Meet Our Directors
At Brant Lake, we are incredibly proud of our experienced director team. All with backgrounds in coaching and education, our directors think of camp as being a place for growth and learning. Each director oversees a specific part of camp, allowing personal connection with campers and a mini-camp system where we know our kids.
Max GerstenExecutive Director
Max is the 4th generation of Brant Lake Camp ownership and has spent every summer of his life at Brant Lake Camp. Like all BLC Directors, Max has a passion for education and coaching. He spent 15 years coaching soccer, basketball, and baseball at The Dalton School in New York City. Max currently lives in Connecticut with his wife, Chloe Grimes, their two daughters, Violet and Brie, and their two golden retrievers, Jack and MJ. Chloe is the athletic director at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City and is the co-director of Brant Lake Sports Academy for Girls. In addition to being the Executive Director at Brant Lake, Max coaches middle school sports at Greenwich Country Day School.
Zach Cohen
Director
Zach came to BLC as a Soph in ‘96 and has not missed a summer since! Before becoming a director, Zach spent many summers as a counselor, group leader, and assistant director. In addition to BLC, Zach coaches Boys’ Varsity Soccer and Basketball at the Dalton School and is co-director of Dribbl, a popular youth basketball program. He and his wife, Jess Palmer (who is an oncology fellow at Weill Cornell Hospital), met at Cornell and currently live on the Upper East Side with their daughter, Lucy, and their dog, Taco.
Andy Berlin
Director
“AB” has been with Brant Lake Camp since 1980, having started out as a counselor and a group leader, becoming a director in 2005. Andy worked in Great Neck as a Physical Education Teacher for over 30 years and served as the Department Head and the Athletic Director at Great Neck South Middle School. AB coached multiple sports including soccer, lacrosse, and softball, but really excelled as a swim coach where he was voted Nassau County Coach of the Year six times, as well as NY State Coach of the Year four times. Andy is also the very proud father of his daughter, Sophia, who is a clinical researcher and therapist in NYC.
Alexa Minion Wehmeyer
Assistant Director
Alexa has been at Brant Lake for fifteen years and oversees our youngest division of camp. She holds a B.A. from Cornell and an M.A. in Elementary Education from Stanford. She is also a proud second generation Brant Laker and Point O’ Pines alumni. Before joining the year-round team at BLC, Alexa was an elementary
school teacher in Boston, where she taught Kindergarten and 4th grade. She and her husband Zach met working at camp. The two got married at BLC in September of 2024 and currently live in Beacon, New York.
Richie Gersten
Director Advisor
Richie G has always had a passion for education. Richie was a teacher on Long Island and in NYC for 20 years and coached over 50 seasons of high school sports. Having never missed a summer at BLC, he was the Executive Director for over 30 years and now serves as an advisor and mentor to his son Max and the current director team. Richie is a very proud alum (and fan) of the University of North Carolina, where he received his undergraduate degree and Master’s Degree in Education and played basketball under legendary coaches Dean Smith and Larry Brown. Richie and his wife Mieks Gersten split their time between Brant Lake, Chapel Hill, and New York City. They have two adult children, Max and Thea and two granddaughters, Violet and Brie.
