By Cindy Mindell

MADISON – When the new director of Camp Laurelwood – Connecticut’s only Jewish overnight camp — arrives on Feb. 1, it will be a homecoming of sorts for Ari Golub, who last worked in the administration office in 2005 as assistant director. He credits his predecessor, out-going director Ruth Ann Ornstein, for his decision to take the unexpected turn that landed him on his professional path.

A Hamden native, Golub actually set out to become an accountant, enrolling at Bryant College in Smithfield, R.I. in 1994. Home for summer break after freshman year, he got a job with Ornstein at the JCC of Greater New Haven day camps in Woodbridge and realized that he had found his niche. “The following semester, I walked into accounting class and was bored stiff,” Golub recalls. “I missed working with kids and decided to change my career path. I loved the teaching, mentoring, and coaching of kids, so it made sense for me to go into education.”

Golub eventually transferred to Southern Connecticut State University, returning to his JCC job every summer, and graduated with a Bachelors degree in education and communications in 2000. Since then, he has worked in several U.S. Jewish communities, overseeing and expanding youth and camping programs. He spent four years at the Weinstein JCC in Richmond, Va., then decided to try a year or classroom teaching. But he soon recognized that his forte was in the recreational aspect of working with children. He spent the next two summers in Madison, working as assistant director at Camp Laurelwood.

“I became a day camp director because of Ruth Ann,” he says. “She took a shot on someone who had never worked with kids – outside of being a ski instructor – and allowed me to explore being a counselor, specialist, and director at a day camp, as well as a lot of different opportunities throughout the year. I got to learn what it truly meant to work with kids and families, and I’ve been able to take those qualities and expand on them over the years. Then Ruth Ann allowed me to come back to Laurelwood and do what I love to do: working with staff, working with kids, getting to be the day-to-day operational person to make sure that the kids were having these experiences every day. I’ll never forget what she has done for me in that regard.”

Golub married and moved with his wife, Heather, to Maryland, then to Boynton Beach, Fla. to oversee youth programming at the Mandel JCC of the Palm Beaches. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 2009, where Golub has since served as director of day camping and children’s programs at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beechwood, Ohio. He was selected as a 2012 fellow of the Jewish Experiential Leadership Institute, a joint program of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Jewish Community Center Association. The Golub’s are the parents of two children.

“Ari has a proven track record of success and exceeding expectations at every level of camping,” says Paul Schatz, vice president of the Laurelwood board. “He has tremendous vision. Ari is intensely passionate, energetic, and enthusiastic about Jewish camping and the incredibly positive impact it has on the lives of campers, their families, and the community. In short, Camp Laurelwood hired a potential superstar and game-changer. We are thrilled to have Ari join the team.”

With 20 years of experience in youth and camp programming, Golub has had a lot of opportunity to sift through the ingredients of a winning curriculum.

“There’s no one particular secret to making camp great,” he says. “You have to look at the kinds of experiences you want your campers and staff to take away that you think are going to be life-altering. It’s all about how we make them better human beings and individuals, if that is building stronger skill sets, growing relationships, becoming more responsible or independent – what are we doing as a staff to set the campers up for success?”

As critical, he notes, is choosing and cultivating the best-fitting staff, who can make or break a camp.

“It doesn’t matter how great your camp director is or what programs you’re offering or the facilities you have,” Golub says. “If you do not have the right staff to guide the campers throughout their experiences at camp, you’re only going to be average. You have got to make sure that the staff you hire and the development you’re doing with them are in line with your vision and goals for camp.”

The son of a Laurelwood alumna, Golub didn’t experience overnight camp as a kid, preferring to go to day camp. But his first stint at Laurelwood showed him how potent the overnight camp spirit can be in building community and creating lifelong impact – for example, the “Big O” all-camp team competition, which serves as a central and unifying tradition.

“In every day camp that I’ve worked, we talk about what traditions we can set up for generations to come,” Golub says. “We want kids to come into our own little community and have something very special that they can’t get anywhere else. The community of a camp is very important – different than kids just coming to your camp and you’re overseeing them. You want them to feel connected to your camp when they’re coming as well as when they become alumni later on.”

Golub’s first day back at Laurelwood will be marked with this kind of focus.

“This is a Jewish camp and we have to be able to provide campers with some type of Jewish experience that they are looking for and that is non-threatening,” he says. “If that means a stronger connection to Israel or more interest in Hebrew or what it means to be living in a Jewish environment – that’s for us to work out with them. Based on our Jewish values, we are building kehilah – Jewish community – within our camp. We talk about hachnasat orchim [welcoming guests] all the time. We want to be a welcoming environment to everyone, we want to bestow kindness onto others, and we want to teach our staff what that means. How do you instill the importance of tzedakah and other mitzvot within a community, both at camp as well as within the larger Jewish and Connecticut communities? Laurelwood is at the heart of that in so many ways and we have to get back to those fundamental Jewish values that we hold dear.”

Laurelwood will continue to see the major capital improvements initiated over the past year, as well as expanded arts and sports programming.

“We are thrilled to have Ari on board, as his background and experience are critical for us at this time, when we have so much going on,” says Scott Cooper, Laurelwood’s board president. “Everyone knows that Camp Laurelwood is on the move and that there is a lot going on here. Ari has the skill set and experience not only in program implementation, but in all facets of running a camp, and he will need to put all of his skills to work. We are very excited to have him lead us forward through our 80th year (2017) and beyond.”