Student Alumni

My connection with NatureBridge goes back decades. In late October 1973, as a senior in high school, I joined 27 of my classmates for a week at Yosemite Institute. It wasn’t my first time exploring the great outdoors, or Yosemite for that matter, but it was magical. What made Yosemite Institute so special? Lots of things — learning lessons that wouldn’t have made any sense if we hadn’t actually experienced them, forming bonds with classmates (and teachers!) that never would have happened at school, the unique environment of the Crane Flat campus and the educators, those wonderful people who taught us so much while we just thought we were having fun. And oh my gosh, we had so much fun!

Bob Hansen joined Yosemite Institute in the very early years as assistant program manager. He soon became campus director and spent six years with YI, which would serve as the foundation for a career in nature organizations and park philanthropy. For Bob, the cornerstone of his time with YI was the lifelong friendships and relationships with Yosemite residents, especially the ones built during the season he became the Yosemite Campus Director and was tasked with hiring 12 new educators.

When she was a child on the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s reservation, Cameron Macias would listen to her grandmother tell tales of 100-pound salmon swimming up the Elwha River. Read on for our interview with Cameron, a NatureBridge alum and graduate research assistant at the University of Idaho studying wildlife on the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe reservation.