Beneficial Risks: Contributors
This book would not have been possible without the support of a larger network of outdoor risk management professionals and safety science researchers. The following is a list of colleagues who authored chapters or excerpts.
Deb
Ajango
Deb Ajango is the founder of SafetyEd, providing safety education for outdoor work environments, and has presented nationally and internationally on the topic of risk management, emergency action planning, and wilderness medicine at a wide variety of conferences across the United States and abroad. She has provided risk management consulting throughout Alaska, the United States, and around the world. Ajango has been an instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates for more than 25 years. She is the author of several books on outdoor risk management and has been honored as the recipient of the Charles (Reb) Gregg Award for excellence and innovation in risk management in 2012 and the Paul K. Petzoldt Award for excellence in wilderness education in 2014.
Ross
Cloutier
Ross Cloutier, through his Canadian-based consulting firm, Bhudak Consultants Ltd., works in two main adventure-related fields: adventure industry risk management and adventure tourism destination development. As a risk management consultant, Cloutier works internationally as an expert witness and accident investigator for schools, universities, businesses, insurers, and law firms. As a destination-development consultant, he works with Indigenous and other developing country clients around the world in the development of local adventure tourism economies. He received the Charles (Reb) Gregg Award for excellence and innovation in wilderness risk management in 2017.
Joshua
Cole
Joshua Cole is an owner and guide at North Cascades Mountain Guides based in Mazama, Washington. He has more than 20 years of experience working in outdoor education, commercial guiding, the ski industry, and secondary education. In addition to his work in the field, he has experience as an administrator, having served as Washington program director for Northwest Outward Bound School for 8 years. Cole has given trainings and presentations on wilderness risk management for numerous organizations and also supports outdoor programs with risk management expertise as an associate consultant with Experiential Consulting, LLC. He is an AMGA certified Ski Guide and Alpine Guide, an AMGA assistant Rock Guide and holds AIARE Level III avalanche certification.
Dr. Clare
Dallat
Clare Dallat is the executive director of the Outdoor Education Foundation and Research at the Outdoor Education Group (OEG), Australia. OEG’s 400 staff work with almost 50,000 young people annually on led outdoor education programs across Australia. Dallat also leads Risk Resolve, an organization that provides proactive and reactive risk management services for organizations across Australia and internationally. She has a PhD in human factors and an MSc in risk, crisis, and disaster management and is an adjunct research fellow with the Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Dallat received the Charles (Reb) Gregg Award in 2018.
Dr. Sidney Dekker
Sidney Dekker is professor and director of the Safety Science Innovation Lab at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University in the Netherlands. He received a PhD from Ohio State University in 1996. Dekker has won worldwide acclaim for his groundbreaking work in human factors and safety. He coined the term “Safety Differently” in 2012, which has since become a movement. An avid and longtime pilot of gliders, aerobatic airplanes, and taildraggers, he has been flying the Boeing 737 as an airline pilot on the side—after he became a professor. Dekker is bestselling author of, most recently, Foundations of Safety Science, The Safety Anarchist, The End of Heaven, Just Culture, Safety Differently, The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error,’ Second Victim, Drift Into Failure, and Patient Safety. He is also a documentary maker (Safety Differently, 2017; Just Culture, 2018; The Complexity of Failure, 2018). More at sidneydekker.com.
Taylor
Feldman
Taylor Feldman is a Portland-based environmental educator and climbing guide who is passionate about supporting equitable and inclusive access to the outdoors. She has worked for organizations such as Audubon Society of Portland, NOLS, and Mount St. Helens Institute and volunteered with Post 58 and Wild Diversity. She has led teams up more than 50 peaks, ranging from Chilean Patagonia to the North Cascades, including seven first ascents in the Canadian Selkirks. Feldman was also lead guide and the focus of a feature narrative in the documentary Who’s On Top? LGBTQs Climb Mount Hood.
Lewis
Glenn
Lewis Glenn served in the Peace Corps in the Marshall Islands and subsequently directed the rehabilitation program on atomic-and-hydrogen-bomb-torn Bikini Atoll in the Marshalls, for the Department of Interior. Segueing to the adventure education field, Glenn served over three decades, including positions such as vice president–safety for Outward Bound USA for 19 years and chair of the Safety Committee of the Board for 4 years. He continues to support Outward Bound as an advisor on the Safety Committee of the Board and the Risk Management Advisory Committee. He cofounded Adventure Analytics, a safety and risk management consulting firm.
Charles
(Reb) Gregg
Charles (Reb) Gregg is a Houston-based attorney in private practice, specializing in legal issues associated with adventure education, recreation, and study abroad programs. Reb is a founding and influential member of the Wilderness Risk Managers Committee, where, in his honor, a national award for exceptional leadership, service, and innovation in wilderness- based risk management was established in 2009.
Catherine
Hansen-Stamp
Catherine Hansen-Stamp is an attorney in Golden, Colorado, and member of the WRMC Steering Committee. She advises recreation and adventure providers on law, liability, and risk management issues. She speaks and writes on these issues both regionally and nationally and has presented at the WRMC since its inception in 1994. Hansen-Stamp provides legal counsel to a variety of organizations, including recreation, adventure, and sport program providers, camps, schools, outfitters, and guides. She is a member of the Wyoming and Colorado Bar Associations and co-author for ACA CampLine with Reb Gregg.
Amberleigh Hammond
Amberleigh Hammond is a member of the Safety, Security, and Emergency Preparedness team at Sierra Club. She has deep experience in operational risk management, outdoor education, and training. Hammond is an EMT, Outdoor Emergency Care instructor, ski patroller, Leave No Trace master educator, and Mental Health First Aid instructor. Mornings, evenings, and weekends she can be found playing ultimate, fastpacking, ski mountaineering, mountain biking, and training for ultramarathons. She has served in the past on the WRMC Steering Committee.
Drew
Leemon
Drew Leemon, director of risk management at NOLS, began his career in outdoor education in 1979 and has held his current position since 1996. He is a past chair of the WRMC. Leemon has published papers on wilderness injury and incident data, is coeditor of the Manual of Accreditation Standards for Adventure Programming, and is coauthor of Risk Management for Outdoor Leaders.
Jay A.
Satz
Jay A. Satz is senior director for partnership and innovation at Northwest Youth Corps, based in Tacoma, WA. Previously he served in field and organizational leadership positions at the Student Conservation Association, including as vice president for program and safety officer for over 15 years. Satz was a member of the Wilderness Risk Managers Committee for 24 years and is currently on the boards for Aerie Backcountry Medicine and the Greater Seattle YMCA Camping and Outdoor Leadership Branch, where he chairs the Risk Management Committee.
Shana
Tarter
Shana Tarter is the assistant director of NOLS Wilderness Medicine. In addition to 25 years of experience in wilderness medicine and outdoor education, she chaired the Wilderness Risk Management Conference Steering Committee for 5 years and was the 2017 Charles (Reb) Gregg Award recipient. She serves as a reviewer for the Wilderness Medical Society’s Fellowship of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine. She is an active wilderness medicine instructor, risk management educator, and frequent conference presenter.
Jed
Williamson
Jed Williamson, president emeritus of Sterling College, is an education and risk management consultant who coauthored the Manual of Accreditation Standards for Adventure Programs and is editor emeritus of Accidents in North American Mountaineering. Williamson is former faculty of University of New Hampshire and a former instructor, program director, and director for Outward Bound. He has served on boards of the American Alpine Club, NOLS, Student Conservation Association, Central Asia Institute, and Association for Experiential Education, and on the Wilderness Risk Management Conference Steering Committee. He currently serves on the boards of Kroka Expeditions, Upper Valley Educators Institute, New Hampshire Outdoor Council, and Heartbeet Lifesharing.
In addition to the individuals named above, the author is particularly grateful to the WRMC community for providing so much inspiration for the contents of Beneficial Risks.