Introducing our 2016 Instructor Team

Josh Goldbach02 May, 2016

We know you’ve all been waiting to see who our instructors will be this summer, so here they are: Introducing the 2016 Adventure Treks instructors!

We are very pleased with this year’s instructor teams. Almost 70 percent of our instructors are returning for the 2016 summer. Every instructor has, at minimum, a Wilderness First Responder medical certification, with some trained as Wilderness EMTs.

Quick facts about our 70 instructors:

Average age of 27.
A collective 190 years of combined Adventure Treks experience (about 3 years on average).
Every instructor (except one who is finishing his degree) has a college degree, and 18 percent of our team currently have or are working on advanced degrees.
Eight of our instructors are former Adventure Treks students.
During the rest of the year, our instructors work as teachers, ski instructors, mountain guides, directors of outdoor programs, and for outdoor education and science schools.
Our instructors have all done incredible things: rowed the Columbia river, thru-hiked the Pacific Crest trail and Appalachian trail (or both), and hiked all the way across New Zealand.

We’ve had more than 500 prospects apply to fill our 25 new instructor positions. Every new staff has gone through a minimum of three interviews conducted by our leadership team, three reference checks, and a background and criminal check. We feel confident and excited about the new instructors we have hired, and we know they’ll help create phenomenal communities.

On June 3, our directors, trip leaders, and regional directors will begin a four-day retreat near Mt. Hood in Oregon. On June 9, the entire instructor team arrives for a seven-day intensive orientation. On June 15, we will separate into our six-person instructor teams for another week of trip-specific planning, led by our trip leaders.

One of the most important parts of orientation is bonding for our instructor team. These relationships typically last long beyond the summer, much like our students’. As role models, our close-knit, high-functioning instructor communities are directly tied to the success of our student communities.

In the coming weeks, we’ll publish the tentative staff teams assigned to each trips. Please note that instructor teams may change as we strive to create the best possible combination of personalities and skills.