bringing the lake to life

Who We Are

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Year-Round Watershed-based Educational Programs

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A Variety of Cruise and Paddle Options for All Ages based in Ithaca, NY

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discover cayuga lake

Our staff & crew

Bill Foster, Executive Director and Director of Educational Programs

Bill grew up in Ithaca and earned a BS in Environmental Engineering, Cornell ’87. After 16 years working in water resource management with the US EPA and several not-for-profits, he is now focused on community-driven environmental education.

Astrid Jirka, Director of Tourism initiatives and community Outreach

Astrid has diverse experience in eco-tourism, international education, conservation, and the Finger Lakes region hospitality industry. She is a graduate of Cornell University and the School for Int’l Training, majoring in Intercultural and Natural Resource Management – and a yoga instructor too.

Shad CArlson, Master Captain

Capt. Shad loves being on the water! He’s spent the bulk of his career working on boats – from Chicago to the Carribean. He’s also a football coach and devoted father.

Captain Alan Green

Alan has captained on various boats in the Finger Lakes for the last 20 years. He’s also a Quartermaster for the US Coast Guard and was the Director of Development at Binghamton University Maritime College. He’s now happily retired and spending as much time as he can on boats!

Olivea Nicholson
Youth Program Coordinator

Olivea earned a BS in Environmental Science and Psychology from the University of Michigan. She found her passion working in water conservation and education in the Great Lakes Region, often surrounded by large groups of excited children. She is excited to continue learning from the community and exploring her new home in New York.

Eric Pritz
Education Program Coordinator

Eric is a retired history teacher in the Ithaca School District. With Cayuga Lake as part of the Erie Canal Waterway, working with DCL and the Floating Classroom was a natural fit for his classroom curriculum. Now, as DCL Education Coordinator, he’s working with teachers to further integrate classroom curriculum, kicking up rocks in streams for macro invertebrate studies and admiring the life in a drop of water with our students.

Narrators & Crew

Every year we welcome a small handful of local residents to become crew on our boat. They are also the narrators for our eco-cruises and the educators for our Floating Classroom cruises. Full of knowledge about the local area through years of walking the gorges, searching for fossils, studying local history, identifying wildlife and specializing in certain aspects of our region’s unique geology, culture and history, they make our cruises unique and memorable.

Watershed Interns

With a wealth of knowledge and interest in fields ranging from the environmental sciences and management to environmental justice and education, our watershed interns spend the summer working with us and partner organizations to gain more expertise in their future careers.

Youth Crew

Our Youth Crew are local high school student who are learning about the work that we do while also lending a hand in our educational programs by teaching the kids that we work with about our local lake ecology!

DISCOVER CAYUGA LAKE

OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and are governed by a Board of Directors.
We are looking for new board members. Please review this flier and contact us if you are interested!

CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS

President – Steve Kress (Ornithologist, retired)
Vice-President – Carole Erslev (Secondary Science Teacher, retired)
Treasurer – Wayne Gottlieb (Teacher, retired)
Secretary – Jennifer Wilkie (Master Teacher)
Paul Flagg (Ship’s captain, Engineer, retired)
Laura Saunders (FLX Tourism and Real Estate Professional)
Mack Travis (Developer)
Grace Elmore (Legal Office Professional)

Great Experiences with Discover Cayuga Lake

Our Mission

At Discover Cayuga Lake, our mission is to cultivate informed and equitable relationships between people and the watersheds upon which they depend and we do all this while providing memorable, breathtaking family, friend, and community experiences on the beautiful Cayuga Lake.