In addition to the executive board and the programming committee, SStS's staff consists of well-qualified trip leaders and a director's assistant. SStS recognizes the importance of the trip leaders' responsibilities not only to provide leadership, safety, and guidance, but also to inspire students to meet the inherent challenges of traveling through developing countries and/or equivalent domestic venues.

The leaders of Students Shoulder to Shoulder are an exceptional group of educators. They are selected for their extensive experience in working with students, grasp of experiential education, and in-country knowledge. Their experience in each region and personal connections to the NGO's provide students with unparalleled experiences.

Trip leaders are first screened through a formal application process (e.g. written recommendations, interviews, personal statements, past experience leading students, etc.). Potential trip leaders are also judged on their ability to effectively organize pre-trip logistics, lead in-country activities and guide post-trip presentations. After a trip leader is selected in this process, each one must successfully complete a training program designed by SStS's programming committee.

To keep operating costs low, SStS employees are not paid. The organization consists of passionate personnel volunteering time and expertise in service of SStS's mission. Students Shoulder to Shoulder covers the full expenses of trip leaders, including airfare, housing, and other accommodations.

Bob Bandoni
Executive Director
Bob Bandoni has been the assistant headmaster at Vail Mountain School since 1984. He has directed the middle and upper divisions, taught academic courses in both, and supervised academic department chairs. He continues to serve on the Ethics Committee for the Vail Valley Medical Center. Bob teaches classroom based ethics seminars for all upper school students. These seminars follow a curriculum that he wrote, progressing from introductory topics in ethics to the application of decision-making principles and the philosophical foundations of global ethics. Students Shoulder to Shoulder's fundamental tenets are a blend of Bob's work in school leadership, years of teaching ethics to adolescents, and a passion for challenging and motivating youth to become global citizens.

Mike Beerntsen (Kenya)

Director of Programming
Mike Beerntsen began his work with teens in 1994 as a backcountry guide for Packard High Adventure Base. He followed his passion for the outdoors and today's youth to the Outward Bound, where he worked from 1998-2002. His positions included lead instructor, staff trainer, course director, and program developer. This work with Outward Bound gave Mike management experience organizing and supervising trips. Prior to coming to Vail Mountain School in 2002, Mike taught history and US literature for a year at Trailhead Wilderness School for at-risk boys. Mike has taught U.S. and European history as well as several English classes at Vail Mountain school. He now heads the history department at VMS. During the summer of 2007 he led the first SStS trip to India, and since 2009, he has led the SStS trip to Kenya.

Ryan Gray (Nepal)

Director of Curricular Development
Ryan Gray taught at the Lowell Whiteman School and Kent Denver School before his current tenure at Vail Mountain School, where he teaches world history, Globalization, and Conflicts in the Middle East. In addition to his teaching role, Ryan has been a high school boy's and girl's soccer coach and a telemark skiing coach. He has been fortunate enough to travel around the world as a student in Denmark, a raft guide in Austria, archaeologist in Peru and Spain, historian in Southeas Asia, Turkey, Bolivia, and Tibet. Ryan has led SStS groups to Nepal since our first year, establishing an in-depth relationship with our sponsoring NGO: Taksindu Social Welfare (TSW).

Slade Cogswell (Bolivia)

Director of Operations and Technology
Slade was born in Vail, raised at the Vail Mountain School, educated by the world, and he recently returned home to work alongside some of his mentors at VMS. During his years away, Slade traveled in fifty countries and lived in Mexico, Chile, Denmark, Bolivia, India and Italy. In 2001, freshly graduated from Colgate University, Slade started a series of travels that would lead him to Students Shoulder to Shoulder. That adventure involved driving a 1979 Pinzgauer (troop-carrying Swiss military vehicle) from his home in Vail to Patagonia. Inspired by the developing world, Slade began leading summer trips and semester programs for "Where There Be Dragons." After three years, three continents, five programs, and pioneering two programs for Dragons, Slade was ready to return home to Vail, but he would never forget the value of experiencing the world with others and the joy of service work with youth. Slade currently teaches at the Vail Mountain School and is the coordinator of the Bolivia program.

Becca Hooper

Executive Assistant
Becca moved to Colorado in 2002 to be a personal assistant. In 2008, Becca began work at Vail Mountain School as Bob Bandoni's Administrative Assistant and also as Executive Assistant for Students Shoulder to Shoulder. Becca has always worked with and had a passion for the youth in the community in which she resides. She feels that global citizenship is vital for the next generation to embrace and engage.