Kat Belendiuk
Director
Kat grew up in the DC suburbs and moved to Montana with her husband, who is a 5th generation Montanan, to raise their daughter and be closer to family. Kat’s passions are adolescent mental health and the positive benefits of moving your body outdoors with friends. As a child clinical psychologist, Kat has worked professionally with teenagers with a variety of mental health disorders with a specialization in ADHD and substance use disorders. While in graduate school Kat completed over 20 marathons and ultramarathons - including one in Antarctica; these adventures helped her manage her depression and anxiety while forming lifelong friendships.
One of these friendships resulted in guiding a youth expedition through the deep Amazon jungle, allowing her to see firsthand how transformative experiential education with supportive mentors and peers can be. More recently, Kat has served as a global strategy leader for a large biotechnology company and loves using her brain to solve hard problems to help others.
Kat has supported BYEP since before moving to Bozeman because she saw how BYEP’s values on helping youth with experiential education so closely parallelled her own experiences and values. She is honored to contribute her expertise in mental health, outdoor adventures, and strategic planning to this incredible, life-changing organization.
Kat cares deeply for the Bozeman community and in addition to serving BYEP, she is also on the board of Bridger Ski Foundation and is a co-owner of Roly Poly Coffee company. She is grateful for easy access to coffee because she spends any remaining time moving her body and chasing her daughter and dogs on the trails of Bozeman.