A New Face At ATCF
May greetings to you all! Some of you may have already received emails from me or noticed an announcement not too long ago about ATCF hiring a Membership & Outreach Coordinator; well I’m excited to introduce myself and share with you this news of launching this ATCF blog!
I am fortunate to be joining Soraya Shattuck, the Executive Director of the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund, as well as an amazing group of Board of Directors. If you haven’t read their bios yet, I’d definitely recommend you check them out!
One of my desires coming into this position involves building community. It’s a tall order to coalesce the adventure travel and outdoor retailer industries together towards protecting and stewarding natural and cultural assets wherever adventure travel business transpires. But, it’s possible! And the ATCF has been paving this path as we continue to learn and evolve, with all of your support, in continuing this journey.
What I’m excited about with this new role involves collaborating with each other, sharing stories, learning from what’s working and what’s not in the field and in the industry and supporting one another in treasuring all aspects of the places where we travel to protect this interconnected planet we are blessed to inhabit. I hope this blog can be a step in this direction!
It’s our plan with this blog to share a variety of stories with you such as highlighting lessons learned from the field, showcasing extraordinary stories, commenting on topics current in the news, showcasing news related to our grant projects, reviewing trade or industry shows and more. If you have ideas for us, great; share them! If you want to guest write a post for us; awesome, let’s line that up! If you have an idea you would love to hear our thoughts on or explored by us, let us know!
To give you all a bit more background on myself and what brought me to the ATCF, I first off want to share that I grew up very active – playing soccer (I still play!), skiing, snowboarding, hiking, running and traveling the world (I still do all these things too!). I was fortunate to spend the year abroad in college – Quito, Ecuador & Santiago, Chile – and that experience blew my mind and inspired me to pursue work in the international development field, which led me to double major in Spanish and International Studies. I went on to work at Global Exchange, the Foundation for Sustainable Development, Fair Trade USA and SeeYourImpact before entering an MBA in Sustainable Business program at the Presidio Graduate School (formerly Pinchot University). In addition to work and school, nature has always played a big part in my life with getting out every day for a walk or hike and feeling most at home in the outdoors. This immense love prompted me to start my own company Naturefy as well as begin working as a wilderness tour guide for Evergreen Escapes in Seattle and join the board of Rite of Passage Journeys all of which I am still active and pursing currently. This brings me full circle to the ATCF where I am thrilled to once again work at an international level and have the opportunity to bring different groups together work to protect and enhance vital natural places worldwide.
I look forward to working with you all, meeting you when that chance may arise and collaborating with you all to do our part in stewarding cherished places that we hold dear throughout the world. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me and I look forward to working with you all!
Many blessings,
Marisa