Ms. Liesl A. Schernthanner

Organization:

Address:  Idaho

Telephone: (208) 774-5292

Email:  antarctican.org.president@protonmail.com;

Bio:

Having grown up with an Austrian father, Canadian-Mainer mother, and five siblings in Sun Valley, Idaho, Liesl Schernthanner learned to enjoy hard work, great outdoors, snow, and sunshine – all great precursors to working in Antarctica. Years of successful ski racing earned her a full-ride scholarship to University of Alaska Anchorage, where she was an All-American Athlete and student of Economics and Anthropology. Upon graduating, she did applied human-environmental research in Alaska, Washington, North Carolina, and Nevada. In 1995, however, she took a sabbatical from research to work as a contract laborer in Antarctica, and never went back to her “real job.” Antarctica-the place, people, and lifestyle-captured her interest and she continued working for station operations at McMurdo, field camps, Palmer, South Pole; then took on a conservation role at historic sites on the peninsula. Among her ice work titles, she has been a Fuelie, Operation Manager, Winter Site Manager, Communications Supervisor, and Conservator, and in life she claims to be a factotum. Liesl now spends most of her time in Obsidian, Idaho, with her Welsh husband, Michael D. Powell, another Antarctic sojourner. She has worked many seasons on the ice, met her husband at South Pole, and has also spent time at the bottom of the earth with two of her sisters. She feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to work there – common feelings for Antarctican Society members.