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Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation - Peter Hawks · Aired Out

0:32
Speaker 1: Trains up to bac Arder, then go down Obaco the
0:38
Speaker 1: bier gass up to I go wider kock down by
1:22
Speaker 1: I got fighter gass uptil I go rider, Jazi.
2:05
Speaker 2: Don't forget five dollar Wednesdays at the Paramount Theater today.
2:10
Speaker 2: Skip the line, bring five bucks. Get out to the
2:14
Speaker 2: movie theater today. FGB Theaters dot com for all of
2:19
Speaker 2: the listings of what's playing. But yeah, it's back five
2:22
Speaker 2: dollars Wednesdays at the Paramount right here in the Granite City.
2:26
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the aired Out podcast. We're
2:29
Speaker 2: on the web at airedoutvt dot com. We're streamed everywhere
2:33
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts, Yeah, every platform that you can imagine. Yes,
2:39
Speaker 2: I'm wearing my optical expressions classes this morning two two three,
2:43
Speaker 2: twenty ninety to set up an exam today, and you
2:45
Speaker 2: really ought to. I would be completely lost without my
2:49
Speaker 2: glasses and I got them on this morning. Hey Deb
2:53
Speaker 2: Phillips with us from the world.
2:54
Speaker 3: Deb.
2:54
Speaker 2: Good morning?
2:57
Speaker 3: Are you with us? Deb?
3:00
Speaker 1: Oh?
3:00
Speaker 2: I think we lost her. Let's see we can go.
3:02
Speaker 2: Oh there you are high, Deb? How are you here?
3:05
Speaker 1: You?
3:06
Speaker 2: How are things going over at the world. I know
3:09
Speaker 2: that Wednesdays are game time for you guys. It is
3:12
Speaker 2: the busiest, maybe the busiest day of the week. Maybe
3:14
Speaker 2: it's Tuesday, I don't know.
3:16
Speaker 4: O Wednesday definitely is. The truck just got here and
3:20
Speaker 4: they're loading up, getting ready to deliver the papers.
3:24
Speaker 2: All right, we love the world. We love and appreciate
3:27
Speaker 2: you and Gary and the rest of the team, your partnership.
3:31
Speaker 2: Now with the times, Argust, things have really changed. It
3:34
Speaker 2: has been a wild what fifty first year, oh, fifty third,
3:41
Speaker 2: fifty three years? Wow? Incredible? Hey, deb what can we
3:45
Speaker 2: expect in the paper today?
3:47
Speaker 4: Well, we invite you to celebrate Labor Day weekend in Northfield.
3:52
Speaker 4: They're going to have the parade and a lot going
3:54
Speaker 4: on this year. Also there's the mad River craft Bear
3:59
Speaker 4: in waits this weekend and we have the Bridle Directory
4:05
Speaker 4: in the Beckcare corner.
4:06
Speaker 2: I saw a little bit of I don't know, there
4:10
Speaker 2: was something about wedding season that I thought I saw
4:14
Speaker 2: in the world. But I know it is like man,
4:16
Speaker 2: as soon as the leaves change in Vermont, that is
4:22
Speaker 2: high tide for the wedding industry, is it not.
4:25
Speaker 4: Oh, definitely definitely high tide. Yeah, big time.
4:30
Speaker 2: Well, we always look forward to it. I'm going to
4:32
Speaker 2: be grabbing my copy here shortly and thumbing through it.
4:36
Speaker 2: And we love and appreciate you, both you and Gary
4:40
Speaker 2: and the rest of everyone that makes the world happen
4:43
Speaker 2: every single week. Thank you so much, Deb, Thank you Jad.
4:48
Speaker 2: We'll talk to you soon. We're looking at partly cloudy
4:51
Speaker 2: skies this afternoon, around sixty six or so for the
4:54
Speaker 2: daytime high. Clear tonight forty five sitting on the patio.
4:58
Speaker 2: Last night, little chili like it, but chili sunshine, and
5:04
Speaker 2: seventy five tomorrow Tomorrow night at thunder Road, partly cloudy
5:08
Speaker 2: in about fifty five. Rain coming into the picture on Friday.
5:12
Speaker 2: Do I need to say much needed rain? I don't,
5:14
Speaker 2: because you already know that's the case.
5:17
Speaker 3: We need it.
5:18
Speaker 2: Yes, sixty six for the high on Friday and Saturday,
5:22
Speaker 2: the sun comes back with sixty five for the high.
5:26
Speaker 2: So yeah, man, we have a lot to talk about
5:30
Speaker 2: this morning. This guy, this handsome devil that is sitting
5:33
Speaker 2: right next to me, Peter Hawks, Man, I gotta tell you,
5:36
Speaker 2: first of all, welcome to the studios, Welcome to Flying
5:40
Speaker 2: the Wall Productions, Welcome to the airt Out Podcast, Welcome
5:44
Speaker 2: to my microphone. I could talk with you all day.
5:47
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, JD. It's a pleasure to be here.
5:50
Speaker 2: From the Flying Ryan Foundation. I think it was I'm
5:55
Speaker 2: trying to remember here because I'm getting old four opal
6:00
Speaker 2: so things are slipping in the gears a little bit.
6:04
Speaker 2: But I think it was maybe Chad Hollister that first
6:08
Speaker 2: told me about the Fly and Ryan Hawks Foundation years ago.
6:14
Speaker 2: But of course Tom Murphy from Sweethearts and Heroes starts
6:21
Speaker 2: talking about you, and I was like, whoa, I gotta
6:26
Speaker 2: get I got to get mister Hawks on the air.
6:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really quite a story, JD. We have as
6:35
Speaker 3: part of our fundraising medium a thing we call community partners,
6:41
Speaker 3: and one of our community partners is the Vermont Agency,
6:45
Speaker 3: which is a division of Vermont National Life, and they
6:48
Speaker 3: run a golf tournament and we participate that in that
6:52
Speaker 3: every year and we've been very fortunate in fact this
6:55
Speaker 3: year for the very first time, we won the tournament. Well,
6:59
Speaker 3: one of their divisions is the Innovative Wellness Division, and
7:05
Speaker 3: we gave a presentation of one of our three core programs.
7:10
Speaker 3: We have three programs that really is what the Fly
7:14
Speaker 3: and Ryan Foundation is all about. We give adventure scholarships,
7:19
Speaker 3: an adventure scholarship is kind of a special deal with
7:22
Speaker 3: us because we're not looking for Olympic athletes. We're looking
7:26
Speaker 3: for people who are passionate and authentic in terms of
7:30
Speaker 3: pursuing their passion, don't have the means to do it,
7:34
Speaker 3: but we want to know who it is we're giving
7:36
Speaker 3: a scholarship to, so we require and ask that as
7:40
Speaker 3: part of the scholarship application process that these people share
7:45
Speaker 3: with us their core values, so we know who it
7:47
Speaker 3: is who is writing the application and verification of authenticity
7:54
Speaker 3: and the essays we get are just off the chart.
7:59
Speaker 3: Over the years, we've given a little over two hundred
8:02
Speaker 3: scholarships and we're not looking for Olympic athletes. We're just
8:06
Speaker 3: looking for people who need a hand up and we
8:10
Speaker 3: want to facilitate the journey. So it's a real pleasure
8:15
Speaker 3: to make these awards. In fact, this year is a
8:17
Speaker 3: banner year. We've probably given twenty five or twenty six
8:21
Speaker 3: awards already this year alone, and there's more to come,
8:25
Speaker 3: so that's an exciting exciting thing. But getting back to
8:29
Speaker 3: Tom Murphy, we gave a presentation on a relative to
8:34
Speaker 3: one of our other programs, which is our primary program now,
8:39
Speaker 3: which is the Core Values Challenge. The Core Values Challenge
8:42
Speaker 3: is pure and simple. You know, tell us who you
8:45
Speaker 3: are and what makes you tick and create a foundation
8:49
Speaker 3: for your future behavior and attitude. Attitude is a critical
8:54
Speaker 3: ingredient of everything you say, think and do, and there's
8:57
Speaker 3: a lot of noise out there, a ton of it'll
9:01
Speaker 3: get you off track if you let it, And if
9:03
Speaker 3: you live by the expectations of others, you're apt to
9:07
Speaker 3: go off track and not live the life that's really
9:11
Speaker 3: available to you. Because all you've got is time. That's
9:14
Speaker 3: your only ingredient in life. What you do with it
9:17
Speaker 3: is your business. So it's best, we think for people
9:21
Speaker 3: to know who they are and define themselves. And that's
9:25
Speaker 3: what the Core Values Challenge elicits and it can happen.
9:30
Speaker 3: It starts a journey in basically twenty or thirty minutes,
9:34
Speaker 3: so it's really quick. And we gave a presentation at
9:38
Speaker 3: the Vermont Innovative Wellness Office and after the presentation, the
9:47
Speaker 3: lady who runs it, Maria Hoopsher, said, you know, there's
9:52
Speaker 3: somebody I want you to meet up in Saint Albans,
9:55
Speaker 3: guy named Tom Murphy. Have you ever heard of him? No,
9:58
Speaker 3: I haven't. Well he an outfit called Sweethearts and Heroes.
10:03
Speaker 3: I'm going to send a letter of introduction over to Tom,
10:07
Speaker 3: and you guys hook up.
10:09
Speaker 2: So she did that.
10:12
Speaker 3: I called Subsequently. Tom said he would see me at
10:17
Speaker 3: noon on Memorial Day and he had an hour. And
10:23
Speaker 3: I came to realize when I met him that he
10:26
Speaker 3: really is a UFC fighter type guy, a very imposing
10:30
Speaker 3: physical character. But I was blown away by the hour
10:35
Speaker 3: that we spent together. Oh yeah, I was blown away
10:39
Speaker 3: because when we sat down, the first question he asked
10:43
Speaker 3: me was tell me about your mom and dad. Well,
10:48
Speaker 3: I'm there to talk about the foundation and see if
10:52
Speaker 3: we can get a relationship going. And he starts out
10:56
Speaker 3: with tell me about your mom and dad and you
11:00
Speaker 3: j Do you know Tom? You know how he looks
11:03
Speaker 3: at you. It's not intimidating. No, he's a big guy.
11:07
Speaker 2: He looks at you through the back here.
11:09
Speaker 3: He's like a fricking sponge. Yeah, he absorbs every renuance
11:16
Speaker 3: of what you're saying.
11:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, doesn't miss anything.
11:19
Speaker 3: And I had an hour to talk to him, and
11:22
Speaker 3: forty minutes later, he's still asking me about my life
11:27
Speaker 3: and I'm getting nervous. I said, Tom, I'd like to
11:31
Speaker 3: talk about the foundation here and he said, I know,
11:36
Speaker 3: I got a one o'clock mate, I'm going to push
11:38
Speaker 3: it off a half hour, so don't worry about it.
11:41
Speaker 3: So bottom line, at the end of the conversation, he said,
11:45
Speaker 3: that was authentic, that was powerful, that was meaningful. That's
11:49
Speaker 3: something we want to work with. I got two requests
11:52
Speaker 3: for you, he said. He said, I want you to
11:54
Speaker 3: get me into South Burlington, which we subsequently did the
11:57
Speaker 3: high school. And I want to come down and spend
12:02
Speaker 3: four hours with our video team and absorb your materials
12:06
Speaker 3: and integrate them into our leadership program. And so that's
12:10
Speaker 3: literally why we're here today. Tom likes what we do.
12:14
Speaker 2: We like what he does.
12:15
Speaker 3: I mean, his mission is awesome. Hopelessness is the equivalent
12:22
Speaker 3: of the COVID pandemic. It is a huge, unspoken issue
12:31
Speaker 3: that impacts the majority of young people today, and a
12:37
Speaker 3: corrective medicine. One of the corrective medicines is to address
12:41
Speaker 3: it head on. And Tom believes, as we do, that
12:45
Speaker 3: people who know who they are and have defined themselves
12:49
Speaker 3: are going to have a better shot at shutting out
12:51
Speaker 3: the noise and the distraction and all the things that
12:55
Speaker 3: can basically kick kids around because they don't have a
12:59
Speaker 3: sense of direction, and it gives them a power of choice.
13:03
Speaker 2: You're eighty seven years old, sharper than a tack, by
13:08
Speaker 2: the way, But there's a lot more noise and distraction
13:15
Speaker 2: going on in the current world than there was. I'm
13:20
Speaker 2: guessing when you were ten.
13:23
Speaker 3: I mentioned that frequently. I said, we grew up in
13:27
Speaker 3: the forties and fifties in La La Land. We had
13:32
Speaker 3: it so easy. It is so complicated to be a
13:36
Speaker 3: kid today.
13:38
Speaker 2: So what you're saying is there was no online bullying
13:40
Speaker 2: back in the forties.
13:42
Speaker 3: Oh, of course there was bullying. It was all that stuff,
13:44
Speaker 3: but not online. But nothing not online, not online. It
13:49
Speaker 3: was mono amado.
13:50
Speaker 2: Wasn't it great living without a cell phone? Obviously you
13:54
Speaker 2: remember those days.
13:55
Speaker 3: Oh my god, there are days when I want to
13:58
Speaker 3: go back back to that, to the simplicity of life.
14:03
Speaker 3: But really it's kids today have a really complex task
14:10
Speaker 3: because not all kids have great parents, and if the
14:16
Speaker 3: parents assert their authority in counterproductive ways, the kids grow
14:21
Speaker 3: up within those constraints. And we want to break the
14:26
Speaker 3: kids loose so they have their own voice. And once
14:29
Speaker 3: they have their own voice, and we've seen this happen
14:32
Speaker 3: because we are our old program, which is I told
14:36
Speaker 3: you we have three programs, the Core Values Program, the
14:39
Speaker 3: Adventure Scholarship Program. In our original evaluation of Core Values
14:46
Speaker 3: was a program we called Decisions. That's a deep dive
14:51
Speaker 3: and it works in schools, and we've installed it in
14:53
Speaker 3: roughly twelve or thirteen schools around the state. It's part
14:58
Speaker 3: of the Personal Learning Plan, which is required curriculum, but
15:03
Speaker 3: required doesn't mean it gets done. So of the seventy
15:07
Speaker 3: two schools scattered around the state, we'ren't about thirteen or
15:10
Speaker 3: fourteen that we know of, and probably another ten or
15:13
Speaker 3: so that we don't know of. But we got a
15:17
Speaker 3: long ways to go in terms of giving kids the
15:23
Speaker 3: opportunity to take charge of their future and their decision
15:29
Speaker 3: making and the time that they have to navigate through life.
15:34
Speaker 3: You're either in control or you're a cork on the ocean.
15:37
Speaker 3: And a lot of kids are getting distracted. Wow, and
15:41
Speaker 3: we prevent that and it works so well.
15:45
Speaker 2: Said I'm on Flying Ryan Hawks dot work on your
15:52
Speaker 2: page right now where it says Ryan Hawks was a
15:58
Speaker 2: dynamic human being with a passion in love for the
16:00
Speaker 2: mountains in skiing. He loved a fulfilling life which was
16:05
Speaker 2: dominated by fun, adventure, and determination. Although he lived only
16:11
Speaker 2: twenty five short years, he lived every minute of his life.
16:19
Speaker 2: Who is Ryan Hawks? Let's start there this morning, because
16:24
Speaker 2: if you're just tuning in, Peter Hawks is with me.
16:28
Speaker 2: He's my very special guest this morning, the executive director
16:33
Speaker 2: of the Ryan Hawks or the Flying Ryan Hawks Foundation.
16:38
Speaker 2: But who is Ryan Hawks? Let's we have to start there.
16:42
Speaker 3: Man, absolutely. The Flying Ryan Foundation was founded in twenty
16:51
Speaker 3: eleven upon the death of Ryan, who was competing in
16:57
Speaker 3: a freeeride World Tour. He was an excellent skier and
17:00
Speaker 3: highly respected in the free ride community because he was
17:05
Speaker 3: the kind of person that every single skier and person
17:10
Speaker 3: around him wanted to be around. Not because he did
17:12
Speaker 3: anything special, but because he just exuded something. It was
17:17
Speaker 3: somehow in the air where people were just attracted to him,
17:20
Speaker 3: like moz to a light bulb. Literally. And he died
17:25
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven, not because he did anything wrong. He
17:28
Speaker 3: just executed a forty foot backflip, stopped it, as they say,
17:34
Speaker 3: landed it perfectly. But it was a submerged rock under
17:37
Speaker 3: the snow in an approved landing area that took him out.
17:42
Speaker 3: And I know the way he thinks we were very close.
17:47
Speaker 3: He would have said, hey, Dad, I knew the risks.
17:50
Speaker 3: It is what it is. He wasn't the kind of
17:52
Speaker 3: kid who lived in the rearview mirror. He was just
17:56
Speaker 3: full of energy, and he was in the president looking forward,
17:59
Speaker 3: and he didn't have time for negativity things. And one
18:05
Speaker 3: of his values was play like I'm thirteen. He had
18:10
Speaker 3: enough confidence that because he could, Ryan had the capacity
18:14
Speaker 3: to be absolutely the most stupid, inane guy in the room.
18:18
Speaker 3: And if he saw something that really looked like fun
18:20
Speaker 3: and it was a little bizarre, didn't bother him at all,
18:23
Speaker 3: and it'll just dangerously risk you it. Because he wasn't
18:26
Speaker 3: looking over his shoulder to see what people would think.
18:28
Speaker 3: That didn't matter if it wasn't mean spirited, it looked
18:32
Speaker 3: like fun, that's all he needed to hit the gold
18:35
Speaker 3: button and.
18:36
Speaker 2: Have at it. Not to sound cliche, but it seems like, frankly,
18:43
Speaker 2: you've earned every gray hair on the head.
18:46
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Now Ryan was not only a
18:51
Speaker 3: gifted skier, he was a very good mountain biker. And
18:54
Speaker 3: he brought me into mountain biking way back when I
18:58
Speaker 3: was fifty eight. So that's that's when I've started. You're
19:02
Speaker 3: starting to mountain. Yeah, I basically got the ball rolling.
19:06
Speaker 3: I've ridden on road bikes a lot, but mountain biking
19:09
Speaker 3: that's a whole different ball game. And mountain biking continues
19:12
Speaker 3: to be a passion today. I still ride in a
19:15
Speaker 3: competent fashion at eighty seven, and I am grateful beyond
19:20
Speaker 3: belief for that privilege. I have a lot of good friends,
19:22
Speaker 3: good riders, and we in Vermont have a network of
19:26
Speaker 3: trails that is second to none. I've ridden all around
19:29
Speaker 3: the country, Kingdom, Kingdom, Kingdoms, Kingdom, Waterbury, Catamount and uh
19:41
Speaker 3: Little River Rochester. Rochester has some of the very finest
19:46
Speaker 3: trails in the state. Killing is coming Killing. Yeah, I
19:52
Speaker 3: didn't know Stock. It's trails are everywhere.
19:54
Speaker 2: I didn't know about Woodstock, and I didn't know about
19:58
Speaker 2: what was the other one that you said to Scotney,
20:01
Speaker 2: Little River Rochester, Rochester? I didn't know about Rochester. I
20:04
Speaker 2: know Little Rivers got a network.
20:06
Speaker 3: There's a trail builder named Tom Lapester who just basically
20:11
Speaker 3: lays down yellow brick roads through the woods, beautifully constructed,
20:15
Speaker 3: machine constructed, very sustainable, water water sensitive.
20:20
Speaker 2: Now hang on a second, now, so you're mountain biking
20:23
Speaker 2: at eighty seven. When you go down, I fall.
20:28
Speaker 3: I fall, but I wear protective gear on my knees,
20:31
Speaker 3: protective gear on my elbows, backpack in case I land
20:35
Speaker 3: on my back, which I have. I've been tossed off
20:38
Speaker 3: a bridge, dropped ten feet, landed on my back and
20:41
Speaker 3: gotten up unscathed. I've bounced off trees and fallen a
20:46
Speaker 3: lot of ways that are hard to believe. And there
20:51
Speaker 3: must be an upper hand that's taking me in my
20:56
Speaker 3: path through life, because I do not deserve to be
21:00
Speaker 3: fully intact now in terms of some of the risks
21:05
Speaker 3: that I've confronted. Among those risks, I would tell you
21:10
Speaker 3: this is getting off the track because we're here to.
21:12
Speaker 2: Talk about the foundations of crying, of course.
21:14
Speaker 3: But I did in two thousand and one and two
21:18
Speaker 3: thousand and two win the National Masters Downhill Championship with
21:23
Speaker 3: a series of races around the country. I picked up
21:25
Speaker 3: the championship in Durango, Colorado, and went to the World
21:29
Speaker 3: Championships in Canada in Bromont and won that for two years.
21:36
Speaker 3: And it was a miracle. I had two miracle rides
21:39
Speaker 3: and they came at the right time, and that's when
21:42
Speaker 3: I packed it and said I've had a good run.
21:44
Speaker 3: I'm out of here.
21:47
Speaker 2: I might ask you some questions that are a little personal.
21:52
Speaker 2: I don't script out all of my questions. I got
21:56
Speaker 2: nothing to hide. I know you have nothing to hide.
21:59
Speaker 2: But if I do ask you something that you would
22:01
Speaker 2: rather not answer, tell me. So, have you written your obituary?
22:12
Speaker 4: No?
22:13
Speaker 3: I haven't written my obituary. But I have a neighbor
22:16
Speaker 3: he keeps bugging me to write a book, and I
22:18
Speaker 3: say I'd rather not. I'd rather just live not write
22:21
Speaker 3: about it. All right, that was another question life. My
22:24
Speaker 3: life is what it is. And yeah, there are stories
22:28
Speaker 3: in there that are probably amusing and compelling and perhaps destructive,
22:33
Speaker 3: but I just don't have the time, energy, or interest
22:37
Speaker 3: to do anything other than just live my life. Wow,
22:43
Speaker 3: I said this morning. I'll close that chapter pretty quick, exactly.
22:48
Speaker 2: You know, I said this morning that this morning's episode
22:52
Speaker 2: is going to have an impact on you, no matter
22:55
Speaker 2: who you are, where you're listening from, or what you do.
22:59
Speaker 2: And frankly, and let's be honest, this a lot of
23:06
Speaker 2: this just really has nothing to do with extreme skiing
23:12
Speaker 2: and everything to do with attitude and having a core
23:17
Speaker 2: value as a human being and just being the best
23:19
Speaker 2: person you can be on this planet while you have
23:22
Speaker 2: the time to be here, which is a great privilege.
23:27
Speaker 3: Gratitude is one of my strongest affiliations. I am absolutely
23:34
Speaker 3: grateful every day and consciously grateful. You can be. You
23:39
Speaker 3: can have gratitude that's kind of passive, or you can
23:42
Speaker 3: have active gratitude. And my gratitude is I absolutely relish
23:47
Speaker 3: the privileges of living that I enjoy and the good
23:51
Speaker 3: fortune that I've had to get this far.
23:55
Speaker 2: Intact, whose idea was it to create the Flying Ryan
24:01
Speaker 2: Hawks Foundation and carry forth his legacy in a way
24:12
Speaker 2: that would bring the message of his core value to others.
24:18
Speaker 3: In the very beginning when he died, immediately Mountain Sports International,
24:24
Speaker 3: which owned the Freeeride World Tour at that time, put
24:28
Speaker 3: together a memorial fund, and Technical Blizzard came up with
24:33
Speaker 3: some skis and boots and said, people who contribute to
24:36
Speaker 3: the fund will get a chance to win some stuff.
24:42
Speaker 3: But we saw that happening.
24:46
Speaker 4: But I.
24:48
Speaker 3: Wanted. I felt that Ryan put so much on the
24:52
Speaker 3: table and his life was cut short at twenty five.
24:56
Speaker 1: That.
24:59
Speaker 3: He deserved to be the impact of his life, really
25:04
Speaker 3: deserved to be extended in a meaningful way. And then
25:08
Speaker 3: we found on his computer, much to our surprise, his
25:12
Speaker 3: thirteen core values, and he said, there's a set of
25:15
Speaker 3: rails we're running on. That's how we can make a difference.
25:19
Speaker 3: And so we started sharing that for a couple of
25:22
Speaker 3: years and people were really appreciative of what we shared
25:28
Speaker 3: with them. And then we realized, we're only halfway around
25:32
Speaker 3: the track to really make the world a better place.
25:37
Speaker 3: Can we use Ryan as an example and get people
25:39
Speaker 3: to write their own core values so that they also
25:44
Speaker 3: could lead a more deliberative way of engaging life with
25:51
Speaker 3: intention and so yeah, with intention, And so that's when
25:56
Speaker 3: we started the Decisions program, and we worked with Burlington
26:00
Speaker 3: High School and John Painter, who was head of the
26:04
Speaker 3: math department and Ryan's math teacher, one of his favorite teachers,
26:09
Speaker 3: and we got that thing going, and it's a four
26:14
Speaker 3: step program. We're in the fall the kids as sophomores,
26:18
Speaker 3: in what they called the Sophomore Program of Exploration, they
26:25
Speaker 3: would figure out their core values in the fall, they
26:28
Speaker 3: would turn their core values into pictures in the winter time,
26:33
Speaker 3: and then in the spring they would have what they
26:37
Speaker 3: called Sophomore Exhibition, where each kid who'd written his core
26:42
Speaker 3: values invited the people who were important in his life,
26:46
Speaker 3: always in control. With us, we're not in control. We
26:50
Speaker 3: don't define core values. We have the kids define core
26:54
Speaker 3: values for themselves, their core values. We're not trying to
26:57
Speaker 3: feed them a copy of of Ryan's core values. We
27:01
Speaker 3: want them to basically look to their heart, to their
27:04
Speaker 3: gut and build core values from the inside out. That way,
27:09
Speaker 3: it's aesthetic. It's twenty four to seven. You can't get
27:11
Speaker 3: away from it because the source is yours and you
27:15
Speaker 3: identify with it. But these kids in the exhibition then
27:20
Speaker 3: get up and tell the people they invited. It might
27:24
Speaker 3: be teachers, friends, teammates, parents, relatives, people that they invited.
27:33
Speaker 3: So they controlled the room and they say, this is
27:36
Speaker 3: who I am, this is how I'm going to engage
27:39
Speaker 3: in life. And I have seen I've seen probably thirty
27:42
Speaker 3: five or forty these presentations. I've seen parents in tears.
27:47
Speaker 3: I've seen kids blossom who really have a hard time
27:50
Speaker 3: string and two words together, who once they get going
27:53
Speaker 3: on defining themselves, really come alive with authority and authenticity.
27:59
Speaker 3: So Pat Burke, the principal South Burlington High School, said,
28:05
Speaker 3: never in his years of administration as he's seen a
28:08
Speaker 3: program has had a greater impact on the on the
28:13
Speaker 3: culture and the climate of the school. It's absolutely class A,
28:18
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean it's perfectly implemented. In order to
28:23
Speaker 3: do it at South Purlington High School, and this is typical,
28:28
Speaker 3: a third of the teachers, it takes thirty three because
28:32
Speaker 3: it's a three hundred kid class sophomores, it takes roughly
28:38
Speaker 3: thirty facilitators to put this program in place and run
28:43
Speaker 3: it through the course of the year. A third of
28:47
Speaker 3: the teachers really embrace it and the kids get the
28:51
Speaker 3: full benefit of what it can be. A third of
28:54
Speaker 3: them just kind of go through the motions, and a
28:56
Speaker 3: third of them kind of it's at the back of
28:58
Speaker 3: the bus. So basically, our real penetration is about thirty
29:04
Speaker 3: five percent in terms of full impact, and beyond that,
29:09
Speaker 3: it's a step in the right direction, but not the
29:11
Speaker 3: real deal. That's the real world. And that's and we
29:17
Speaker 3: realized after seven or eight years of swimming upstream like salmon,
29:22
Speaker 3: trying to get into the Vermont school system one by
29:24
Speaker 3: one by one, we said, we gotta take this battleship
29:29
Speaker 3: and turn it into a speedboat. And that's where the
29:32
Speaker 3: Core Values Challenge came about, and now we've got something
29:36
Speaker 3: that basically we can implement in a half hour from
29:40
Speaker 3: start to finish. Here's what core values are, and then
29:44
Speaker 3: there's a time for writing five or ten minutes, and
29:47
Speaker 3: then there's a time for sharing the core values that
29:49
Speaker 3: you wrote. But basically, get the ball rolling, you know,
29:53
Speaker 3: in no time at all and accomplish the essentially the
29:56
Speaker 3: same goal.
29:57
Speaker 2: Shallow dive, Flying Ryan and Hawks Foundation dot org. Peter
30:02
Speaker 2: Hawks with me my guest this morning here on aired out.
30:08
Speaker 3: Do you you know?
30:11
Speaker 2: I want to ask you something here. I don't know
30:16
Speaker 2: much about you personally, although I'm getting to know you here.
30:20
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're a spiritual guy. I don't
30:21
Speaker 2: know if you're a religious guy.
30:23
Speaker 3: But do you does it?
30:27
Speaker 2: Uh come into your mind? Often?
30:34
Speaker 3: I wonder.
30:37
Speaker 2: If Ryan is watching all of this, listening to all
30:41
Speaker 2: of this, observing all of the impact that his legacy
30:46
Speaker 2: is having on others.
30:49
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, Uh.
30:53
Speaker 2: One of my core values is and maybe maybe even
30:57
Speaker 2: orchestrating everything.
30:58
Speaker 3: And I got this core value at age seventy eight
31:03
Speaker 3: because before that the platform I ran in was rotary.
31:08
Speaker 3: I've been a rotarian for many, many years, and rotary
31:12
Speaker 3: runs on what they call the four way test that
31:15
Speaker 3: not all Rotarians abide by. But everything you say they
31:18
Speaker 3: can do, is it the truth? Is it fair to
31:21
Speaker 3: all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? And
31:24
Speaker 3: is it beneficial to all concerned? And I was president
31:28
Speaker 3: of the Burlington Rotary Club in nineteen ninety and I
31:32
Speaker 3: would pull somebody out of the crowd. We had about
31:34
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty five members, and I'd say, tell
31:37
Speaker 3: me about the four way test. What's the four way test?
31:40
Speaker 3: They hated me. It's lucky I wasn't impeached. But by
31:44
Speaker 3: the end of the year, everybody in that club knew
31:47
Speaker 3: the four way test. They were Rotarians because they had
31:50
Speaker 3: bought into that. And I gave one chance to exercise it.
31:55
Speaker 3: But nevertheless, and then I basically supplement at that with
32:03
Speaker 3: with my own core values when Ryan died along with
32:07
Speaker 3: the rest of our border directors, and and that's been, uh,
32:12
Speaker 3: that's been the thread that that I run on. And
32:18
Speaker 3: it's uh, it's really a privilege, it's uh, and I'm
32:23
Speaker 3: I'm very happy to to basically, Oh, and to answer
32:28
Speaker 3: your question, one of my core values is what would
32:32
Speaker 3: Ryan do? A very very powerful uh. Ryan is a
32:40
Speaker 3: current event in my life. Every day, every time the
32:44
Speaker 3: sun goes down, I say good night Ryan. And one
32:50
Speaker 3: of the most special treats I've ever been involved in
32:55
Speaker 3: in life was a week after Ryan died, there was
33:00
Speaker 3: another Free Ride Tour event in Snowbird in Utah, and
33:05
Speaker 3: they asked me to come out because I'd done an
33:07
Speaker 3: eulogy here in Burlington that was well received and the
33:17
Speaker 3: people running the Free Ride World Tour wanted me to
33:19
Speaker 3: do the same thing out at Snowbird. Ryan's girlfriend at
33:24
Speaker 3: the time was her father was the director of lift
33:28
Speaker 3: operations at Snowbird. And it turned out it was kind
33:31
Speaker 3: of a snarky day and the wind was howling, and
33:36
Speaker 3: they don't run the tramway when the wind's more than
33:42
Speaker 3: twenty five miles an hour. It was about forty that day.
33:45
Speaker 3: It was really up there. But and the eulogy was
33:51
Speaker 3: going to be read at the top of Loan Peak
33:53
Speaker 3: at a mountaintop, which was appropriate for Ryan and this
34:00
Speaker 3: this Angel Collinson, was Ryan's girlfriend. Her dad said, where
34:04
Speaker 3: can I get these people up there? And they hauled
34:07
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty people up to the top of
34:10
Speaker 3: Loan Peak and there were low hanging clouds and it
34:13
Speaker 3: was just a sliver of light way off of you know,
34:18
Speaker 3: one hundred odd miles out west, and the wind was howling,
34:23
Speaker 3: and there were prayer flags all over the place. There
34:25
Speaker 3: was a good sound system. I was nervous as hell
34:30
Speaker 3: because I had three pages of this eulogy and the
34:34
Speaker 3: wind's blowing, and I'm like, oh, if I lose this,
34:40
Speaker 3: I'm in deep, deep trouble here. And I got in
34:44
Speaker 3: there about five or ten minutes and the sun just
34:48
Speaker 3: came out from this little sliver of sky and it
34:51
Speaker 3: came across the bottom of the clouds and it came
34:54
Speaker 3: right up onto Lone Peak and it didn't last more
34:59
Speaker 3: than forty seconds. The sun just went over the horizon,
35:04
Speaker 3: no question. That was Ryan. I just stopped immediately when
35:12
Speaker 3: I saw that, I said, here comes Ryan, and we
35:16
Speaker 3: all in silence watched Ryan's appearance and disappearance. The brilliance
35:24
Speaker 3: of his life and the fact that it's history. Never
35:29
Speaker 3: forget it. Priceless, priceless memory. Some memories you just can't shake,
35:35
Speaker 3: you know, they're very very special. That was one of them.
35:47
Speaker 2: If you could sit and have a beer with Ryan today,
35:56
Speaker 2: with Ryan being twenty five years old, and ask him, Ryan,
36:05
Speaker 2: I'm your dad, What do you think my number one
36:10
Speaker 2: core value is right now? What do you think He'd say.
36:19
Speaker 3: I've never contemplated that question. But bottom line is I
36:30
Speaker 3: was his mentor on an equal basis. Because he was
36:37
Speaker 3: my mentor, he was equally as much my mentor as.
36:41
Speaker 4: I was his.
36:43
Speaker 3: And he would say my commitment to his welfare was
36:55
Speaker 3: really important to him. One of the ways I committed
36:59
Speaker 3: to his welfare. Here he's on a mountain bike where
37:03
Speaker 3: there's high risk, high danger. He's on a ski ski
37:08
Speaker 3: in the ski world there was high risk, high danger
37:10
Speaker 3: as well. And I said to Ryan at one point,
37:15
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about risk. And most
37:19
Speaker 3: parents say be careful and they put negative and concerns
37:27
Speaker 3: in place. And I said, Ryan, when it comes to risk,
37:35
Speaker 3: here's what I got to say. God gave you a
37:39
Speaker 3: wonderful brain. I expect you to use it, and no
37:44
Speaker 3: matter what happens in life, I'm there for you. End
37:47
Speaker 3: of story. That was my entire and one and only
37:52
Speaker 3: discussion I had about risk. Now, there were times when
37:57
Speaker 3: I was holding my breath, but I had confidence in it.
38:02
Speaker 3: And so risk was our companion. And we know you
38:07
Speaker 3: either get the long straw or the short straw in life.
38:12
Speaker 3: I mean, I absolutely do not deserve to be here.
38:18
Speaker 3: You know, I started out at age seven. I had polio,
38:22
Speaker 3: and so I wasn't able to navigate for a while,
38:28
Speaker 3: and so when I could navigate again, being mobile was
38:35
Speaker 3: far more important to me than it probably is to
38:38
Speaker 3: most folks. And I've been dedicated to exercising my capacity
38:46
Speaker 3: as what I call a career mediocre athlete all my life,
38:51
Speaker 3: and and a lot of people think I'm reasonably gifted
38:57
Speaker 3: at some of the stuff I do, but I know,
39:00
Speaker 3: damn well, I'm nothing more than a mediocre athlete who
39:03
Speaker 3: loves doing what I'm doing and happy to do it
39:06
Speaker 3: the best I can, and not worried about the highest
39:09
Speaker 3: levels of accomplishment, just you know, just exerting what I
39:14
Speaker 3: can do and loving it. And the key thing is,
39:18
Speaker 3: I mean, love what you're doing or it's not authentic.
39:22
Speaker 2: Tell us about your motocross days, because we're talking about
39:27
Speaker 2: risk right now. You're you're you're basically have been addicted to.
39:37
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely a very real need for speed. You put
39:42
Speaker 3: a younger kid, and maybe as an older kid too.
39:45
Speaker 2: You put a dirt bike into a tree and ended
39:48
Speaker 2: up with a new hip. What was that all about?
39:53
Speaker 3: Well, it was a kind of a surprise, but uh,
39:58
Speaker 3: you know, and the problem with the hip was the
40:03
Speaker 3: procedure was fine, but I was at my fiftieth reunion
40:09
Speaker 3: at Dartmouth on the green formal dinner President of the
40:13
Speaker 3: college was speaking, and my hip dislocated when I was
40:19
Speaker 3: doing nothing but sitting in a chair. That was far
40:23
Speaker 3: and away the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me, really,
40:28
Speaker 3: and that's the only thing that really raised hell with
40:31
Speaker 3: me subsequently, because after that dislocation, the hip was unstable
40:39
Speaker 3: and it was a candidate for dislocation really. And walking
40:47
Speaker 3: was difficult since that day, which was twelve fifteen years ago.
40:51
Speaker 3: Now I haven't been able to walk with a dam
40:56
Speaker 3: and it hurts every step, every walking step I take
41:01
Speaker 3: herts Uh. Not not fatal, but you know, it's uncomfortable,
41:07
Speaker 3: let's say uncomfortable. I don't want to get off on
41:10
Speaker 3: that in a big way. But the bottom line is
41:12
Speaker 3: that I've learned how to circumvent the reality of that instability.
41:20
Speaker 4: Uh.
41:20
Speaker 3: And Uh, mountain biking, I'm stabilized by the bike. Skiing,
41:26
Speaker 3: I endure the discomfort, no problem. I have a strong
41:30
Speaker 3: turn to the right and weak turn to the left,
41:32
Speaker 3: but works both ways. Uh, you're still skiing tennis. And
41:38
Speaker 3: the doctor said, no way are you going to do
41:42
Speaker 3: those things? And I said, sorry, you're talking to the
41:45
Speaker 3: wrong guy. I'm doing those things. If I'm going to
41:49
Speaker 3: go until there's there's we used to say in motorcross racing.
41:53
Speaker 3: You know, keep the wick and go deep into the curve.
41:56
Speaker 3: Keep that, you know, keep that guy going and you know,
41:59
Speaker 3: get the whole. And I'm gonna go deep into the
42:02
Speaker 3: curve of life is I've got no intentions of giving
42:06
Speaker 3: up mountain biking. I'm only eighty seven. I got a
42:09
Speaker 3: ways to go, uh and and and I'm competent. So
42:16
Speaker 3: I'm loving it. So that's that's joy. Yeah.
42:21
Speaker 2: You you're just uh, you're you're at some point gonna
42:26
Speaker 2: go out with a bang. I mean it's a guarantee.
42:29
Speaker 3: Well yeah, uh, actually that's something you know in terms
42:32
Speaker 3: of risk management. Uh, I've contemplated life without sports, and
42:39
Speaker 3: I'm prepared to adjust if the situation calls for it,
42:44
Speaker 3: but not until it calls for it. So I'm gonna
42:48
Speaker 3: go till there's no more milk in the bottle. You know,
42:51
Speaker 3: when the milk gone. And then you know, watch me
42:55
Speaker 3: do a jigsaw puzzle and love it. It's to love it. Wow,
43:05
Speaker 3: and you know, and it goes without saying family and friends, priceless, priceless.
43:13
Speaker 3: It's not the things in life that that basically you
43:18
Speaker 3: take with you as your age. It's the relationships. The
43:22
Speaker 3: relationships are incredibly important and that things come when things go,
43:28
Speaker 3: and it's not what the focus should be. I was
43:33
Speaker 3: in financial services by way of background, among the number
43:38
Speaker 3: of things that I've done, but I learned about money
43:43
Speaker 3: from Ryan. I learned about how to properly value where
43:48
Speaker 3: money fits into life, the fact that it's a necessity,
43:51
Speaker 3: but not to be compelled by it. That said, I
43:55
Speaker 3: can tell you a story that that I love. A
43:58
Speaker 3: Ryan's story when he was at UVM, it took him
44:04
Speaker 3: seven years to graduate because whenever there was snow on
44:07
Speaker 3: the ground, he was not to be found in class.
44:10
Speaker 3: And but he had the dean of the engineering school
44:15
Speaker 3: and his professors wrapped around his little finger and and
44:20
Speaker 3: he managed to h to get to the finish line
44:24
Speaker 3: and graduate with with pretty good grades. But he was
44:28
Speaker 3: on the campus bus one day and and with a friend,
44:35
Speaker 3: and he saw this girl at the back of the
44:38
Speaker 3: bus who had a hat, and he said to his friend,
44:42
Speaker 3: I gotta have a hat like that. That's that's look
44:44
Speaker 3: at that hat. It's kind of a thick wool knit
44:47
Speaker 3: hat that she'd knit for herself. So he's He basically
44:53
Speaker 3: worked his way to the back of the bus and
44:54
Speaker 3: he said, Hey, I really love that hat. Could you
44:57
Speaker 3: make me a hat like that? She said, yeah, I
44:59
Speaker 3: could do that. And his friend said, hey, Brian, we
45:03
Speaker 3: got to get off here. This is our stop. And
45:06
Speaker 3: Ryan just pulled out twenty dollars, gave her twenty dollars
45:09
Speaker 3: and jumped off the bus. And his friend, a very
45:14
Speaker 3: good friend, close friend, he said, Ryan, are you out
45:17
Speaker 3: of your skull? You don't even know her name. She
45:21
Speaker 3: doesn't know your name. You know what was that all about?
45:25
Speaker 3: Ryan said, don't worry about it. Well, four or five
45:29
Speaker 3: weeks went by. She bade the she bade the hat.
45:33
Speaker 3: She carried it around in her purse for four or
45:35
Speaker 3: five weeks. Then it happened a chance across Ryan and said, oh,
45:39
Speaker 3: I have that hat for you. So you know, it
45:43
Speaker 3: worked out. It was a transaction that was driven by spirit,
45:49
Speaker 3: not not risk management. But that was Ryan if Ryan
45:56
Speaker 3: loaned you money, he'd have a little black book. If
46:02
Speaker 3: you paid him, paid him back, that was great. If
46:04
Speaker 3: you didn't, he didn't ruminate about it. He didn't. He
46:08
Speaker 3: didn't have a ledger. He was just He did things
46:11
Speaker 3: for the right reasons. And that's one of the reasons
46:14
Speaker 3: he is just so broadly respected because he was just
46:18
Speaker 3: so real, so easy to engage, so level, so non
46:22
Speaker 3: being spirited, and very very dedicated to the welfare of
46:27
Speaker 3: the planet. Very he felt there are serious flaws and
46:32
Speaker 3: the way humans are going about things.
46:36
Speaker 2: Did I know you know the Egan brothers. Did Ryan
46:40
Speaker 2: get a chance to meet them ski with them? Did
46:44
Speaker 2: he get involved with anything with Warren Miller?
46:48
Speaker 1: No?
46:50
Speaker 3: No, he did do some ski for Ski the East.
46:54
Speaker 3: They had an outfit called the Meatheads that turned out
46:58
Speaker 3: a batch of really really on ski films, and he
47:02
Speaker 3: he was He was one of the principal skiers for
47:06
Speaker 3: Ski the East, along with Jamie Stall, who died in
47:11
Speaker 3: Stow probably ten fifteen years ago. Back in Hell's Brook,
47:18
Speaker 3: made one turn too many and went over the over
47:21
Speaker 3: the cliff.
47:22
Speaker 2: I can can barely hike hell Brook, oh let Brook.
47:28
Speaker 3: If you climb up little summer game, you say, do
47:31
Speaker 3: we ski down is there?
47:32
Speaker 1: No?
47:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, but in the winter time the snow hall collects
47:35
Speaker 3: in there, yeah.
47:36
Speaker 2: Us. So thank you for coming on this morning. But
47:51
Speaker 2: the biggest takeaway from all of this what you're bringing
47:59
Speaker 2: to schools, what you're bringing to the eyes, but most
48:03
Speaker 2: importantly the ears of so much of our youth in
48:08
Speaker 2: our schools, just as Sweethearts and Heroes does, is to
48:16
Speaker 2: begin as young as you can, put in a magnifying
48:22
Speaker 2: class on what really matters to you, what your core
48:26
Speaker 2: value is. Some of us, like you alluded to earlier
48:33
Speaker 2: this morning, respectfully, are not necessarily learning that from our parents.
48:41
Speaker 2: Some of us are.
48:43
Speaker 3: We're not getting into schools either. I mean, this is
48:46
Speaker 3: not given the attention, and this is Tom and his
48:52
Speaker 3: crew have done an incredible job reaching two million kids,
48:58
Speaker 3: over two million kids with their programs, and now our
49:03
Speaker 3: little piece is going to be included in their programs.
49:08
Speaker 3: So our footprint through Sweethearts and Heroes could extend dramatically.
49:16
Speaker 3: So I am very very excited about that and thrilled
49:21
Speaker 3: to have this developing relationship with Sweethearts and Heroes and
49:25
Speaker 3: suspect that we'll be working closely together for some time.
49:28
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to it. It's a journey. We're just
49:31
Speaker 3: starting out. We're at base camp. Now.
49:34
Speaker 2: When did you when did you meet Tom? When did
49:36
Speaker 2: you get started?
49:37
Speaker 3: Got started? Memorial Day this year, a couple of months ago,
49:43
Speaker 3: A couple of months ago, a couple of months ago,
49:45
Speaker 3: this brand new what a Bag came down the following month,
49:49
Speaker 3: you know, with his videography production crew. He knows to
49:54
Speaker 3: pick up, to pick up our stuff. And now they're
49:58
Speaker 3: incorporating it into their leadership program.
50:01
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
50:01
Speaker 3: So I'm just happier than a pick out in the
50:07
Speaker 3: pen there man.
50:09
Speaker 2: Both of you just powerhouse here in the state of Vermont.
50:16
Speaker 2: I mean the Flying Ryan Hawk's Foundation and Sweethearts and Heroes,
50:22
Speaker 2: that's it.
50:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I too unusually purposeful organizations that really are synergistic,
50:37
Speaker 3: and I think we can only make each other better
50:40
Speaker 3: at what we do.
50:43
Speaker 2: How does one take the core value challenge? What's the
50:50
Speaker 2: easiest way to do with it? And how is Jersey
50:53
Speaker 2: Mike's involved with this?
50:55
Speaker 3: Now we have twenty two twenty three community partners. Jersey
51:00
Speaker 3: Mikes is one of our community partners. When you walk
51:04
Speaker 3: into their two stores, one in Burlington, one in South Burlington.
51:09
Speaker 3: The first thing you see is our logo on the door.
51:12
Speaker 3: That's the only non Jersey Mics representation of something. But
51:18
Speaker 3: that's basically it's a suggestion that there's value to go
51:25
Speaker 3: with the logo. Then when you go inside, we have
51:28
Speaker 3: a big poster on the wall twenty four by thirty
51:31
Speaker 3: six inches that shows Ryan's sky high flying through the
51:35
Speaker 3: air and his core values are written in the sky
51:39
Speaker 3: out in front of him. And at the bottom of
51:42
Speaker 3: the poster there's a little card that says, take this card,
51:45
Speaker 3: do your own core values like you've seen from here
51:48
Speaker 3: from Ryan, and when you submit them to us, we'll
51:53
Speaker 3: send you a coupon for a free sub And so
51:58
Speaker 3: they're putting word out. They've got their employees doing their
52:03
Speaker 3: core values. Uh. The owner is promised to do his
52:07
Speaker 3: core values for about three months now and I'm putting
52:11
Speaker 3: the wood to him to get it done so uh
52:15
Speaker 3: and and he's accepted that without throwing me out, and
52:20
Speaker 3: so it uh. You know.
52:23
Speaker 4: So we.
52:26
Speaker 3: Basically our website, yeah, gives you everything you need, everything
52:33
Speaker 3: you need and you just go to the Flying Ryan
52:35
Speaker 3: Foundation dot org and uh go to a core values
52:40
Speaker 3: challenge and it's all right there and you can give
52:45
Speaker 3: it a cursory attention, or you can give it really
52:48
Speaker 3: deep involved attention. It's all all individual, you know. We
52:52
Speaker 3: leave it up to the individual and we'll we'll we'll
52:55
Speaker 3: coach whenever asked. So we make ourselves a failed for
53:00
Speaker 3: anybody who was to start that journey and do it
53:04
Speaker 3: in an authentic way, meaningful way, deliberative way. We're there
53:09
Speaker 3: to help and we want to make the world a
53:11
Speaker 3: better place. I like to say the power of one.
53:14
Speaker 3: We talked to one hundred people and one person decides
53:18
Speaker 3: to do the core values, one person. We made the
53:21
Speaker 3: world a better place, one person, one day, one event,
53:25
Speaker 3: one core value, one decision at a time.
53:29
Speaker 2: That's exactly, That's exactly.
53:31
Speaker 3: Basically our reason for existence in a nutshell. And now
53:37
Speaker 3: with over two hundred adventure scholarships we've got we've got
53:43
Speaker 3: these little acolytes and disciples who are out there who
53:46
Speaker 3: kind of know our story and they provide us with
53:50
Speaker 3: additional candidates for adventure scholarships because they don't keep it
53:54
Speaker 3: under their hat, the fact that flying Ryan was a
53:58
Speaker 3: meaningful event in their life. In fact, I just wrote
54:06
Speaker 3: four checks last night for four new Adventure scholarships. One
54:12
Speaker 3: was a girl from British Columbia who was just getting
54:18
Speaker 3: into Free Ride and qualified to go out to the
54:22
Speaker 3: North American Junior Championships.
54:25
Speaker 2: And I was reading about her last time.
54:27
Speaker 3: And when she was out there, she said, I'd kind
54:31
Speaker 3: of heard about the Flying Ryan, but I didn't know
54:34
Speaker 3: what it was. But out at these Championships, they gave
54:39
Speaker 3: a Flying Ryan Core Values Award to someone for exemplary
54:46
Speaker 3: acts of character, and I was blown away by that.
54:50
Speaker 3: So I came back and looked at the website and
54:53
Speaker 3: really really got pretty excited about what you guys do
54:58
Speaker 3: and found out that maybe you could help.
55:00
Speaker 2: Was this Vanessa McFarlane.
55:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, incredible, Yeah, yeah, no more than I do.
55:09
Speaker 2: I'm showing it right now on the page.
55:15
Speaker 3: And so, I mean, Chili that our program has on
55:19
Speaker 3: kids once once, once we penetrate that outter shell is
55:24
Speaker 3: really pretty good.
55:25
Speaker 2: She says. This was my first time competing in South
55:28
Speaker 2: America and my second international competition took fourth in Chile. Unreal. Yeah,
55:39
Speaker 2: and that's just one of countless, yeah, countless Adventure scholarships
55:46
Speaker 2: that you've given out.
55:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the number is going to go up, you know,
55:52
Speaker 3: And I mean it's it's twenty five now and the
55:55
Speaker 3: year is not over. We'll probably wind up giving thirty
55:58
Speaker 3: or so year, and I suspect next year it will
56:04
Speaker 3: be more than that. And but each one of those
56:07
Speaker 3: is an event. Each one of those, uh ish is
56:13
Speaker 3: the start of a relationship. Sure, And just last night
56:18
Speaker 3: I decided to install a new program, a new activity,
56:24
Speaker 3: which is I'm going to ask my operations manager to
56:29
Speaker 3: compile a list of the birthday of each of our
56:33
Speaker 3: Adventure scholars and they're going to get a personal phone
56:36
Speaker 3: call from me on their birthday, say, how you doing?
56:40
Speaker 3: You know you hooked up with us back in you know,
56:47
Speaker 3: five years ago, ten years ago. Where's your plan taking you?
56:51
Speaker 3: Each of our scholars has a has a place in
56:54
Speaker 3: our on our website and where oh I see post,
56:58
Speaker 3: we post their core values, post any blogs that they
57:01
Speaker 3: send us. So and we want to tighten that relationship
57:06
Speaker 3: and create a sense of identity that's not just one
57:10
Speaker 3: and done right. We want the Adventure Scholarship commitment to
57:16
Speaker 3: basically be a lifetime deal.
57:18
Speaker 2: It's it is absolutely amazing to me. I mean, and
57:25
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly who told me about you, but
57:33
Speaker 2: it was a while ago. It was a while ago.
57:35
Speaker 2: It was before Tom, and I am just so honored
57:42
Speaker 2: and blessed to have met you off the air, but
57:48
Speaker 2: even more blessed to have you on the air with
57:52
Speaker 2: me this morning. I mean, it is just incredible the
57:56
Speaker 2: impact that you're having. You're we see vehicles driving around
58:02
Speaker 2: with your sticker on them. We see what you're doing
58:09
Speaker 2: with jersey mikes, we see what you're what you're doing
58:12
Speaker 2: in our schools, we see what you're doing with sweethearts
58:15
Speaker 2: and heroes, and it is absolutely critical. What's going to
58:24
Speaker 2: happen to the Flying Ryan Hawks Foundation when Peter joins Ryan.
58:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's uh, that's a that's a good question, very real. Uh,
58:46
Speaker 3: I'm getting older. I have to concede it. Not in
58:49
Speaker 3: my head, but my body is definitely telling me I'm
58:52
Speaker 3: getting older. And my head's telling me that too, because
58:57
Speaker 3: I don't have as many marbles as I used to have. Uh,
59:00
Speaker 3: things come harder for me now in terms of metal acuity,
59:05
Speaker 3: and they should the way I've knocked my head around
59:07
Speaker 3: through the years. But that having been said, the Foundation
59:15
Speaker 3: is a business and it has to be run like
59:17
Speaker 3: a business, and I've been responsible about attending to the
59:24
Speaker 3: business side of the foundation as well as the vision.
59:29
Speaker 3: My passion is in the mission. My passion is not
59:32
Speaker 3: in running a business. That's the last thing I want
59:35
Speaker 3: to be doing. But I do it because it's there
59:38
Speaker 3: to be done, and I do it in a way
59:40
Speaker 3: that gets it done with deliberation. And we've always run
59:45
Speaker 3: in the black, and we are accumulating resources to handle
59:53
Speaker 3: the transition and in now the Adventure Scholar program. Graham.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: I have two very gifted daughters. Alicia, who's active in
1:00:06
Speaker 3: the foundation.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: Really I didn't know this.
1:00:09
Speaker 3: Alicia runs sports marketing for UVM Athletic Marketing. Knows the
1:00:19
Speaker 3: Burlington Chittenhan County community backwards, forwards and sideways. It's really
1:00:24
Speaker 3: doing well up there. And she runs our golf tournament,
1:00:29
Speaker 3: the Vermont Charities Golf Tournament. She does that, she does
1:00:33
Speaker 3: our own tournament in September, Ryan Ryan Golf Tournament. And
1:00:40
Speaker 3: collectively we're really adding some resources. We run on just
1:00:45
Speaker 3: under one hundred thousand dollars a year typically that seems
1:00:49
Speaker 3: to be about where we're plateaued and.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: You're you're visiting how how many schools and we're.
1:00:56
Speaker 3: In you know, roughly a dozen schools formerly and some
1:01:00
Speaker 3: more informally that we don't know about. But penetration is mercurial,
1:01:09
Speaker 3: you know, it depends on what facilitator you get because
1:01:12
Speaker 3: classes get broken down into groups of eight or ten
1:01:15
Speaker 3: and it's just the real world, you know. I grew
1:01:21
Speaker 3: up in a very very modist situation down in Broderborough,
1:01:25
Speaker 3: the divorced mother nineteen forty six, and we lived in
1:01:30
Speaker 3: a three story walk up. She made life work on
1:01:32
Speaker 3: twenty five dollars a week. She made life work for us.
1:01:36
Speaker 3: I always had a roof over my head. We always
1:01:38
Speaker 3: had food, not much else but and my dad was
1:01:46
Speaker 3: just kind of floating around out in the world and
1:01:48
Speaker 3: he got wanderlust after the war. So I basically grew
1:01:54
Speaker 3: up without and my mom was kind of a bookworm.
1:01:59
Speaker 3: She was a dutiful mom, but not a warm, cuddly, fuzzy,
1:02:06
Speaker 3: help you with your homework kind of mom. So I
1:02:09
Speaker 3: grew up with a very strong sense of independence from
1:02:14
Speaker 3: age seven when I had polio on and I would
1:02:21
Speaker 3: have given my right arm looking back from my perspective
1:02:24
Speaker 3: now to have had the core values challenge put in
1:02:30
Speaker 3: front of me, or the mentoring I didn't. I didn't
1:02:35
Speaker 3: know or think I needed a mentor. I figured whatever
1:02:40
Speaker 3: it was to be was up to me and I
1:02:44
Speaker 3: needed I could have used a lot of help, and
1:02:46
Speaker 3: I could have made probably some decisions differently if i'd had,
1:02:52
Speaker 3: you know, the right foundation of support that I didn't
1:02:56
Speaker 3: know I needed at the time. So that gives me
1:03:00
Speaker 3: a sense of purpose in terms of giving kids a
1:03:03
Speaker 3: perspective to grab life by the horns and get their
1:03:09
Speaker 3: hand on the tiller. Be the boss. But getting back
1:03:15
Speaker 3: to the question, my daughter Alicia is very capable of
1:03:20
Speaker 3: handling the foundation if something happens to me. My daughter Samantha,
1:03:26
Speaker 3: older daughter, she's fifty two now. She's the vice president
1:03:32
Speaker 3: director at Facebook. And Samantha is like a cat you
1:03:36
Speaker 3: throw up in the air, she's going to land on
1:03:37
Speaker 3: her feet. And she's got a position of high responsibility
1:03:43
Speaker 3: at Facebook, and she's immense capacity. But she's got a
1:03:51
Speaker 3: very very full life with her Facebook life and her family,
1:03:55
Speaker 3: and she does a great job with her family and
1:03:58
Speaker 3: she's on the board of director. But I don't burden
1:04:03
Speaker 3: her with foundation stuff because she just doesn't have the bandwidth,
1:04:09
Speaker 3: uh currently to handle it. But she is perhaps considering
1:04:18
Speaker 3: retiring in the not too distant future. So if something
1:04:23
Speaker 3: were to happen to me between Samantha and Alicia. The
1:04:28
Speaker 3: foundation will be in better hands than it is now.
1:04:33
Speaker 3: Do they get more competent hands than it is now?
1:04:38
Speaker 2: Do they do your daughters try to tap your brakes
1:04:41
Speaker 2: in any capacity?
1:04:44
Speaker 1: No.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: The only person who taps my brakes is my wife.
1:04:49
Speaker 3: She's kinstant to be telling me I'm doing too much.
1:04:52
Speaker 3: I shouldn't do this, I should do that. Do you
1:04:56
Speaker 3: listen and she doesn't.
1:04:57
Speaker 1: No.
1:05:01
Speaker 3: My sense of responsibility to the foundation outweighs my love
1:05:06
Speaker 3: for my wife, and my wife is the most important
1:05:09
Speaker 3: thing in my life. She is the glue. Everything I
1:05:13
Speaker 3: learned about family I learned from my wife everything. So
1:05:17
Speaker 3: she's been absolute gift in my life. Jackie, if you're listening, Jackie,
1:05:24
Speaker 3: I asked you to listen this morning. Hope you're there.
1:05:27
Speaker 3: I love you.
1:05:29
Speaker 2: What would you say to closing out this morning? What
1:05:33
Speaker 2: would you say to Ryan right now if he was
1:05:40
Speaker 2: sitting next to you on the couch.
1:05:46
Speaker 3: I would say, Ryan, I love you, buddy. You know
1:05:51
Speaker 3: you're absolutely a current event in my life, and not
1:05:56
Speaker 3: only my life, but in the lives of literally thousands
1:06:02
Speaker 3: of people who ask themselves before they act, what would
1:06:06
Speaker 3: Ryan do? That's a priceless legacy to have that kind
1:06:11
Speaker 3: of currency fifteen or fifty years after you've died, and
1:06:18
Speaker 3: so you had a meaningful life, of full life. And
1:06:22
Speaker 3: even though we lost your body in twenty eleven, your
1:06:26
Speaker 3: spirit is absolutely current and you you're a current event
1:06:32
Speaker 3: in the lives of lots and lots of people. Thanks
1:06:39
Speaker 3: for coming in here, Peter, My pleasure.