College in February 2007, he completed the NOLS Fall Semester in the Rockies. It was a formative experience that opened his eyes to the power of wilderness as a classroom and the effectiveness of place-based learning. The experience continued to guide his academic and recreational life during four years at Middlebury. Dave majored in Environmental Studies and minored in Spanish, spending as much of his free time as possible hiking, climbing and skiing in the Green and Adirondack mountains of Vermont and New York. During the ski season he patrolled at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl. In the fall of his junior year, Dave studied for a semester at a local university in Xalapa, Mexico. After graduating in January 2011 he moved to Colorado in search of big mountains and plentiful snow and spent the winter exploring the Highland’s Bowl in Aspen. Dave worked this summer guiding hiking trips in Alaska before returning to Colorado to begin work as an HMI apprentice. When he’s not playing outside, he enjoys cooking Mexican food and playing the cello.
Lindy Hayden, English Apprentice, grew up in southern New Hampshire where her love of the outdoors was fostered during summers on the lakes and riding horses. She went to St. George’s School in Rhode Island and was a member of the cross country and swim teams. Her classmates’ experiences at HMI inspired her to enroll as a student for The Leading Edge program in the summer of 2006. The two following summers she enrolled in NOLS courses in Alaska and Wyoming, after which she decided to pursue a career in outdoor education. In 2011, she graduated from the University of Rochester with a BA in History with a concentration in modern European history. While in college she was an active member and leader of the outing club. She is extremely happy to be back at HMI where her exposure and love of outdoor and leadership education began.
Dan Lane, Wilderness Apprentice, grew up in Concord, New Hampshire. During high school, he took an outdoor education class called ROPE and became inspired to become more involved in outdoor activities. He took time off from the University of Vermont and traveled to Australia to go on a NOLS backpacking course. Upon returning to college, he became very active as a leader in the Outing Club and began working towards a degree in environmental studies. Dan led the freshmen orientation program, TREK, three times while in school. During his last two semesters, he co-taught a wilderness leadership course (WILD) for fifteen undergraduate students. He recently completed his studies at UVM by producing a documentary film about the conflict between the impacts of alpine skiing and the conservation ethics of hiking. In the spring of 2010, he end-to-end hiked the Long Trail from Massachusetts to Canada through Vermont’s Green Mountains and compiled a survey of all overnight sites on the trail. The last three summers, Dan was an overnight site caretaker for the Green Mountain Club in Vermont at different sites on the Long Trail. Dan enjoys backpacking, skiing, fishing, literature, and film.
Megan McFarland, History Apprentice, is from Haverford, PA . She spent her summers in Maine at a girls’ summer camp, which is where she discovered that she loved hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and the smell of fresh air. Megan graduated from Episcopal Academy in 2007 and then started working as a counselor for Kieve-Wavus, a summer camp in Maine. One of her most notable experiences as a counselor there was co-leading the 100 Mile Wilderness trip. Megan attended Bowdoin College, where she played 3 years of varsity lacrosse and traded the 4th year on the team to become a more solid member of Bowdoin’s outing club. In addition to her involvement on the lacrosse team and in the outing club, Megan was the leader of her middle school mentoring program and enjoyed fulfilling different roles for the Admissions Office. This spring, she graduated with a B.A. in History and a minor in Teaching and spent the summer in the San Juan Mountains leading a 3 week multi-sport adventure for Kieve-Wavus. She looks forward to spending the next several months at HMI both feeding her love for outdoor adventures and developing and building the skills required to become a successful teacher.
Sara Russell, Science Apprentice, grew up along the shore of the icy waters of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota where she spent her days biking, hiking, swimming, digging in the dirt, and consuming copious amounts of wild rice and smoked fish. Her love for the outdoors manifested in college at the University of Minnesota; here she discovered her love for research biology- a field she was able to explore through studying worms in Minnesota forests, oceanography in Jamaica, and fiddler crabs in Long Island. Her focus in school was predominantly aquatic ecology and following graduation, Sara worked at an aquarium in Minnesota, quickly realizing she was far more interested in seeing the ocean instead of just talking about it. She spent the next year working as an education coordinator for two marine science education non-profits that operated out of sailboats on Catalina Island and San Francisco Bay; in addition to marine ecology courses, she taught sailing, navigation, kayaking, snorkeling, and hiking. Following a NOLS sailing course in the Sea of Cortez, Sara became fascinated with the interactions between water and land. She fell in love with the ocean’s neighbor -the mountains!- and became a field science instructor at Teton Science School in Jackson, Wyoming and later an educator in Homer, Alaska. Sara heard about HMI while at TSS and is beyond thrilled to be out west again teaching and learning in some of the most beautiful ecosystems on the planet!
A native of Melrose, Massachusetts, Brian Schmitt, Math Apprentice, is excited to have the opportunity to experience the mountains of Colorado with HMI. Brian graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2008 with a BA in Economics and a minor in Latin American Studies and spent the first half of 2007 studying in Argentina. Brian spent his last two years teaching 7th, 8th and 9th grade Mathematics at San Jeronimo Bilingual School (SJBS) in Cofradia, Honduras. While in Honduras he spent his free time exploring Central America, coaching soccer and leading a “school for parents program,” educating parents on topics ranging from finances and education to public health. Before his stint teaching in Honduras, Brian has worked as a basketball coach, an Appalachian Mountain Club trail crew leader and an after school program director for the Boy’s and Girl’s Club in Waltham, MA. In addition to his passions for education and the outdoors Brian enjoys working on carpentry projects, playing ultimate Frisbee, and distance running.
Kay Sherwood, French Apprentice, grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Her middle and high school required French classes for all students, which is where she acquired her knowledge of the language. She traveled to France twice during high school to live with a family and travel around the country. Kay decided that she wanted to come out West for college after a NOLS course in the Wind Rivers in Wyoming, so that she could spend more time in the mountains. She moved out to Colorado to attend Colorado College, where she majored in Environmental Policy and raced mountain bikes for the collegiate team. Since graduating in 2010 from college she has been living in Colorado, most recently in Durango. Her desire to be an apprentice at HMI comes from her semester at the Island School, a high school semester program in the Bahamas, and her experience in College with Sea Education Association, where she sailed from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico while conducting oceanographic research. These two experiences made her realize the value of experiential education. She is excited to be a part of the HMI community, surrounded by inspiring people and beautiful mountains, and to extend her experience as a student in similar learning environments to a teaching/leadership role.