Meet Our Staff

Reggie Bennett is a former U.S. Air Force Survival Instructor (SERE), Class 90-02. During graduation from the USAF Survival Instructor School, he was presented four of five awards for outstanding performance. Extremely dedicated to providing students with excellent survival skills, his unrivaled passion and technical expertise make him one of the best survival instructors in the United States.

Jeff Reagan graduated with Reggie Bennett Class 90-02 as a U.S. Air Force SERE Instructor in July 1990. The job title reflects what they both were trained and certified to teach, global Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. After 20 years of teaching survival to military and other government agencies he retired from active duty and continues to teach survival at Mountain Shepherd. Jeff is dedicated to providing global travelers with specialized survival skills.

Team Building and Women’s Courses

Dina Bennett dedicated more than 20 years to the corporate world training, motivating and coaching sales people and business owners in the health and fitness, printing and newspaper industries. She helped individuals and teams maximize their potential and reach their personal best and in turn, enhance corporate bottom line results. In 2003, Dina attended her first outdoor survival event and made a wild decent on a 1000 foot zip line suspended over 50 feet in the air. This tested her metal as a woman, a leader, and all of the axioms about playing outside your comfort zone to enhance growth and leadership…She has never been the same! During the past 4 years Dina immersed herself in the world of Wilderness Survival Training and discovered the role of leadership became much easier after this training. Sharing the self-reliance and leadership skills that became second nature during survival training have proven essential to her personal growth and professional development.

Favorite Quote:
It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement, there is life, and in change, there is power. – Alan Cohen

Kate Steinbacher, President of The Coaching Advantage, and Partner in Interface Advantage Systems, Inc. is a successful executive coach, business owner, public speaker and trainer. She holds a BA from Stonehill College, MA and is a graduate of Coach U. Kate has been awarded the Professional Certified Coach designation (PCC) from The International Coach Federation. She has experience as a fortune 100 corporate HR manager, trainer and communications specialist. As Cruise Director on board luxury yachts, Kate traveled the world and gained international experience as a public speaker as well as manager of diverse teams to provide extraordinary customer service and bottom line results.

Kate advocates partnership, collaboration, taking action and building on ones strengths and experiences to create a life, a leadership style and work that is fun, flexible, energizing, and contributory and of course, financially rewarding.

Kate is an expert Business survivor and thriver and a novice wilderness survivalist. She has discovered that the two are more similar than she ever believed possible AND that teaching them in tandem creates a brilliant learning atmosphere which exponentially increase ones knowledge and ingrains that knowledge indelibly in both arenas.

Medical Staff

James DeGuzman is a current career medic-firefighter with a large metropolitan fire department with more than 15 years experience in emergency medicine. James has a vast knowledge of technical rescue and is currently assigned to a technical rescue company. James is a former student of Mountain Shepherd Wilderness Survival School and assists in the Hidden Pursuit course. James is also an avid backpacker with more than 20 years experience and has hiked in remote areas including Badlands National Park, Yellowstone, and parts of the Appalachian Trail.