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Gregg Treinish & Lara Birkes: Turning Adventure into Conservation Data · The Wild Idea

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Welcome to another conversation for a wild and connected world, what we call The Wild Idea podcast. I'm Bill Hodge, and along with my friend and co-host Anders Reynolds, we've been leaning into our curiosity about the people, places, and policies that give us our system of wild places and connected landscapes. We've been digging into that intersection of wild nature and human nature for over a year now, which is kind of exciting. Uh, and our curiosity only deepens. Super excited for today's conversation. We talk science, citizen science, adventures, and connecting the two with the leadership of the organization Adventure Scientists with founder Greg Treinish and incoming new executive director Laura Burks. Just a great conversation. Excited to bring this one to you all. But in the meantime, here's my friend Anders.
• 0:55
  Oh, hi, Bill.
• 0:57
  I've been thinking about getting a tattoo.
• 1:00
  Yeah? What kind of tattoo are you thinking about getting?
• 1:04
  Well, as I'm sure you know,
• 1:07
  this Friday is Endangered Species Day, and I'm super excited that on this podcast we're probably going to dig in, um, on what Adventure Scientist volunteers do every day, which is going to bat for the species that nobody else is paying attention to. But I thought I could,
• 1:26
  um, show my solidarity by getting a tattoo of an endangered species maybe. What do you think?
• 1:33
  Well, I'm curious what you're gonna get specifically. Do you have something in mind of where you're gonna put it?
• 1:38
  Yeah. So this will be my second tattoo. As you know, the first one I have is your name under m- my bottom lip.
• 1:45
  [laughs]
• 1:45
  Um,
• 1:47
  but I was thinking maybe a, um, like a baby vampire bat. I guess vampire bats aren't, aren't endangered, so it'd have to be something like the northern long-eared bat or the Indiana bat, or the Florida bonneted bat. Oh, that sounds cute. That'd be cool.
• 2:04
  I'm surprised you're not gonna go with the mudpuppy, which you're not gonna go with the hellbender.
• 2:08
  Oh my God, that would be great, wouldn't it?
• 2:11
  I mean-
• 2:12
  Just like a big one up and down my back
• 2:14
  ... you know, hellbenders hide under rocks, so I don't know. Maybe that'll give you an idea of where to put it.
• 2:19
  Do you have any tattoos?
• 2:21
  Uh, you know, I don't. I, I, I'm surprised I don't. You know, there's a story about tattoos with me. Um, there was a time when, uh,
• 2:31
  when I had a pretty stressful year ahead of me and I was desperately trying to drop my one life's addiction, which is Dr. Pepper.
• 2:39
  And some of my friends and colleagues,
• 2:42
  in order to encourage me, we made a wager,
• 2:45
  and this was, I don't know, 20... yeah, 2019, I guess. If I could go a year, I had to go a year
• 2:52
  without a Dr. Pepper. But, uh, if I did that,
• 2:56
  all four of them, and I'm not gonna name them, Katie, David, Eric, and Aaron, um,
• 3:03
  promised to get tattoos in my honor
• 3:06
  for, uh, making that, that milestone.
• 3:08
  Bill, I know those guys. I'm- surely they kept their word. They're all, like, upstanding people.
• 3:12
  Not a one of them.
• 3:14
  Not a one of them kept their word. And, and there was, there was a disincentive on my side. So if I went a year with no Dr. Pepper, again, elixir of the gods,
• 3:24
  I, I, I got to force them to honor that and get those four tattoos. Of course, I couldn't physically force them, and they still don't to this day have those tattoos. If I had failed, so I'm, I'm just going ahead and telling you the results, if, if I had failed, which I did not, the, the downside for me was I was gonna have to donate $1,000 to Trump 2020. Um, so I made it. Did not have to make that donation, and yet there's not a single tattoo. Um, but you know, this, this makes me think maybe it's time for me to think about getting my own tattoo. And, you know, if we're gonna sort of make this about endangered species, I guess for me it would probably have to be a crosscut saw
• 4:03
  since the damn Forest Service seems hell-bent on authorizing chainsaws in wilderness areas. And for those people who know me well, know that I am a crosscut sawyer, crosscut saw instructor, and a nerd for all things crosscut. Uh, and I guess it's an endangered species this, these days with, you know, the Forest Service seeming to care more about convenience than honoring the law. But, uh, but yeah, and, and that's honestly what those four knuckleheads were supposed to do. They were supposed to get crosscut saw tattoos, and maybe, maybe them hearing this will shame them into that moment.
• 4:36
  Do you think, you think it'll work?
• 4:38
  I do, actually. I think there's gonna be six people sporting crosscut saw tattoos pretty soon after this airs.
• 4:45
  You gonna join the, you gonna join the parade?
• 4:47
  Oh, no. I just think there's a sixth person out there that'll probably go ahead and-
• 4:50
  [laughs] I di- I didn't see you as a go-along, get-along kinda guy anyways, so. [laughs] Well, well, all right. So tattoos are in our future. Uh, Anders is, is either gonna get a bat or a
• 5:03
  hellbender salamander or something in honor of endangered species, and I'm gonna put-
• 5:07
  Or maybe, like, an Alabama cave shrimp with a banner under it that says, "Bill."
• 5:12
  [laughs] It's like those frogs from the Budweiser commercial. Bud.
• 5:17
  Uh, yeah, we could do that. Hey, let's, uh, let's talk science, shall we? Uh, let's get on with this conversation with Laura and Greg and, uh, talk about adventures and science and putting the two things together. Enjoy the conversation. Laura, Greg, thanks for joining us for our continuing exploration of a wild and connected world, what we call The Wild Idea podcast. Because I'm such a, I don't know, I'm so simple and a, such a linear thinker, uh, Greg, I'm gonna start with you with our questions and ask you to tell us about the start of Adventure Scientists, like that origin story, if you could. I'd love to hear that
• 5:55
  Yeah, thanks Bill. Uh, so I was, uh, an explorer traveling around the world. I was out on expeditions pretty consistently while I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, hiking the Andes Mountains. I, I felt really selfish. I just felt like I was out there spending so much time and effort to go and, uh, explore these wild places, but I wasn't really able to make any kind of difference, uh, while I was out there, and that bothered me a lot. Uh, so, uh, after I, uh, was finishing a trek down the length of the Andes Mountains, I, uh, I realized that I wanted to go and focus on wildlife ecology. Uh, moved here to Montana, uh, and, uh, wrote, uh, Scott Creel, who was at the university here, who's still at the university here, and asked if I could, you know, come and study lions with him, thinking that I'd go figure out how to protect lions someday. But, uh, before I ever did that, I ended up getting jobs here tracking lynx and wolverines and grizzly bears, and just saw that I could use my outdoor skill set to make a real difference. And when I started sharing that with friends, lots of them told me they wanted to do it too.
• 7:07
  What was that, uh, what was that journey like getting it off the ground, like that idea of actually putting an organization into action?
• 7:13
  So, uh, thank God for Google. Uh, I started by googling, "How do you start a nonprofit?" Um, and you know, this was before AI. If we had AI, oh man, we'd be leaps and bounds of a-ahead of where we are today. Um, but no, I, I had very little experience. I was working, uh, for a nonprofit at the time, uh, as their field tracker. Um, so great, one of the best jobs I ever had, but very limited experience in actually running an organization. Um, but, uh, yeah, I googled it and, and just kinda like my expeditions, put one foot in front of the other and started down the path and, uh, and learned a lot along the way.
• 7:54
  Well, we-- you and I have talked about this before recording. You know, we've shared this journey of having started nonprofits from scratch, and there is just a lot of continuing to take steps, and sometimes you just have to step sideways, but you just keep taking steps. Laura, I wanna turn to you. You are stepping into the void here, following the founder of a great organization. I'd, I'd like to know a little bit more about your journey to this new role as the second ever executive director of Adventure Scientist, and, uh, it's, it's a great journey. I'd love our audience to hear it.
• 8:23
  Oh, well, thanks, Bill, and thanks to you both for having us. It's, um, all I can say is, uh, a immediate reaction is that I'm just thrilled and humbled to, to be assuming this role. And, um, I can say I was not as clever as Greg to figure out how you combine these passions both personally and professionally at the outset of my career, so it took me on a, a windier road through, um, policy and business. Um, but I could not be more excited to be landing in a place that combines those personal passions with a way to have impact on planet and people.
• 8:58
  Yeah, and some of that journey actually I think you have in common with Andrew, is you spent some of that time on the Hill in Washington, D.C., right?
• 9:05
  Exactly. That's where I started my career. Graduated from, um, undergrad at the University of Montana in Missoula, and then went on to work for, um, who was our senior senator from Montana at the time, uh, Senator Max Baucus. Uh, so I, uh, I c- I credit him with those early immersions into policy, specifically tax and trade policy. So went on from his personal office to working on the Finance Committee, which he chaired at the time. Um, and yeah, that, that led to a long and windy road overseas, um, initially in economic policy, um, more so at that point trade. And that then began to weave into, um, the climate work that I, that I do now, um, through international organizations, uh, nonprofits, foundations, and then ultimately in-house in companies in a few different roles. So, um, yeah, it's been a fun path.
• 9:57
  Laura, let's fast-forward to the present, where Adventure Scientist has a network of over ten thousand trained volunteers, I think. And you know, when one looks at the scope of what you guys have tackled, microplastics, antibiotic resistance, illegal timbering, wildlife corridors, endangered species, high altitude agricultural fungi, that's a fun one I thought. It's re- it's general-- it's genuinely staggering what you've accomplished. I wonder if you could walk, walk folks through the full portfolio. You know, what does that breadth of work look like, and how on earth did this scrappy nonprofit build to this scale?
• 10:35
  Well, I'm gonna leave the early days to Greg, but I'll just quickly say that there is so much potential here for the next fifteen years, with great credit to Greg and the team and the board and, and incredible staff. All of the points you've just made, um, were so many of the proof points for me in these, um, uh, early days, the incredible impact that, that we stand to have, um, in the years ahead. So I, I'll lean on Greg to speak to some of the specific projects, but, uh, when I look at the scale from the data that we're getting now and stand to get in the future and the ways that this can impact conservation solutions across forestry, corals, um, vulnerable species, and the like, um, I'm nothing but optimistic about the continued impact that the organization will have.
• 11:24
  Yeah. Greg, I'd love to hear about these, like, difficult logistical challenges you've, you've had to crack, right? Getting volunteers to the right place with the right protocols and the right conditions to collect data that frankly, I don't think anyone else could get. You know, how do you do that?
• 11:41
  Yeah, we figured out a couple of things pretty early on. Uh, one is that people are just hungry to make a difference. And so if you can give people an easy way to do what they're already doing, to do what they already love doing, and make it easy for them to make a real impact while they're doing it, they'll flock to it, and that's exactly what happened. So early on, we worked with incredibleUh, outdoor celebrities, I guess you could say. You know, Conrad Anker was one of my first board members. We had, uh, people like, uh, Mike Lebeky and Lakey Peterson and, uh, you know, th-these names will mean something to some of you anyway out there. But, um, they're heroes of mine, people... Celine Cousteau, John Bauermaster. I mean, this list goes on and on of people who, uh, whether I knew them through National Geographic or, uh, you know, just through the outdoor community, heard about this idea, uh, and then immediately wanted to, to join the movement, wanted to become part of it. Uh, we made a film with Clif Bar, um, I don't know, maybe twenty fifteen or sixteen, with Jeremy Jones, the, you know, top, top-tier snowboarder, um, who, [lip smacks] uh, was in the midst of his, uh, Higher, Further, Deeper series, uh, at the moment. And he went and climbed in the Himalaya and worked with a researcher that we partnered him with from, uh, the University of Venice and, uh, working with the, uh, bird lab at Ohio State. And, uh, man, that went viral. Like, it, it was, it was three hundred and sixty, three hundred and seventy thousand views in the first day, and we had, like, twenty-six thousand snowboarders at our website asking how they could make a difference. We were not at all ready for twenty-six thousand snowboarders. [chuckles] Um, but, you know, so that was kind of our secret sauce early on. I mean, times have changed, right? It's, uh, it's even harder now to reach people, uh, than it was back then. Um, but we are, uh... Our team is just so amazing at continuing to innovate and figure out, uh, the best ways to reach people, whether it's a ground game similar to a political campaign, which we certainly build up, uh, wherever we're working, uh, or it's word of mouth, or it's working with, uh, commercial partners who help us reach their audiences. Uh, we just gotta be scrappy and, and creative to figure it out. [sniffs]
• 14:08
  So what you're describing here is, is citizen science, if it's, if it's not clear for our listeners. And I, I guess I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit more about the nexus of all that citizen science with policy. How do you think about the translation layer from raw field data to actual policy change? Is that something Adventure Scientists does intentionally, or does it just sort of happen naturally downstream?
• 14:36
  Yeah. In each and every case, we require that there are end users of the data brought into the conversation when we're designing and developing the program. We don't go and collect data for data's sake and hope that it gets used. We always have somebody who's saying, "I need these data to make this intervention, to pass, to pass this legislation, to power this technology." The, the solutions are varied, uh, and we look to a variety of different, uh,
• 15:10
  outcomes or different, uh, solutions that we're hoping for. Um, but in almost every-- In, in each and every case, not almost, in each and every case, there's a, a manager, a lawyer, a,
• 15:24
  a politician, somebody who says, "I need these data to make real change." [sniffs]
• 15:29
  Yeah, I'm, I'm curious about the science itself, ci-citizen-driven or otherwise. In an era where we seem to be devaluing data and data-driven decisions, I guess this is the big why. I'm ass- I think you just sort of articulated this, but you go into this by hoping that what data you gather will help us make the right decisions for the natural world, right? Like, and, and, um, I, I guess you continue to just focus on that why even if maybe we're living in an era that's getting a little bit weird about, you know, uh, I'll just at least say politicians' view on science and maybe the larger s- lar- larger societal view. But the, the why I'm assuming just sort of is the anchor to all of this, right?
• 16:11
  Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, there's... Building on Greg's reflections, I think there's a really empowering aspect of this model, which is at a time when, um, I think many of us that are very aware of the impacts on the natural world, um, and feel probably a balance of urgency and ambition. This is the model of Adventure Scientists is what really enables an individual or a community to go out and have this impact. And as far as technology has come, there are still those gaps, right? And that is the really unique role that Adventure Scientists fulfills. So, um, it is, uh, you know, it is my hope that we continue to really lean into that piece of it because that's where I think individuals begin to have that impact and f- and can feel that themselves. Um, for problems that feel enormous and hard to tackle, we can each do, um, small things in our own backyards to, um, advance science that, that helps to, to really enable large scale conservation solutions.
• 17:12
  One of the coolest things that was somewhat unexpected about our work, uh, is that nearly a third of our volunteers tell us that just that feeling of, "I matter," and, "I can make a difference", was enough of a spark for them to go back to school for conservation careers, to change careers and go into careers of conservation. Uh, they tell us that they're making long-term, life-changing decisions after they see that they have the power and the ability to make a difference. We didn't expect for that. We don't anchor on that. We're looking for how the data can really leverage solutions for the environment. But holy cow, what an amazing, unanticipated additional benefit that we get to add to the world. I, I love that part.
• 17:59
  Yeah, I, uh, I, I, I've always sort of rooted my fuel for my soul comes from how you can have those individual impacts. Even if the organization's rooted in the larger picture, if you're having those sort of impacts on individual lives, it's, it's, it's what getsGets my feet moving on when I hit the floor in the morning, right? And, and, um, I always kinda felt we had that in common, Greg, and it's so exciting to hear. Maybe for both of you guys, how hard do you have to work at the protocols you establish? I guess I wonder, in the science world, do scientists treat the data gathered by citizens versus, and I'm using air quotes there, versus maybe by the science community itself? And I'm assuming that's a, maybe a product of just how rigorous you guys have put together protocols for how you gather and then who you work with on putting those protocols together. Is that right?
• 18:50
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, first of all, we have anchored on data quality and ensuring that our data are not only publication worthy, but often they even have to hold up in court. Uh, there's people, uh, you know, partners of ours who have fought and won cases utilizing our data. Um, there are, uh, situations where we've had to deploy body cams to show what people are doing in the field. Um, uh, we go to pretty extreme lengths to make sure that everything we're doing holds up to scientific rigor, uh, because without that scientific rigor, we can't achieve those outcomes we're looking for. Um, and our team is just so amazing at this. Not only do we have, uh, you know, a group of people, uh, Sam and Ricky and, um, Becky and Nate, who are, uh, answering the questions of our volunteers on a regular basis. Uh, and, you know, um, also Lila and Gianna and Rachel. Uh, they're all so amazing. Um, but they just think through this from... A-and we've done this so many times now, more than 150 projects, where we've been through developing the protocols, incorporating them into the app. So it asks things like, "Did you remember to cap your water bottle underneath the surface of the water? Did you remember to rinse three times? If you're collecting tree DNA, did you remember to sterilize your increment borer?" You know, so we, we ask these questions in the apps themselves. We reinforce them with protocol booklets. We've then got a staff looking at the data coming in to make sure that nothing's crazy or out of line, and if it is, we'll go and ask questions about that. People can write in and call in and text in and email in to answer, uh, their questions, and our team is just so great at, uh, not only foreseeing what it is they're gonna ask, but then responding when they do. And that helps a lot. Um, you know, more to your question of, yeah, there, there is some headwind, I think, in, uh, especially more of an old school scientific community looking at community-gathered data, uh, or publicly gathered data, um, and I think that the field of citizen science, which is a term I hadn't heard of when I first started this organization, um, but the field has come a long way since I started it now 15 years ago. Uh, and people are, um, readily seeing that there are just more and more and more examples of community-gathered data leveraging real change and, and being the catalyst for real and lasting change in the world. I'd like to think Adventure Scientists has been at the forefront of that. Uh, and we've got a bunch of examples of, of how that's, uh, taken place and how we've shown that people trained well and given the right tools can be completely successful, in many cases, as much as any scientist would be collecting those data.
• 21:53
  And I, I was actually really fortunate to start my, um, first full week with Adventure Scientists, um, three weeks ago, uh, actually witnessing this in action, and it was, um, uh, scuba diving on one of our reef restoration projects in Colombia. And to Greg's point, to see how our volunteers and locally employed community members were able to learn a really technical and rigorous methodology, um, was, was very enlightening. Uh, and a lot of these are-- they're already very competent technically. They're PADI-certified divers, but they were learning a lot about coral health and, uh, fish life and all of those other, um, co-benefits of healthy ecosystems, and also were really learning a lot about what they needed to do underwater to, to gather all of this data, which was very technical, but super rewarding to see how much they had learned and how, um, helpful that was to our local partners.
• 22:51
  Laura, you're mentioning the, the technical side of this, and Greg's, uh, mentioning apps and body cams sort of inspires a question about technology. Um, technology is, is changing what's possible, right, for everyone. You've got eDNA sampling and smartphone sensors and AI-assisted species identification and satellite cross-referencing and all sorts of tools, right, with all kinds of cool bells and whistles. How does all that stuff reshape the citizen science model? Does it, in your mind, democratize it further, or does it create new hurdles, right, new quality control headaches? Is it just more work, or do you see it, like, really impacting what you do in, in positive ways?
• 23:40
  Yeah. I think, uh, I think that, uh, all this new technology is, uh, amazing. Um, things like eDNA, so for those who are listening that maybe don't know, that's, that's environmental DNA. And so environmental DNA allows us to take a sample of water and know everything that's been in the radius of that sample of water for sometimes up to a week before. Uh, we can do this in air. We've done this in soil. We, we had a project in California where we sampled more than 3,200 sites across the state using collecting soil eDNA to look at the microbes and other, uh, things that are in the soil or that had passed through, uh, those areas. So tools like this definitely further democratize what's possible. We can now send somebody out, teach them the proper way, uh, to collect a specimen, not contaminate it, store it, ship it off to a lab where we can now analyze every single bacteria in a soil or every fish in a waterway. That is so mind-blowing and so amazing. The technology's actually, like, 20 years old, but now it's become cheap enough and ubiquitous enough that, uh, it's really practical for solutions like this. We're building a project right now in the Peruvian Amazon-Where we're gonna have local indigenous people flying LIDAR drones. Like that's pretty freaking cool, right? [chuckles] Uh, the, the-- how amazing is that? So the-- these LIDAR drones, which is laser radar, is gonna be measuring the heights of trees, uh, a-a-across the Amazon. Uh, that is super cool technology that just a few years ago didn't exist and wasn't practical. Our smartphones now also have LIDAR scanners, so we'll be doing three-D scans of the forest using LIDAR scanners from our phones. The-- this is amazing stuff. Um, you know, it, it's, uh, you know, it's also, uh, their satellite remote sensing data, um, all of these new technologies also need ground validation and still require boots on the ground to make sure that they're accurate, to make sure that they're being used properly, uh, and to make sure that, um, we keep humans part of the conservation and data collection story. Maybe that changes twenty, thirty years from now, but, you know, if we've solved all the world's problems in twenty years, then hallelujah. [chuckles]
• 26:13
  We step aside for a word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back with more of the conversation.
• 26:18
  I'm Audrey with Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, and you're listening to The Wild Idea.
• 26:23
  So Laura, I wanna ask you, you know, you're rolling into this new role as the, the new executive director, uh, and all that you guys have described so far sounds like it's just such a significant scale doing obviously incredibly cool work, but important work. That all takes resources. Um, and this is the struggle of the nonprofit NGO world is making work of this scale sustainable. Can you talk a little bit about, like, what you're inheriting and what you're looking at on the sustainability of an organization like Adventure Scientists?
• 26:59
  Absolutely. Well, I think one of the many, many attributes that is so powerful about Adventure Scientists, and a lot of this really stems from Greg's creativity, is an ability to, um, pivot and evolve with the times, and that's not always a quality that I think we see in nonprofits. But in some of the projects we'll discuss here, I think you'll see how we're beginning to experiment with more financially durable models. So where the, the nonprofit space has been very dependent on individual donors, grants, and foundations, which we still very much need, I think we also have to be reading the room and looking at the landscape and how that is shifting and thinking about what something that is fiscally, um, sustainable and also responsive to, uh, to the market looks like. And, um, I'll let Greg share a little bit more, but, but one example that was referenced earlier in the Peruvian jungle, um, is us experimenting with how we'll, um,
• 27:58
  uh, how we can help with the monitoring valuation reporting, um, of biodiversity and/or carbon credit markets by deploying locally employed communities and indigenous communities to validate that on the ground. Um, fifteen years ago, when Adventure Scientists started, that was not, um, a need case that we had, but if we look at where those demands reside and where some of Adventure Scientists' really unique,
• 28:24
  um, core capabilities lie, it is the incredible way that we have been able to train, um, volunteers to gather this data as we discussed earlier. So I think this is, um, a wonderful opportunity. We don't know how this will work out yet, but we need to experiment with new ways of funding and being responsive to the ways that, um, the nonprofits are, are fulfilling their mission.
• 28:46
  Yeah. I'll just add a little more about, uh, this new experiment here is, um, we're calling it Ground Truth for Nature. And, uh, what we're doing is adding in a far more robust MRV or monitoring, reporting, evaluation layer, um, than would otherwise exist. So we look at, uh, existing carbon developers, and in fact, some of the very first truly indigenous-owned carbon projects are happening now, um, including from one of our partners in the Peruvian Amazon. And, um, what we do is we hire local people. Uh, we're gonna hire about a hundred and thirty-five local people, uh, as part-timers and then another three-time full... uh, three full-time people, uh, and give them all the equipment, training, uh, and everything they need to go out and measure variables that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Things like soil carbon, things like above ground biomass, but not from trees, above ground leaf litter. And by measuring these things, instead of taking what would otherwise be a zero value, uh, when they go and get their credits, they now can take actual values for these and, and have a much more, uh, actual representative value of how much carbon their projects are putting back into the forest or saving, um, from leaving the forest in the first place. Um, what we love about this is not just the local empowerment, it's the fact that carbon markets in concept are amazing. You're ge- you're generating billions of dollars for nature positive projects. The problem comes when, uh, these projects become untrustworthy. So there's been a lot of bad press in recent years about carbon markets and, uh, how many of these projects aren't actually adding or saving carbon from leaving the forests. Uh, and what we think is that by actually measuring this in a rigorous, systematic way on the ground, we can up the trust level, uh, in those markets. We can add, uh, quite a bit of credibility while adding more value. The other cool thing is that when you add more credibility and more trust, the value of those credits themselves go up in value. So now we're generating more value for our partners. We're creating additional credits that they otherwise wouldn't get, and we're doing it all by employing local indigenous people to go and get those data. I, I just love this new project. Uh, the coolest thing about the sustainability part is that we're, you know, we're still figuring out exactly what this looks like. Um, but because this is all additional revenue for our partners, uh, we'll take a cut of that, uh, which will make the organization, uh, this new initiative, uh, sustainable, but should also generate some income back to Adventure Scientists' core operations as well.
• 31:49
  All this growth you're describing is, is happening against a leadership transition, which obviously is one of the more delicate and defining moments for any mission-driven organization.Greg, as, as you mentioned, you founded Adventure Scientists in 2011, and you've built it from a sort of passion project into this global conservation force with s- so many cool projects going on. And now Lara has stepped in as executive director, presumably with a vision that is in conversation with yours, even as it is unique to her. So I guess I have a question for you both. Greg, what does it actually take to hand something like this over? And Lara, after that, you know, what does day one... or, or maybe to be more fair, what does year one look like when you inherit something this founder-led?
• 32:39
  Well, there's been, uh, you know, about f- five years of, of emotional and mental readiness preparation here. Um, [chuckles]
• 32:49
  you know, no expedition I ever took compared at all to, to what it would take to build and run Adventure Scientists, and, uh, I've put my heart and soul into this from the very beginning. Um, I wouldn't... I, I didn't-- It took us more than a year to find Lara, uh, from the actual time that we started our search. Um, but during that time and, and long before, there was, uh, you know, a partnership with, first my wife and, and family and, uh, then my board, um, you know, figuring out what this, what a future could look like, where, um, the organization is, is able to advance beyond my, um,
• 33:35
  beyond my leadership and, and also where, um, I could focus on what I get joy from and, and what I'm really good at. Um, and then, you know, I've got a executive coach I work with and, and see at least every week. More often than not, we're texting during the week, and Leslie's amazing, and I couldn't have gotten here mentally without her. And, uh, it's just been a, a process, right? It's like any journey and any expedition is your, your mental state changes throughout. And, um, when, when we found Lara, um... man, I'm so, I'm... I- We've known each other now for a few months 'cause, you know, the, the process and all that, but she's amazing. And, and, you know, everyone was a bit skeptical that we'd find so much of what we're looking for, somebody who gets and resonates with our audience, which is the outdoor community, uh, somebody who understands the, the real promise of what Adventure Scientists can deliver the world and sees that same, uh, trajectory that I do, uh, and somebody who's got the people skills and ability to manage, uh, and grow and support a team, uh, so that we can achieve that vision and achieve those goals. Sh- I'm so lucky to have found her as a partner, and that helped a lot, too, right? I was even, uh... I was never skeptical. I always believed that we would find the right person. Um, but until you actually do that, very, very difficult to, to get there mentally. Um, but no, I, I am ecstatic to have made this shift, and, uh, I get to focus now on building new programs, things like the Ground Truth Initiative, which bring a lot more sustainability to the organization. I'm really excited to be honing in on a few core areas where we can just have an outsized impact and continue to grow that. Uh, and then on the relationships with our donors and our partners who make our work possible, to, to be able to actually take them in the field. You know, Lara mentioned this dive trip that we just took to Colombia. We got to bring one of our donor partners with us and show them firsthand just how incredible this work is, and to see it firsthand is, is a game-changer for people. It's one thing to talk about it and show pictures of it, but to experience it is a whole 'nother one. So I'm gonna get to do a lot of field time and go collect data, backcountry skiing in, in the Pacific Northwest for our whitebark pine study and sea kayaking for our orca study off the Oregon coast and, and, uh, you know, hope to go to the Peruvian Amazon later, uh, probably early next month I'll be there. Um, so I couldn't be more excited for the future, and I'm also really excited to bring my kids with me as they get older, uh, and show them what it's like to go make a positive difference, not just to, to play in nature.
• 36:37
  They already get to see a lot of that, too.
• 36:39
  Well, and I'm, I'm just... I have such respect for Greg in making this decision. I think it is a rare leader that can do that. And, um, and I feel so lucky, uh, to be building on a legacy of 15 years of incredible impact, and also know that I will continue to have Greg as such a close partner. Um, I, I told the team in our first all hands together that I feel like I have the best job in the world, and I really sincerely mean that. To, to be able to, um, build on this incredible legacy and have such a committed team in an area that's so impactful, um, and to get to do this in, in a way that fulfills a lot of my personal passions is, um, truly is a dream. And there will be, you know, bumps in the road that we all navigate, but when those other elements are there, uh, it's, um, it's such a solid foundation that I have every confidence, um, that we will find a way forward.
• 37:39
  I just have to admire both of you for willing to take it on the way you're doing it. Um, Greg, you and I have talked in the past. You know, I, I, I went through a transition, but not, not as similar as what you're doing, because you're gonna stick around. You're gonna have this chairmanship role on the board of Adventure Scientists. And, and, um, and for you, Lara, you're gonna have the former founder
• 38:01
  Still very sort of involved and around on a day-to-day basis. For me, emotionally, I c- I kinda had to cut the cord. I, I, I literally physically removed myself from the southeast where I had started the organization that I ran and, and, and hightailed it to Montana. But I, I just wanna... I don't know if, if there's a question in here, but it's just a, it's a, a real respect. I, I think there'll be moments where you guys will probably have to work through some, you know, challenges and directions, Laura, maybe that you wanna go, and, and, uh, and, uh, a- and Greg, for you probably going, "Why is she making that decision?" But I f- I feel like you guys have, have already gotten grounded in how you're gonna do that, so.
• 38:38
  Bill, your comment inspires a, a question, but not for these guys. It's actually for you. You, you mentioned the, the transition that you and I went through together at Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, where you were the ED, and I was chair of the board, and that, um, transition eventually led to the, the current ED, Caitlin Deverona, who you and I'll be talking to on this podcast in just a few weeks. But y- it... When you were talking, I was thinking that these sort of founder-led stewardship organizations like SAWS carry a, a particular kind of institutional memory that lives in people rather than documents, and I'm sure that's something that Adventure Scientists is, uh, experiencing right now, too. You know, relationships with land management agencies or scientific partners or local communities. Bill, how did you try to transfer that, right? W- what do you do about what can't be written down? Do you have any advice for these guys?
• 39:31
  Oh, I mean, the transition happens in, uh, long before the transition ever happens, and it's empowering the staff that's already there to carry the relationships. I mean, I think part of my eventual stepping away from leading Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards was is I had bec- been very synonymous with the organization, like if they... But we had, thankfully, in the last few years where I was still in that role, is, i- is I had a staff who had the same deep connections with the Forest Service, um, had a board that was truly connected to the work. Um, and I think, and Greg, I see you nodding your head. I mean, I think,
• 40:07
  I think that's part of it is, is, um, is you, is you kind of try to make sure... And, and there was definitely a time, very, very scary time, where all of the data was in my head [chuckles] and, and, uh, and, uh, but thankfully we'd, we'd done enough to sort of spread that knowledge among the group, try to also have good, you know, systems in place to, to have that knowledge, uh, be beyond individuals. Um, but I think, yeah, I think it was... I think that work for a successful transition starts long before the transition happens, and that's, uh, you know, sort of standardizing that institutional knowledge so that, uh, it doesn't all leave. You know, in this case, Greg's still gonna be around, right? But, you know, it's... it is an interesting thing to think about.
• 40:50
  Yeah, I mean, the, uh, uh, in empowering Laura to take over the leadership of the day-to-day operation, um, you know, first of all, even, even back to our previous question, recognizing that we had a problem, recognizing that founder syndrome, founder's dilemma is a real thing. [chuckles] Founder-led organizations, this is just a natural cycle that happens, and, you know, we're 15 years in here, and, uh, if we really wanna grow beyond, uh, again, the, my leadership, if we wanna become an institution long term, uh, recognizing that was the first step. And, and as I started reading about found- founder's dilemma, started reading articles and books, and, and talking with advisors about this, man, it, it, it, it was just so eye-opening how to a T that's what we were going through. And Bill, that's exactly what you're talking about, is so much lives in our heads as founders. It's, it's... Laura and I went for, uh, as we do, one of our three-and-a-half-hour walks yesterday, uh, which is so nice to have her here and be able to do that. It's been beautiful here in Bozeman this week. Um, but, you know, she talked about it as even, like, uh, we were talking about our staff and, and why it's hard for some people on the team to give honest feedback of me as a leader, and it's... she described it as, as almost like I've been painting this, this picture, this canvas for the last 15 years, and nobody wants to insult my artwork. Nobody wants to insult my painting, right? They've got-- They, they love and respect that, that they've got for me, which is so amazing, and i- that's just yet another reason why it's so important to hand it off to another leader who can then take it and really, um,
• 42:46
  build this from the ground up, too, from the t- with the team and the, the amazing talent that we have been fortunate enough to hire onto this team. They're so smart. They're so capable, and if I don't get out of the way, we're just limited. Um, so I don't really know where I was going with that other than just to say, um, yeah, i- it's, it's, it's been so deliberate, uh, and we're going to have to be so deliberate moving forward. About two years ago, we started documenting everything we could. We use a, a tool called Notion where we just pile everything we can into there, all the decisions that I make and how I make 'em and why I make 'em. We started there, and then it was how do you, you know, fill out a receipt, uh, or an expense report? Uh, uh, every single system is now in there just so that she can operate autonomously without having to come to me to ask all of those little questions. And now there will still be tons of things we didn't get in there, uh, history and why we, I made decisions like I did. But, um-You know, so it's this dual benefit. I'm really trying hard, and I hope you feel it early on, Lara, to, to let her lead and, and stay in my lane. My lane is to develop these new programs that are gonna add sustainability financially, and to inspire the world to come and, uh, through things like I'm giving a National Geographic live talk now, and a tour that I'm on with them, and, um, you know, speaking things, and podcasts like this, and, and getting out in front of the world. Um, so my job is to inspire, my job is to build new programs, and my job is to get our donors really jazzed about what we do.
• 44:29
  See, Bill, all those insults I throw your way are actually constructive criticisms, and they're healthy.
• 44:35
  I think you're actually challenging my artwork is actually what you're doing. That's what I-
• 44:38
  [laughs]
• 44:38
  ... certainly more grateful than you've been.
• 44:40
  I'm a horrible painter, by the way, but- [laughs]
• 44:44
  [laughs]
• 44:44
  Uh, Lara, I wanna ask you one, one sort of final question. How can folks get involved with Adventure Scientists? What's the, the easiest way in which people can engage with the organization and, and start their journey?
• 44:56
  Yeah, absolutely, and the more the merrier. So of course our website, adventurescientists.org, um, is, uh, is a good place to begin. Uh, we have an Instagram feed. We have a LinkedIn page. Um, so all of the usual social media channels. And from there, um, individuals can see ways of donating, um, of volunteering on particular projects, and, um, subscribing to newsletters to stay up to date on future projects and future engagement. And if you're in Montana, come and see us in Bozeman, and we'll have a coffee.
• 45:31
  We love it. Greg Trenisch, Lara Barks, thank you all so much for being on here. We have been talking to the leadership team from Adventure Scientists. Just been a real pleasure to have you guys here. You heard Greg mention that he's got this speaker series coming up, including several dates in Seattle and Port Angeles, Washington. We'll make sure those are in our show notes, uh, so you can link to those if you're in that area, and you wanna go, uh, see those conversations. But again, our, our huge thanks to both of you for being here. It's just been such a really great conversation.
• 45:59
  Yeah, thanks for having us.
• 46:01
  Yeah, thank you both. It's been a pleasure.
• 46:03
  Coming up on The Wild Idea podcast, we really feed our nerd brains as we take an advanced level course on public lands history with Jon Leshe. And we explore a proposal to pull out our public land laws and see what the alignment is with 2026. If you wanna learn more about Adventure Scientists and to keep in touch with everything we cover on The Wild Idea, sign up for our newsletter, and at thewildidea.com.
• 46:26
  We get this question asked a lot of us about supporting our work. Well, you can find the link to our Buy Me a Coffee on our website. Uh, you could also recommend us to a friend. Uh, give us a good review on your podcast player of choice. It all is greatly appreciated. We love sharing our mutual curiosity with you all. And if you have something you're curious about you'd like us to explore, please drop us a note on that website. Again, wildid- thewildidea.com. We look forward to seeing all of you on down the trail.
• 46:53
  [upbeat music] The Wild Idea is a production of Wild Idea Media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bryn Russell at PodLab. Digital support by Holly Wilcheszewski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack, is from Railroad Earth, and was composed by John Skehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Lara Hodge. You can find The Wild Idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating. And if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at thewildidea.com.