Interview With
Mike Cohen
Timberlane was founded in 1961 and has been operating in the same location since. I started with Timberlane in 1985, and my wife joined along in 1990. Before it was a camp for boys, Timberlane was a small fishing resort, and some of our cabins and buildings are original log cabins dating back to the early 1900s. Of course, they’ve all been substantially renovated in the intervening years.
We are on 300 thickly wooded acres about 6 miles north of Minocqua, Wisconsin. Minocqua is roughly 200 miles north of Madison, WI. From the airport in Minneapolis, we are a 4 hour drive. From the Chicago area, we’re about a 6 hour drive.
We believe camp should be a place where any camper, regardless of his interests or abilities, can feel safe, comfortable, and accepted. Camp is a place for kids and adults to make life-long friendships and to explore beyond their perceived comfort zones and learn new things. We are genuinely non-competitive at camp. With boys, what that tends to mean is that when it comes to things like sports, we never hold try-outs. We think kids should enjoy playing, and that includes developing their skills so they know they’re improving at the sport. And when it comes to games, our campers try their best, they are good sports, they enjoy the camaraderie of being on a team, and they have fun. The score never matters at camp.
We have a huge range of activities the kids are able to choose from. The boys select 4 activities that they keep for about 6 days. We do this selection process at camp 3 times per each 4-week session. We are on a beautiful secluded lake with 2000’ of shoreline. Our waterfront is where the boys can waterski, sail, swim, canoe and kayak, and go fishing. We have a myriad of team and individual sports including baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, floor hockey, lacrosse, tennis, golf, and gymnastics. We also have weight training, cardio, and yoga for guys who want to get into better shape during the summer. Adventurers will love our rock climbing program that utilizes our huge 70’ tall outdoor climbing tower, and our enormous indoor bouldering cave. We also have a cool mountain biking program that goes out on the trails in and around camp as well as our own pump track in camp. And we have target sports like archery and riflery. And if you want to express your creativity, we have arts & crafts, pottery, model rocketry, digital photography, and guitar. And in addition to this huge in-camp program, we have an incredible wilderness trips program. Our campers can choose from river canoeing, lake canoeing, backpacking, rock climbing and sea kayaking trips that go all over Wisconsin, Minnesota, the upper peninsula of Michigan and southern Canada. Our trips range from 3 – 12 days in length, and crank up the challenge as the boys get older and more experienced. This opportunity to get into the wilderness and see some incredible places and wildlife is truly a unique and magical experience. We know kids today have very limited chances like this, so we’re very proud of this major aspect of our camp.
We know for sure that the staff is the most important component of a successful summer for our boys. So, we’re very meticulous in the process of hiring them. We have about 85 staff members in total at camp. A large number of our counselors are former campers, and each summer we have well over 80% of our staff returning from the previous summer. So while we don’t have a lot of spaces to fill each summer with brand new staff, we do take our time and go through a rigorous interview and screening process. We use a competency based interview model that was developed by a professional human resource consulting group. It helps us identify a candidate’s strengths in 8 core competencies that we require of our staff. These competencies include things like Leadership, Compassion for Children, Communication Skills, Sound Judgment, etc. We have 100s of applications to choose from, and we connect with many candidates via referrals from current staff members. The process also includes reference and background checks, so we feel we have a solid knowledge of our new staff before welcoming them to our community.
We get that question a lot. We think Summer Camp is important to the development of a happy, capable, social, and confident child…today more than ever. So we encourage parents to take the time to find the right camp, but we applaud any parent who allows their kids to have this enriching and crucial experience. Timberlane is a place that can appeal to boys with varying levels of interests. We have the super athletes as well as the kids who are not into sports. We have the ultra creative and artistic boys as well as the guys who struggle to draw stick figures. We see so many kids with a wide range of interests and abilities, and they come together as a tight family at camp. And that’s not something you tend to see very often anywhere else. Timberlane does afford kids the chance to take a step back from typical urban or suburban life. We’re unplugged at camp, which means no phones, no computers, no texting or emails, no televisions, and no video games. While kids can have a music device at camp, that’s for in the cabin only, so no ear buds while they walk around from activity to activity. If you’re a parent, you KNOW how great that is! But it’s so much more than ear-buds..it’s talking and interacting, it’s moving around and being active, it’s trying new things and expanding horizons, and most significantly, it is social development and the chance to make the closest, longest-lasting friendships ever. More to the question…why Timberlane? As I said before, our staff is what we take the most pride in.These are young adults who are with us for all the right reasons. They’re very well trained, and we stay on top of current thinking about youth development and leadership. Our former campers who are now counselors remember what it was like when they were kids, and want so much to give back and provide their campers with the same positive experience they had. They’re fun, they’re caring, and they understand and respect the enormous impact they will have on your son. Timberlane is a fantastic facility in a beautiful part of the world. But our staff is the best reason to choose our camp.
