We are beyond thrilled to have recently welcomed our new Director of Culture and Community, Emily Shames! An outdoor enthusiast, dog sledder extraordinaire, and lover of Outward Bound, she came into this role with a plethora of field experience and institutional knowledge.
From obtaining 1,000 days in the field across the OB network, to working as a program team member, we couldn’t be more excited that Emily has finally joined our HIOBS community.
We took some time to interview her recently about her background working in the outdoor industry, all things Outward Bound, and what she hopes to bring to the table in her new role. Welcome Emily, we are SO excited to have you!
Tell us a little bit about your background working in the outdoor industry!
Sure! I started my time at Outward Bound in 2016 with a career pivot from archaeology to wilderness education. I needed a breather from archaeology and told myself I would take a break for a year or two and come back to it. Growing up, I had two dream careers, to be an archaeologist and a wilderness educator. Well, once I started Outward Bound, I couldn’t leave. I fell in love with the mission. There was too much to learn, too much to teach, and too many magic moments. I started working as an instructor out of CBOBS and POBS back when they were sister schools and shared staff. I was hooked. I think I instructed close to 15 courses that first year. I shifted over to CBOBS full time and spent the next 5 years mostly living in Baltimore and soaking up all things OB. It was here where I realized teaching and educational theory was my happy place (if anyone wants to ever pontificate about learning theory and curriculum progression, let’s chat!).
When I was 5 (stay with me here), I use to watch the animated cinematic masterpiece “Balto.” It’s a movie about the origin of the Iditarod, a dogsledding adventure to get medicine to Nome, Alaska to save the town from a diphtheria outbreak in the 1920s. I set a goal to myself then that I would try to make my profession one as close to “Balto” as possible. I started instructing dog sledding and cross country skiing expeditions up at VOBS. Those sled dogs are next level instructors. To work with those furry co-workers is humbling in the most magical way. I mostly worked winters up there, but would occasionally stick around when the lakes melted to instruct some canoe courses.
For 8 years it was a revolving door of all things Outward Bound. I had the privilege of working all sides of program delivery. From day programming to semester courses, from Vets courses to grieving teens, from instructing to program directing. I couldn’t be more thrilled and excited to join the HIOBS team on this next adventure in the outdoor industry. Outward Bound is hard, but wow oh wow does it matter!
It’s hard not to fall in love with Outward Bound, especially when you have spent so much time in the field. You’ve been an instructor for other OB schools (congrats on 1,000 field days!)—how has the transition from field to admin staff been? It must have been hard to say goodbye to your furry coworkers…
It’s been a blast so far! One facet of our educational model I love is the notion of challenge and discovery. We ask our students to be in their learning/challenge zone so I try to invite myself to do the same. Why are you here? How do you want to show up for this community? What is your why? Etc. We ask this a lot to our students, but we also generally do a good job at turning the question inwards. “What is your why?” is a question I ask myself every day I show up to work. As I have grown over my time working here, my “why” has also changed, and with that, I have pivoted my role to follow my “why.” When I started at Outward Bound as an instructor, my first “why” was the wilderness. I was obsessed with the woods and wanted to share the magic of the outdoors with our students. Then, I was hooked on teaching. After that, I was obsessed with training. I spent a long long time in the field, but was getting burnt out. I asked myself why and I realized my passion had shifted. I was stoked about supporting our staff and boarder educational effectiveness of course, so I pivoted to course directing and program managing—the larger vision of all the moving puzzle pieces became my happy place. Now I get giddy when talking about organizational systems and structures and using these to set people up for success. That brings us to now. Transitioning into this new role has been wonderfully fulfilling and excitingly challenging in all the right ways—the stoke tank is high. Leaning into challenge and supporting each other along the way is what we do best. I am ready to roll my sleeves up and get to work alongside this incredible team!
Hearing that you grew to love organizational systems, structures, and moving puzzle pieces to set people up for success is incredible. We’re so excited to have you on the team and supporting our school’s focus on equity, inclusion, and diversity. How do you see your work in this area informing staff development/training and enriching HIOBS as a whole?
Great question. Yes, it is all interconnected! There is equity through education. We are in the business of good learning and good teaching. Good learning is all about good teaching, and good teaching is inclusive, equitable, and culturally competent. Intercultural competency is the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. The better intercultural competency we as an organization have, the better we can be at our jobs as educators, facilitators, mentors, managers, leaders, and organizational community members. Doing so helps us better reach our students and serve the mission of changing lives through challenge and discovery.
This work is not easy. But luckily, leaning into hard things with compassion and integrity is what we do best. At Outward Bound, we believe in lifelong learning, and this work is a journey—or dare I say an expedition. There are many levels this work takes place on, ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internal to name a few. There is work to be done at the individual level up through the organizational level, through to the system industry level and beyond into the systemic level. We are in this together and we need each other to move forward. In doing so, we can continue to hold ourselves accountable so that we deliver the best experience for our students as possible.
That’s what it’s all about—changing lives through challenge and discovery, and not just our students’! What are you most excited for in your new role as Director of Culture and Community?
Easy. The people. The people here are our greatest assets. Outward bound is hard. It’s kinda supposed to be—that’s what it’s all about. That is the magic of it. We are a school that asks the question to ourselves and our students: what do you do and who are you when things get hard? We specialize in challenge, and we specialize in SUPPORT. I am time and time again blown away by the compassion and resiliency of the people who work here. One of my favorite quotes that I say on every course is “to travel fast go alone, to travel far go together”. We are in the business of going far together, such is the nature of expeditioning. It is my job to support staff in this going-far-together. I am beyond excited to be an advocate for this. It’s because of the people, and that is why we all stay. That is what makes OB so powerful.
