Our Founders and Staff


“I don’t know what you do but my son is walking taller.”

Our Number One Core Belief is it is not the bricks and mortar that determines whether magic is going to happen in your child’s education, it is the quality of the people within the institution.

We believe we have developed a dream-team of people that make your child’s education real, relevant, and wow.
This synergistic team has content knowledge ripened with wisdom; the wisdom that only comes with boots on the ground experience having prosperous careers and business ownership the fields they teach. Our staff are masters in their chosen fields of study making what they teach is real and relevant.

Being real and relevant is key but it Is not enough, there is a third foundation that students need in their mentors to make magic happen; it is the quality of “WOW!” It is not enough for a mentor to be good at the skills they model, but to have a love for doing it, sharing it with others, and seeing the wonderment in their students’ eyes, and share their joy in having success after the struggle. You will notice most of the staff are grandparents and naturally develop that grandparent role with their students.

Most importantly these are the trustworthy ethical happy prosperous people we have working with your children and teens.

“This has become such a part of me I can’t believe I have only been a part of it since February.” Josh at the end of the Alaskan Bush Camp.”


Founders and Elders



Toni on her mare.

“Tell me I can’t and I’ll show you how wrong you are.”

Toni King: Founder, COO, Subject Area Specialist, Entrepreneur

Toni has worked with our camps and school since 2008 and NOLI is a reality because of her temperament, talents, knowledge, experiences, vision, and grit. She, through her hard work and goal setting, bought her first home at age 19, when her kids were little she owned a child care business, she has founded successful corporations, lead leadership teams in large organizations (both for-profit and not of profit), and coaching business leaders. Most importantly, she is passionate about teaching both students and their parents there are many paths beside the standard path for the kids to pursue happiness and the path less taken my be the best path for your children. Toni is a grandmother and stepped into that role for many students and parents.

Read More about Toni A. King


Brian King.

Brian D. King: Founder, Director of Education, Core-Mentor,

A visionary, a teacher of teachers, a polymath, a passionate educator. In late 1970 he knew he wanted to build a school developed the kind of people that raised the Greatest Generation. Over the next four decades, he worked on himself building content knowledge both in formal education and boots on the ground learning by doing under masters in their field. He pursued fields he believed would serve as engines for making foundational subjects real, relevance, and wow. He worked industry, trades, and agricultural production.

His time, energy, and passion have also spent exploring how diverse core routines and emotions change and repair the structures in the brain.

For the past two decades, his NOLI School has been a proving ground for giving k-12 students the tools to pursue a future they envision.

Read More about Brian D. King



John Mahkewa

“The actions we do, our words, our thoughts all matter in the lives of children we reach and on their grandchildren that are yet to be born.”

John Mahkewa: Elder, Mentor, Artice, Story Teller

John is a Tewa/Hopi is a member of the Hopi Nation. He grew up watching his grandmother make pottery and telling her stories passed down through the generations which he passes down to our students through is writing and storing telling. The children walk differently after listing to his stories. He is a father and a grandfather.

Read More John Mahkewa



Mentors and Subject Area Specialist


Archie C. Miller: Subject Area Specialist – Trapper, Hunter, Off-Grid Living, Alaskan Bushcraft, and Tracking Mentor

Archie Miller a second-generation Alaskan trapper has spent his life, over 50 years trapping, hunting, and living off the land. His work is a series of trap lines and cabin roughly covering 100-miles and are 150-miles from pavement deep in the interior of the Alaskan Bush. Archie is a father and grandfather.

Read More about Archie C. Miller


Casey Hufstader

Casey Hufstader: Equine and Packtrain Director, Mentor

Casey is a fourth-generation rancher, packer, and Oregonian (Elmira, Oregon). He spends much of his year packing and guiding in the mountains of Oregon.

Read More about Casey Hufstady



Mike Brewer

Real personal power comes the moment you realize it doesn’t matter how you feel about putting in the work, only that you do it anyway. I know it’s hard. Do it anyway.

Michael Brewer – Subject Area Specialist – Tactical and Logistical Solutions Mentor

All of our instructors are masters in their fields and earned that title through living what they teach. Michael Brewer is an outstanding example. Michael served in the US Army as a Special Operations soldier, as well as serving with three separate US Intelligence Agencies as a counterterrorism targeter and clandestine operations specialist. He is one of those people that earned my respect before we met. Several years ago people from all over the US told us we needed to meet Michael. Before contacting Mike, I checked his background and with every rock, I turned over fiction seemed more believable than what I was finding. But he is the real deal. Like most combat soldiers and particularly decorated Special Ops soldiers, they don’t talk about his experiences, but believe me, everything he teaches he is a master at. Michael is a father of preteen boys.

Read More about Michael Brewer




“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.”

Jack Spriggs Jr – Subject Area Specialist – Trapping and Bushcraft

Like most of our staff, he grew up living what they mentor. He has raised his family on the same farm he grew up on the eastern New York shore of Lake Ontario and the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Farming, gardening, and the outdoors have been my family’s lifestyle for generations. My wife of 33 years, along with our four children and two grandsons share our 150-year-old farmhouse. Trapping has been a way of life for him since he was 14 years old.

Read More about Jack Spriggs Jr.




Northwestern Outdoor Leadership Institute (NOLI) Teacher Certification Training

Do You Want to Teach But Are Dismayed by What Has Become of the Teaching Profession? Do you believe the standard model school does not truly prepare our students for success as adults? Do you know kids that once had a thirst for learning, but now hate school? Do you believe that students would be better served if they had a curriculum custom-designed to address their personal goals and learning styles? Do you know teachers that had a love for teaching but now dread going to work? It does not have to be that way. If you want to teach but want a different model {cleck to learn more.}(https://northwesternoutdoorleadershipinstitute.com/staff/teacher_training.html)

“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.” — R. Buckminster Fuller

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
—Benjamin Franklin