Outing Club
at the Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center

Several Bowdoin faculty, staff, alumni, students, and friends help teach in the tele program. Below are bios of our instructional staff for the '11-'12 season.

Matt O'Donnell
Associate Editor, Bowdoin magazine; directs the tele program for the BOC; PSIA Level III certified, Telemark and Alpine; WFR; AIARE Level I Avalanche; has taught skiing for more than 20 years; is a little obsessed the past couple years with cycling, running, and triathlons. Matt is founder of a literary nonprofit called From the Fishouse. He lives with his family in Pittston, Maine.

Michael Woodruff '87
Director of the Bowdoin Outing Club; former competitive white water paddler, ACA certified Whitewater Instructor Trainer; WEMT; PSIA Level I, Telemark; AIARE Level I Avalanche. Mike, also a burgeoning organic farmer, lives on a farm in Brunswick, Maine, with his fantastic (and very patient) wife, Lucretia (former Co-Director of the BOC), and their sons Finnegan, Seamus, and Daire, and daughter Maeve.

Todd Richards
Was a long-time Sugarloaf instructor and a PSIA Tele Examiner Training Squad member; PSIA Level III, Telemark; PSIA Level II, Alpine; has been teaching skiing for over 20 years. Lives in Bristol, Maine, where he runs his family's art gallery, with his artist wife, Sarah, and their nine-year-old son, Sammy. Fanatical cyclist and not a bad paddler. Grills a mean cheeseburger.

Megan Hayes '03
Former Assistant Director of Bowdoin Outing Club; PSIA Level I Telemark; AIARE Level I Avalanche; WFR; Registered Maine Sea Kayaking Guide; ACA certified sea kayak instructor. Megan lives and works in Portland, Maine.

Devin Farkas
Assistant Director, Bowdoin Outing Club. PSIA Level I, Telemark. Devin grew up in the New York's Hudson Valley. He's led backpacking, rock climbing, winter camping and ice climbing trips throughout New England, backpacking trips in the Wyoming Rockies, canoe trips in southern Ontario, and sea kayaking trips on Lake Superior. Devin joined the BOC staff after graduating from Hamilton in 2010, where he led the ropes course training and telemark ski program.

Becca Austin '10
Assistant Director, Bowdoin Outing Club; As a kid spent winter breaks alpine skiing and snowboarding with her tele-skiing Grandparents in Colorado. Becca picked up the free-healing style in high school and has been hooked ever since; Also a registered Maine Whitewater Guide and whitewater enthusiast.

Matt Klingle
Associate Professor of History & Environmental Studies. Faculty Website. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and lived in Berkeley, California, and Seattle, where he taught telemark and alpine skiing at The Summit at Snoqualmie. Hanger-on and occasional instructor with the BOC Telemark Class off and on since 2001. Avid tele skier, backpacker, cyclist and newly-reborn fisherman who loves hauling bass and trout of Maine's rivers. Lives in Brunswick with his wife and fellow historian, Connie Chiang, who also teaches at Bowdoin, and their two young children, Ben and Anna.

Maya Jaafar '07
Moved back to Maine after teaching art and outdoor education at the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia, for three years. She learned to telemark ski with the BOC in 2007 and has been promoting the freeheeling lifestyle ever since. She even dropped a knee in the middle of Washington, D.C., during the 2010 "Snowpocalypse!" Maya is a recent NOLS Outdoor Educator alumna, and currently works as the Middle School Nordic Ski coach at the Waynflete School in Portland, where she is also a substitute teacher.

Frank Pizzo '06
Head Coach, Bowdoin Sailing.

Sam Howe '11
Sam Howe has been telemarking longer than Finnegan Woodruff has been alive. His telemark instruction awards include "Best Wardrobe and Facial Hair" (BOC Telemark Program) and "Director of Boneless Skiing" (Mad River Glen Telemark Team). Other awards are welcome.

Lucia Cowles '12
Lucia is a senior English major, and a third year Telemark Ski Instructor. She was introduced to the freeheel world in 2005 as a student at the High Mountain Institute. Since then she has quietly amassed a catalogue of tips on skiing and instruction from Swiss guides, backcountry shredders in Colorado, former NOLS instructors, the PSIA Level I exam, and Bowdoin's own Matt O'D, Mike Woodruff, and Sam Howe. Lucia lives in Brunswick, where she reads a lot, babysits for three awesome kids and their rabbits, manages a student queer art and literary magazine, and plans theme parties.

Cal Pershan '12

Adam Berliner '13

Finnegan Woodruff
Finn is the 13-year-old rippin' son of BOC Director Mike Woodruff. He's been tele skiing for five years, and if it weren't for an age restriction, he'd already have his PSIA Level I teaching cert. It's questionable whether he jams harder on his fiddle or his skis.