Staff Profile | Tod Schimelpfenig

STAFF PROFILE Tod Schimelpfenig

By Anne McGowan Development Communications Coordinator

“I ’m one of the people who saw 30 Days to

Survival on TV and read the LIFE magazine article on Paul Petzoldt,” said Tod

Schimelpfenig, NOLS Wilderness Medicine Curriculum Director, explaining what kicked off a 47-year-long career at NOLS.

Raised in a suburban New Jersey family who “didn’t do much outdoors,” Tod was 16 in 1970 when the film and story piqued his interest in NOLS. “I wanted to experience the challenge, the wilderness, and especially the ‘survival’ experience,” Tod said. “I thought of it as a rite of passage.”

The Wind River Wilderness course he signed up for was “an arduous adventure”—just what he was looking for. “We post-holed, crossed wild rivers, climbed and rappelled with gold-line rope around our waists, and cooked on fires.”

An instructor by 19, Tod went on to hold jobs at the NOLS Rocky Mountain campus and world headquarters that ranged from issue room help to purchasing agent, branch director to the first risk-management director, all while instructing students on field and wilderness medicine courses.

Those field courses led Tod to wilderness medicine, when he realized those were among the most difficult challenges he would face–and where he lacked experience. “It was much easier to hone my climbing skills than to learn how to help the ill or injured in the wilderness,” Tod said. “I’d joined a volunteer ambulance service during college. After several years,

I found myself teaching an early version of the Wilderness First Responder course for NOLS field instructors. Now, I’ve been a practicing EMT in both Emergency Medical Services and Search and Rescue for 46 years. And I’m still at it.”

He’s also still instructing NOLS Wilderness Medicine courses, in addition to determining all wilderness medicine curriculum in his position as curriculum director. “I teach. I talk with other wilderness medicine experts. I do a lot of research and I decide what should be incorporated into the curriculum,” he explained. He has also served on the board of the Wilderness Medical Society and authored NOLS Wilderness Medicine.

While he relishes the challenges of his curriculum work, it’s teaching that holds a place in his heart. “Leading wilderness courses at a young age was the best job I’ve ever had; the independence, the adventure, the sense of serving a mission. It just doesn’t get any better.” Until it did. In 2012, Tod worked on the first—and so far, only— father-son instructor team with his son Dave, one of his four adult children with his wife, Betsy.

Tod’s planned retirement has been delayed as he helps NOLS Wilderness Medicine navigate the challenge of the pandemic. If he works into 2021 it will be 50 years since his first course. With such a varied resume, how does Tod want to be remembered? “That I served the mission with good expedition behavior,” he responded.

Anne McGowan grew up camping and hiking with her family in Pennsylvania. She followed her love of words and books to a career in writing. Top: Tod early in his NOLS career. Bottom: With son and fellow NOLS instructor Dave. Courtesy of Tod Schimelpfenig

WILDERNESS QUIZ

QUESTION | What state in the USA has the most 14,000-foot peaks? How many does it have? Answer on page 35