May 2026 Board Report
NOLS Employee Association (NEA)
May 2026 Board Report
Anna Santoleri, NEA President, Rocky Mountain Program Supervisor, and Field Instructor
Sanjana Govind, NEA Vice President and Field Instructor
About the NEA
Mission: The mission of the NOLS Employee Association is to communicate and advocate for employee views and to work with the NOLS community to promote the school’s mission and values.
Who We Represent: We represent the interests of all NOLS employees below the “Senior Leadership Group” level. This includes Location Staff, HQ Employees, Wilderness Medicine Faculty, and Field Instructors. We give voice to employees who are working every day to bag rations, repair gear, enroll students, process payments, and teach around the world in our outdoor and indoor classrooms.
Number of Dues-Paying Members: 327
Change in Leadership
This spring, Ron Rash stepped down as President of the NEA. The statement he provided is below.
As of March 15, 2026 I, Ron Rash, will no longer serve as the President of the NOLS Employee Association (NEA). This is due to taking on the Program Manager position with NOLS Rocky Mountain. It is a policy of the NEA that NOLS Managers/Directors can not serve on the Board of the NEA due to potential conflict in representing employees to the NOLS Board of Trustees and the Executive Team. I will still be an active member of the NEA and will be the point person for NOLS and the NEA in organizing a float for Lander’s 4th of July parade.
I am honored to have represented the employees of NOLS. One of the achievements that I’m most proud of has been the ability to communicate and advocate for NOLS employees with the NOLS President and Executive Team in a positive and healthy manner. We have used the leadership skill of “communication” at the highest level.
I’m also pleased to announce that Anna Santoleri will step in as interim President of the NEA and Sanjana Govind as interim Vice President until the elections this coming October, 2026.
Anna and Sanjana have already demonstrated a strong vision for the NEA…Join me in welcoming Anna and Sanjana in these new positions as they move the NEA forward.
In this Board Report, we, Anna and Sanjana, would like to introduce ourselves to you all and share our vision for the NEA moving forward.
About the New President and Vice President
Anna Santoleri and Sanjana Govind will serve as interim President and Vice President until the NEA next holds elections. We welcome any input from interested Trustees on ways to strengthen the relationship between the NEA and the NOLS Board of Trustees. In particular, we are interested to hear what additional insights we can provide in this board report, and what successes and insights we can provide an employee perspective on. Further, we hope to meet some of you in Lander at the next State of the School event.
Our contact information is:
Anna Santoleri
Sanjana Govind
More information about our professional and personal backgrounds below.
Anna Santoleri: I started my NOLS journey in 2019 as an IC student. Prior to that, I had worked as both an outdoor educator and classroom teacher, teaching everywhere from Yosemite, to Malaysia, to a women’s prison in Massachusetts, to a project-based learning school in Chula Vista, CA. I came to NOLS to learn more technical skills as an outdoor educator; I’ve stayed with NOLS because the adaptive, interpersonal skills I continue to learn with each course I instruct and every briefing I facilitate are invaluable. I now work as a Hiking and Technical Canyons Instructor and have been a Program Supervisor at the Rocky Mountain branch since the summer of 2023. In addition, I was part of the first Developmental Annual Faculty Position (DAFP) cohort in 2021, and helped edit the latest version of the Leadership Educator Notebook. I joined the NEA board in 2024 both because I like working with Ron, and because it gives me the opportunity to put what I’ve learned from NOLS into practice: actively listening to better understand NOLS employees’ experiences, creating a vision based on what I’m seeing and hearing, and enacting this vision to collaboratively achieve a common goal with those within and beyond the NEA. In addition, it allows me to show deep care for a community that continues to show so much care to me. This community is one of the things that makes NOLS so unique and worth celebrating, and makes me so excited and honored to represent its employees.
Sanjana Govind:
I am from Bangalore in the Southern part of India. I did my WFR and my student course at NOLS India in 2014. After that course I worked as an Instructor In Training for three seasons and took the instructor course in 2018. Outside of NOLS, I started an organic food company, studied interior design, worked as a bike mechanic, led semesters for Where There Be Dragons, and trained in Thai massage. My favourite parts about instructing for NOLS are the people and places I get to become so familiar with in the field. I love building connections and communities that would be unlikely to form anywhere else, and seeing the power of those communities working in sync. I joined the NEA to help and support people of the organisation. I am committed to representing the interests of international instructors and those coming to work in NOLS locations using J-1 visas. NOLS has given me so much through my life, not just a career but community and purpose, and it is truly a pleasure and a privilege to represent all NOLS employees through the NEA.
Our Vision
Re-examining the mission, vision, and role of the NEA:
Clarify what it means to be a member of the NEA
Better understand what matters to NOLS employees,
Better capitalize on the ways we can effectively enact change.
Greater presence in the NOLS employee community: of late, the NEA board has been smaller, has done less outreach, and has focused more on working with NOLS leadership to further employees’ interest. We think this is a critical purpose, and want to continue Ron’s legacy of having a strong relationship with the Executive Team. In addition, we want to become a greater presence in the NOLS community by getting more people on the NEA board who represent different departments and perspectives at the school, as well as posting on social media, updating our website, organizing meet ups, giving out swag, and more. Ultimately, our goal is to gain a more comprehensive sense of what employees care about.
Our Present Initiatives
Board Recruitment: With that, our main focus has been to reconnect with old board members to learn from institutional knowledge, connect with members of the Executive Team to establish foundations for working relationships, and recruit board members to work with us in creating a strategic plan for this upcoming year.
Addressing the Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Instructors: In February, we compiled the document Questions and Suggestions from International Instructors Working in the U.S. + U.S. Instructors Impacted by ICE. This document came out of many conversations with instructors who are NEA members and otherwise, and is intended to represent the range of concerns that increased immigration enforcement brought up for instructors. We sent it to NOLS leadership, who responded by updating the J-1 visa guidelines. We hope that this work can act as a model for NEA initiatives in the future—gathering employee perspectives on a situation, communicating them to those at the school who can enact change, and collaborating with these people to create positive initiatives.
Gratitudes
We would like to thank Ron Rash for the work that he put into the NEA as president, and the belief in both of us that he has continually expressed throughout our time working with him. Ron has a true ability to see the best in any person and any situation, and cares so deeply about nurturing a space for positivity and growth for the people he leads. Because of Ron, we are continuing the gratitude section of the Board Report, because we think that this is a legacy worth preserving. Thank you, Ron!
We would like to thank Molly Barnes, Cody Kaemmerlen, and Jayme Blackburn for connecting with us and sharing their thoughts with us. We’ve really enjoyed these conversations and are excited to have more!
We would like to thank Jen Sall, Anna Haegel, the People Team, Cody Kaemmerlen, and everyone else involved in working with us on the J-1 guidelines. Thank you for taking instructor concerns seriously, and for showing care to them by seeking ways to give more clarity on an ever developing political situation.
