Our full-time staff work year-round to develop a program and hire and train staff that will guide campers to discover their greatness both on and off the soccer field.

Director

Katy Kreiner joined BSA’s year-round staff in February 2018.  Katy oversees residential life, camper health and well-being and the soccer program. Katy grew up in Connecticut playing competitive soccer from a young age.  Her youth travel team played at high-level tournaments throughout the country, and her Trumbull High School team won four state championships.

Before joining BSA, Katy served as Athletic Director at the Mid-Island Y JCC Camp, one of Long Island’s largest day camps, where she helped develop a specialized sports camp and oversaw 25 coaches. During the school year, Katy directed the JCC’s youth and vacation programs, which had hundreds of participants.

Katy currently resides in Monroe, Connecticut with her three children, Jayden, Devon, and Kaylen and is the Assistant Varsity Coach for Masuk High School Girls Soccer. Previously, she lived on Long Island, where she coached youth teams in the Plainview – Old Bethpage Soccer Club (“POB”) for nearly a decade and was twice named “Coach of the Year.”

Katy graduated from Hofstra University with a degree in English and Psychology. She earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education and Secondary Education from Dowling College.

Director

Paul Titley joined BSA’s year-round staff in January 2017. Paul recruits and hires Berky’s staff and organizes all soccer and bridge programs. During the summer, he oversees operations and non-soccer programming. Paul joined BSA after working as the full-time Summer Camp Director at YMCA Camp Seymour in Gig Harbor, WA. There, he oversaw an 8-week co-ed resident cap, day camp, and trip program and supervised a team of 100 staff members. Paul found his passion for the camp industry as an international staff member at Iroquois Springs in Rock Hill, NY where he spent 7 summers in a number of leadership roles.

He received both his B.S. and his Masters at Loughborough University in England. Paul has a strong background in aquatics, having swum and played water polo competitively.

Paul met his wife Mandie at camp. Mandie works as part of our team throughout the year. They currently live in Waterloo, Iowa with their son, James and daughter Lucy.

 

Founder & President

Dan Zenkel was moved by his experiences as a  summer camp professional and as the father of a soccer-loving daughter to found the Berkshire Soccer Academy for Girls in 2011.  Between 1998 and 2009, Dan founded and ran CampGroup, LLC, the country’s largest owner of private summer camps.  During that period, Dan’s daughter, Nikki, played travel soccer for Eastern F.C. and attended both a traditional overnight summer camp and the Eastern F.C. Overnight Soccer Camp, then held at the Williston Northampton School. After observing both camps, Dan recognized a need for a girls soccer camp that offered high quality instruction in a traditional camp setting. Soon after departing CampGroup in 2009, Dan purchased an underutilized campsite in East Otis, Massachusetts. Eric & Liza Wittenberg joined the effort, and the Berkshire Sports Academy for Girls was born.

In addition to working with Berky’s leadership team, Dan spends time on a variety of camp-related endeavors.  He is a partner in The Camp Professionals, LLC, which offers comprehensive consulting services to camp owners and operators. He speaks at industry conferences and writes articles for camp industry publications.

He is a past President, current Treasurer, and longtime Board Member of SCOPE, a leading camp charity that provides camp scholarships to underserved children.

Before entering the camp world, Dan practiced law and was active in real estate development and management.

Founding Directors

Eric Wittenberg, together with his wife, Liza, and Dan Zenkel, founded the Berkshire Soccer Academy in 2011. Eric was a Director of BSA from 2011 through summer 2018, when he left BSA to found Camper Machine Operations, LLC, a specialized marketing agency. BSA is one of Camper Machine’s first clients, and so Eric maintains a strong relationship with BSA, serving as its outside marketing consultant. Eric grew up at Elmwood Day Camp in White Plains, NY where he was a camper, senior staff member and Athletic Director. He also worked as the full-time program director at Woodmont Day Camp in New City, NY. He received his B.S. from Keene State College and a Masters in the Social Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity from the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Valencia (Spain).

Liza Wittenberg, together with her husband, Eric, and Dan Zenkel, founded the Berkshire Soccer Academy in 2011. Liza directed BSA from 2011 to 2017 and was instrumental in developing BSA’s unique soccer program. Liza left BSA in July 2018 to focus on her responsibilities as a mother of three young children. Liza played at the highest level of competitive youth soccer. She was a Region II ODP player and was recruited to play at UNC Greensboro. After two seasons there, she transferred to Georgetown University, where she captained the Hoya’s Division I Women’s Soccer Team. After graduating from Georgetown, Liza taught elementary school in the Bronx through Teach for America, and then directed a global citizenship program in ten major US cities for the United Nations Association-USA. Prior to joining BSA, Liza held athletic director and coaching positions at both traditional and soccer camps and served as head coach and assistant coach to girls youth soccer teams at various clubs in the Northeast.