Peter Mayfield
Peter Mayfield is a long-term social entrepreneur deeply passionate about the transformative benefits people experience through a profound connection with nature.
He has journeyed from two decades as a world-class rock climber and guide (1978–1998) to founding and growing CityRock, the world’s first full-service climbing gym (1990–1996). Peter then launched Yosemite Guides, offering eco-tours for park visitors and environmental literacy field trips for school groups (1998–2004).
In 2006, Peter founded Gateway Mountain Center, an innovative nonprofit that has served more than 30,000 youth through environmental literacy, mountain adventure, and nature-based sensory immersion programs at Donner Summit. At Gateway, he developed a clinically supervised, nature-based therapeutic mentoring program for youth and young adults facing severe emotional disturbance, complex trauma, and substance dependence. This became the first program of its kind in the U.S. to secure County Behavioral Health contracts and Medicaid reimbursement, marking a breakthrough in integrating nature-based therapy into mainstream mental health care.
Today, Peter is channeling his decades of experience into NatureUP Health, advancing proven nature-based methods and systems to improve health and wellbeing at scale.
Greg Bernstein
Greg Bernstein leads product development, user experience, and technical implementation of NatureUP Health’s AI-powered nature therapy platform.
Greg’s path to building health technology runs through 30 years of hands-on work connecting people with nature. As a mountain guide, he led people through challenging outdoor experiences. In Yosemite, he served on search and rescue operations. In South America, he worked in environmental and human rights advocacy. Above the Arctic Circle and across the globe, he captured nature’s power as an Emmy Award-winning videographer and filmmaker for clients including National Geographic, ESPN, and environmental organizations.
The most formative chapter was eight years at Gateway Mountain Center, where Greg worked as a therapeutic mentor for youth facing serious emotional disturbance, complex trauma, and suicidal ideation. Starting as a backcountry field guide, he advanced through the mentoring program and into upper management. He developed deep, practiced expertise in motivational interviewing and non-violent communication, working with teenagers who needed authentic human connection above all else.
At NatureUP Health, Greg is building the product he needed at his worst moments: an AI guide that helps people access the transformative power of intentional time in nature, wherever they are.
Robert Suarez
Robert Suarez is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Reuseful, a hybrid venture lab and pre-seed funding firm focused on Waste-to-Value Solutions. He has led award-winning design and innovation teams as an executive and director at IDEO, Planet Home, and Singularity Labs, and as a founding member of technology startups in FinTech, Music, and Action Sports.
Robert holds a BFA in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University and an MS in Biomimicry from Arizona State University. He holds multiple design awards and drives solutions that integrate social, environmental, and educational considerations while proving that purpose and profit can combine for the greatest impact.
Nigel Snoad
Nigel Snoad brings 25 years of experience building products and businesses at the intersection of AI, science, and social impact. He has incubated and launched products and businesses that make people, communities, and the planet healthier and safer, repeatedly building teams that generate sustainable impact at massive scale by integrating software, AI, science, data, automation, policy, operations, and design.
His career spans roles as soil scientist, physicist, AI researcher, privacy specialist, climate lobbyist, humanitarian, and startup founder, all united by curiosity and a focus on health and planetary wellbeing at scale.
Michael Karch, M.D., FAAOS
Dr. Michael Karch is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at Mammoth Orthopedic Institute in California’s Eastern Sierra, a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and a recognized inventor and author. His career combines hands-on surgical practice with a drive to advance health through innovation.
Practicing in Mammoth Lakes, one of California’s premier mountain and outdoor recreation communities, Dr. Karch brings a physician’s perspective grounded in the realities of active outdoor lifestyles and the relationship between nature, physical activity, and lifelong health.
Kathleen Tebb, PhD
Dr. Kathleen Tebb is a developmental psychologist and professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a long-time collaborator with NatureUP Health founder Peter Mayfield and co-author of the peer-reviewed paper "Out of the Clinic and into the Woods," published in Ecopsychology, which establishes the evidence base for nature-based therapeutic mentoring.
Dr. Tebb’s research focuses on youth health outcomes and program evaluation. She has provided mentorship to program leaders and supported preliminary research validating the Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies model, the clinically supervised program that became the foundation for NatureUP Health’s approach.