Consultants
Steve Smith
Founder / Lead Consultant
Steve Smith has worked in the outdoor industry for over thirty years, in the field, in the office, in the board room, and in national conference leadership roles, specializing in program leadership, risk management, and staff training.
His career has included leadership roles with national organizations including Outward Bound and The Student Conservation Association. Steve served as the Chair of the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) for three years (2014 - 2016). He served two terms as a board member for the Northwest Outward Bound School, where he continues to serve on the school's Board of Directors Safety Committee.
He has a master's degree in teaching English, along with years of university-level teaching experience, and earned a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the Society for Human Resources Management, all of which help him view outdoor education through a variety of educational and administrative lenses.
He understands the outdoor industry and risk management thoroughly, from the students to the leaders, from the staff to the parents, and from the board level to the ground level. He can help you align those different pieces to build a strong risk management culture with supporting tools and systems.
Joshua Cole is an owner and guide at North Cascades Mountain Guides and has more than 15 years of experience working in the outdoor education and guiding industries.
He has given trainings and presentations on wilderness risk management to numerous organizations, and has been a regular presenter at the Wilderness Risk Management Conference since 2009. Josh served as Washington Program Director for the Northwest Outward Bound School for 8 years, is a lead instructor for Wilderness Medicine Training Center, and has worked as a professional ski patroller. He is an AMGA certified ski guide, single-pitch instructor, and is working towards his AMGA certification in the rock and alpine disciplines.
Josh's years of administrative leadership experience, along with formal training and hands-on application of risk management and experiential education provides depth to our team and offers unique insight to clients.
Joshua Cole
Associate Consultant
Taylor Feldman is an Associate Consultant who is passionate about risk-aware adventuring, mountaineering, foraging, dancing, fermenting, and forest-bathing. Based in Portland, OR, she has a decade-long career as a wilderness instructor and has led teams up more than 50 peaks in the US and abroad.
She holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder, Leave No Trace Master Educator, and Avalanche AIARE Level 1 and currently teaches Wilderness Medicine with Base Medical.
Taylor's passion for incorporating justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion into all of her projects include workshop facilitation, curriculum development, and partnership building. Personal projects include "Building a Culture of Accountability," a 2020 workshop on how to repair after white people cause racist harm; co-authoring a book chapter on equity in the outdoors as it pertains to risk management ; and being the Lead Guide and a feature narrative in "Who's On Top? LGBTQs Climb Mount Hood," a documentary which premiered Spring 2021.
Taylor Feldman
Associate Consultant
Amberleigh Hammond manages safety systems for the Sierra Club at a national level.
Prior to joining the Sierra Club, she managed safety systems and served as the national medical evaluator for the Student Conservation Association (SCA).
Her primary career focus is medical evaluation, leader training, development of and compliance with field standards, and incident management/response. She has more recently developed resources and presentations on larger organizational matters such as organizational culture.
Prior to the SCA, Amberleigh worked at Outward Bound for six years as the national senior medical evaluator for OBUSA.
She is an Outdoor Emergency Care instructor, teaches wilderness medicine courses, and is an EMT, ski patroller, and Mental Health First Aid instructor.
Amberleigh is based in Missoula, MT.
Amberleigh Hammond
Associate Consultant
Amberleigh Hammond
Associate Consultant
Jay A. Satz brings over 30 years of nonprofit executive leadership, risk management design and implementation, program design and innovation, and youth conservation service/outdoor education program experience.
Drawn to this risk management work early in his career, he attended the very first Wilderness Risk Management Conference in 1994 and has been involved in a WRMC leadership / speaking role ever since, including receiving the conference’s highest honor for risk management service, leadership and innovation, The Charles “Reb” Gregg Award, in 2016. He has built programs, created partnerships, solved problems, overcome challenges, and positively influenced many lives through his youth / conservation leadership at a local, state, and federal level across multiple decades.
As an associate consultant, Jay brings a depth of experience, broad expertise, and a perspective on experiential / outdoor risk management that serves our clients in unique ways, challenging them to be their best while building on their inherent strengths.