Leadership

Yosemite Institute Director Leigh Westerlund

As the director of Yosemite Institute, Leigh oversees 60 staff members, a $5.5 million budget, and external partners. She unofficially holds the record for most Institute capacities filled while in Yosemite, including bus driver, site coordinator, field educator, campus cleaner, program director, operations director, and interim NatureBridge president.

Born and raised in Kansas City, Leigh enjoyed car camping with her family and stayed close to nature as an outing club member at Washington University in St. Louis. After a brief post-graduation stint in the retail industry, Leigh gave in to her explorer’s spirit and found work as the valley site coordinator with Yosemite Institute.She would later take a temporary break from this position and use the time to round out her environmental pedigree, traveling 1,000 miles on a sail boat from New Zealand to Tonga, backpacking through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Thailand, Cambodia, and earning a master’s degree in environmental education. In 1997, Leigh returned to Yosemite Institute as the program director.

Leigh exemplifies environmental stewardship every day with husband Erik, Yosemite National Park interpreter, and children Beck and Madia in their solar-paneled, straw bale house with compost and garden projects underway.

Yosemite Institute Campus Board Chair Allan Prager

Allan is Secretary of the NatureBridge Board and Chair of the Yosemite Institute Board.  Allan’s relationship with NatureBridge began in 1997, when he worked on a three-person team of volunteers from Harvard Community Partners (composed of Northern California alumni of Harvard Business School) that helped devise a governance structure for NatureBridge and its three campuses. In 2000 he joined the Yosemite Institute board, where today his focus is on realizing the dream of building a new, world-class environmental education center in Yosemite, while supporting staff efforts to sustain operational excellence despite the fires, floods, rock falls and more mundane challenges associated with this iconic national park.  He joined the NatureBridge Board in October 2002.

Allan brings to NatureBridge a lifelong relationship with Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada.  His first trip to Yosemite was at age eight, and for several years after that his family’s vacations were pack trips in the High Sierra. Years later, Allan and his wife, Kit, were married in New York, but nevertheless made a point of spending part of their honeymoon in Yosemite. They have a daughter and a son, both of whom attended NatureBridge programs.

A San Francisco native, Allan graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School. He worked as a strategic management consultant for many years, primarily in San Francisco, after stints in New York, Brazil, and Chicago. He then served as founding CEO of two successful start-up companies, one in medical software and the other in dietary supplements.  He resides with his wife, Kit, in Orinda, CA.

Yosemite Institute Campus Board Of Directors