yeah I come from a fairly conventional
family my my mom’s a teacher might as a
commercial loan officer and and I’d say
that my sisters and I are all ambitious
like my my older sisters I just received
her PhD from Stanford my younger sister
as an accountant at KPMG in Boston and
from what I understand well on her way
to being a partner I grew up in a period
when this was in the late 90s was my my
high school year so it was the peak of
the dot-com era and it seemed like you
couldn’t meet anyone without getting a
stock pick and I kind of really took a
liking to that and then during Duke my
my passions definitely shifted and I
realized that maybe that pursuit was not
mine
camp Carolina and the Blue Ridge
Mountains of Western North Carolina made
a big difference in it was the first
time where I was having a lot of fun I
wasn’t stuck in an office in the
summertime it was such a market contrast
from my summers in in high school where
I had worked for the greater Providence
Chamber of Commerce an internship at
Paine Webber and I was like 16 I’m going
to work in a suit every day which was
kind of ridiculous in retrospect but I
was just had a blast at camp and I don’t
think then I ever I thought that I could
somehow make them make a living out of
this but I just knew that I was having
fun and I didn’t want that to end
when I returned to school after those
those two summers I basically got the
first summer I came back and I changed a
lot the second summer I came back and I
changed even more the following summer
after that I hiked the Appalachian Trail
and I think that is where probably what
was the straw that broke the camel’s
back it was tough for me to think about
accepting a fairly normal existence
after having had those experiences I was
just having too much fun out there
the economy took a real turn after 9/11
and I was this was at a critical point
my college career where it’s critical
that you get a good internship this the
summer before you graduate and that sort
of lines you up it gives you some good
experience it makes you some connections
a 9/11 happen and the economy just sort
of tanked my class got sort of stuck
there are a lot of students like myself
who suddenly the those opportunities
that we thought we had when we when we
were enrolled into Duke and and to other
institutions suddenly went wow this is a
now a different environment and when I
was a freshman there were kids and this
was normal to get five or six job offers
and you know we all thought that we were
going to have the same situation when we
were older and on the verge of
graduating so yeah 9/11 certainly
limited the opportunities I had and that
sort of gave me an excuse to say well
you know if the opportunities aren’t
here now maybe they’ll be here next year
and in the meantime I’m gonna go have
some more fun and I just I never really
came back
I think that was actually the agreement
with my parents is that I could it would
let they would allow me to go hike the
Appalachian Trail if assuming the summer
afterwards that I would get I’ll get a
real job
I ran in high school in college was a
cross-country and track f runner and we
used to talk about there being two types
of guys in the team there were racers
and then there were runners and the
racers were the guys who just who
trained to show up to the starting line
and to go beat people and then there
were runners who practice every day
because we needed to run it was so a
part of us that it was our our therapy
session and whenever we were injured
we went stir-crazy and I was a runner
always have been around I still run
today and I think that you know with
this with this adventure stuff it’s the
same thing that this for me it’s therapy
it’s what I want to be doing it so it’s
a central part of me yeah
I wouldn’t say I’m lonely only because
I’ve spent so much time out there now
that I feel it feels pretty natural to
me to be in that environment I sort of
developed this rapport with the
landscape as sort of crazy as that sound
like every place has sort of its own
character and there’s this this
relationship with with nature at least
that I convinced myself of because you
know in reality probably nature doesn’t
care and it’s a it’s going to do what it
wants to do and my existence doesn’t
really matter to it but it’s helpful at
least in my mind to think that nature
and I are sort of going back and forth
here that there’s a sort of this
connection I I think there are a couple
of different components of it and I know
it’s not just one single thing that
partly its aesthetics I mean I get to
see incredibly beautiful places and
oftentimes they’re far from trailheads
and far from rails not places where you
can access easily or driving a car up –
and I’ve also found that by getting
these places under my own power that
there’s it’s somehow much more rewarding
to to experience it that I that I earn
this view or this experience part of it
is also cultural of being able to go
into villages and towns that I’ve never
been into before make friends learn from
them that’s also the rewarding aspect I
love the challenge about that physical
and mental challenge basically to see
how how far I can push myself and what
my limits are but I think the biggest
thing for me is that when I’m out there
I I feel alive I feel like I have 80
years on this planet to do something and
when I’m out there I feel like I’m
taking advantage of at least some of
those years
this is primo it doesn’t get any better
than this
you
family my my mom’s a teacher might as a
commercial loan officer and and I’d say
that my sisters and I are all ambitious
like my my older sisters I just received
her PhD from Stanford my younger sister
as an accountant at KPMG in Boston and
from what I understand well on her way
to being a partner I grew up in a period
when this was in the late 90s was my my
high school year so it was the peak of
the dot-com era and it seemed like you
couldn’t meet anyone without getting a
stock pick and I kind of really took a
liking to that and then during Duke my
my passions definitely shifted and I
realized that maybe that pursuit was not
mine
camp Carolina and the Blue Ridge
Mountains of Western North Carolina made
a big difference in it was the first
time where I was having a lot of fun I
wasn’t stuck in an office in the
summertime it was such a market contrast
from my summers in in high school where
I had worked for the greater Providence
Chamber of Commerce an internship at
Paine Webber and I was like 16 I’m going
to work in a suit every day which was
kind of ridiculous in retrospect but I
was just had a blast at camp and I don’t
think then I ever I thought that I could
somehow make them make a living out of
this but I just knew that I was having
fun and I didn’t want that to end
when I returned to school after those
those two summers I basically got the
first summer I came back and I changed a
lot the second summer I came back and I
changed even more the following summer
after that I hiked the Appalachian Trail
and I think that is where probably what
was the straw that broke the camel’s
back it was tough for me to think about
accepting a fairly normal existence
after having had those experiences I was
just having too much fun out there
the economy took a real turn after 9/11
and I was this was at a critical point
my college career where it’s critical
that you get a good internship this the
summer before you graduate and that sort
of lines you up it gives you some good
experience it makes you some connections
a 9/11 happen and the economy just sort
of tanked my class got sort of stuck
there are a lot of students like myself
who suddenly the those opportunities
that we thought we had when we when we
were enrolled into Duke and and to other
institutions suddenly went wow this is a
now a different environment and when I
was a freshman there were kids and this
was normal to get five or six job offers
and you know we all thought that we were
going to have the same situation when we
were older and on the verge of
graduating so yeah 9/11 certainly
limited the opportunities I had and that
sort of gave me an excuse to say well
you know if the opportunities aren’t
here now maybe they’ll be here next year
and in the meantime I’m gonna go have
some more fun and I just I never really
came back
I think that was actually the agreement
with my parents is that I could it would
let they would allow me to go hike the
Appalachian Trail if assuming the summer
afterwards that I would get I’ll get a
real job
I ran in high school in college was a
cross-country and track f runner and we
used to talk about there being two types
of guys in the team there were racers
and then there were runners and the
racers were the guys who just who
trained to show up to the starting line
and to go beat people and then there
were runners who practice every day
because we needed to run it was so a
part of us that it was our our therapy
session and whenever we were injured
we went stir-crazy and I was a runner
always have been around I still run
today and I think that you know with
this with this adventure stuff it’s the
same thing that this for me it’s therapy
it’s what I want to be doing it so it’s
a central part of me yeah
I wouldn’t say I’m lonely only because
I’ve spent so much time out there now
that I feel it feels pretty natural to
me to be in that environment I sort of
developed this rapport with the
landscape as sort of crazy as that sound
like every place has sort of its own
character and there’s this this
relationship with with nature at least
that I convinced myself of because you
know in reality probably nature doesn’t
care and it’s a it’s going to do what it
wants to do and my existence doesn’t
really matter to it but it’s helpful at
least in my mind to think that nature
and I are sort of going back and forth
here that there’s a sort of this
connection I I think there are a couple
of different components of it and I know
it’s not just one single thing that
partly its aesthetics I mean I get to
see incredibly beautiful places and
oftentimes they’re far from trailheads
and far from rails not places where you
can access easily or driving a car up –
and I’ve also found that by getting
these places under my own power that
there’s it’s somehow much more rewarding
to to experience it that I that I earn
this view or this experience part of it
is also cultural of being able to go
into villages and towns that I’ve never
been into before make friends learn from
them that’s also the rewarding aspect I
love the challenge about that physical
and mental challenge basically to see
how how far I can push myself and what
my limits are but I think the biggest
thing for me is that when I’m out there
I I feel alive I feel like I have 80
years on this planet to do something and
when I’m out there I feel like I’m
taking advantage of at least some of
those years
this is primo it doesn’t get any better
than this
you
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