The National Outdoor Leadership School, more commonly known as NOLS, is a non-profit school dedicated to teaching about nature and about leadership in a wilderness setting. NOLS runs courses on five contients, and has courses for almost all wilderness environments and for almost any age group. NOLS has trained more than 60,000 students.
NOLS was founded in 1965 by Paul Petzolt, a world-famous mountaineer and a member of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. The first facillity opened in Lander, Wyoming, where NOLS is still based today. Initially, NOLS was very military in style - courses were run in "divisions," and standard NOLS gear was army surplus. However, during the 1970s, NOLS grew enormously and its attitude shifted from military to ecological; conservation and preservation began to rank with leadership training in terms of focus. During the 1980s, NOLS continued to improve, working on increasing the professionalism of its staff and increasing the range of courses. In 1999, NOLS purchased the Wilderness Medicine Institute and created NOLS Professional Training.History of NOLS
