The Listening Point Foundation will soon undertake an important change. Our Executive Director, Alanna Dore, has served LPF for the last twelve years and has seen our organization grow and prosper as it fulfills its mission to further Sig’s legacy of wilderness education. Under Alanna’s able management, we have seen the Listening Point Foundation develop its programs, increase its membership, and acquire the Sig and Elizabeth Olson home in Ely for our permanent headquarters. We are grateful to Alanna for her devoted work, and we are happy to know she will
continue to stay close to LPF in her retirement, beginning July 1, 2018.

The Listening Point Foundation board is happy to announce that a new executive director has been chosen to continue the work of the organization. We are delighted and proud to introduce Steffi O’Brien. She will begin to work with Alanna in January to learn the many roles of the Executive Director, and she will assume the full responsibility of the job in July, 2018, when Alanna steps down.

Steffi is a graduate of Colgate University with a B.A. in Geography and Music. At Minnesota State University at Mankato, she received her M.S. in Experiential Education, as well as her Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Science (GISc). She will complete work for her Professional Science Master in GISc, in May 2018.

Steffi brings myriad skills to her new position, not the least of which is her love of the North Country and the works of Sigurd Olson. In 2015, Steffi took an important step to help advance Sig’s wilderness legacy. At the LP headquarters in Ely, she worked with Sig’s extensive map collection as part of a capstone project for her Master’s degrees. Through this work, she has been able to tell an important part of the story of Sig’s influence on the preservation of important natural and wilderness areas across North America and Canada. Sig’s philosophy has significantly contributed to her views of how humans connect and relate to the natural world, and the important role that wilderness plays throughout our lives.

Steffi brings intelligence, energy, organizational skills, and strong leadership ability to any task she undertakes. In addition to her skills integrating geospatial technologies and experiential learning, Steffi can pull together research and active learning experiences to design plans and programs that will help the Listening Point Foundation develop its own technologies to best implement its goals for a vibrant future. She has strong analytical skills and excellent people skills, having worked as a wilderness guide at YMCA Camp Warren, where, in addition to introducing young people to the wilderness world, she directed the Counselor-in-Training program and worked in other leadership roles.

LPF friends and supporters have had a chance to meet Steffi when she was our keynote speaker at our spring luncheon in April, 2017 in St. Paul, and at our fall dinner in Ely in September. Her presentation “Wilderness Journeys Past to Present: Exploring the Map Collection of Sigurd F. Olson” was enjoyed by all.

We are delighted to welcome Steffi to the Listening Point Foundation!