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Brian Healy, right, working as a raft guide. |
For most people, a day at the office
means shuffling between cubicles or meeting rooms. If we're lucky, we
get a window with some good light, and if we're really lucky, we get
a nice view.
The same can't be said for former Fort
Thomas resident Brian Healy. His office consists of the great
outdoors. Recently, his "office" views were those of the
Norwegian landscape while working as a raft guide in the Noway's Heidal
Valley along the Sjoa River.
Healy, a 2003 graduate of Highlands
High School, has been a working member of the outdoor industry for
years, but the road to Norway began long before Healy even started
training as a guide. Healy has always been interested in working in
the outdoor industry, but didn't know how to break into the business.
It wasn't until a friend working at Glacier National Park helped
point him in the right direction that he was able to kick start his
own career.
“Honestly I spent more than a couple years thinking that working outdoors was a pipe dream and I didn't commit to even attempting to train as a guide until 2010. The hardest part of getting involved in the outdoor industry is choosing to give it a shot,” said Healy.
“Honestly I spent more than a couple years thinking that working outdoors was a pipe dream and I didn't commit to even attempting to train as a guide until 2010. The hardest part of getting involved in the outdoor industry is choosing to give it a shot,” said Healy.
'Giving it a shot' can have a number of
different meanings depending on a person's particular interest in the
outdoor industry. For Healy, it meant rotating between working as a
raft guide and a ski instructor. “Nearly every river that is
commercially guided in the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains has a
training program through one company or another,” said Healy.
“Some you have to pay for, but a lot of others will train you for free in order to have enough guides to work during the busiest parts of the season. Since working as a raft guide only covers 6 months out of the year, I began ski instructing in Park City, Utah in the winter and would migrate back and forth across the country."
“Some you have to pay for, but a lot of others will train you for free in order to have enough guides to work during the busiest parts of the season. Since working as a raft guide only covers 6 months out of the year, I began ski instructing in Park City, Utah in the winter and would migrate back and forth across the country."
Healy got his start as a raft guide on
the New River in Fayetteville, West Virginia. “It was an awesome
opportunity to work on a high volume river in a beautiful and
underutilized place. The Fayetteville area also has a fall season
where guides come from all over the world to work on the Gauley
River. The outdoor industry is a pretty tight knit community and the
opportunities to network and find jobs in other places throughout the
world opened up pretty quickly after working a couple seasons,”
said Healy.
After spending years gaining experience
as a guide, one of those opportunities eventually lead Healy to
Norway. He first found out about the opportunity in Norway from a
former co-worker, who is half-Norwegian and had worked on the Sjoa
River in the early 2000's. “She was looking for a female raft guide
(there are a lot more males in the industry) and my fiancée, Mattie,
and I decided to pursue the opportunity together,” said Healy.
The entire process for moving and
working in Norway began in early December 2015. Before moving abroad,
Healy and his fiancée had to secure work visas and provide
documentation of all the rivers they have guided and boated on over
the years. Their visas were approved in March 2016, and began working
in Norway in May for Sjoa Raftingsenter.
Norway's natural beauty provided a
working environment unlike anything Healy had ever experienced in
previous jobs. “Just calling this country beautiful is a disservice
to how spectacular this place really is,” said Healy. “There are
rugged mountains, waterfalls, fjords, active glaciers, gorgeous
coastlines and some stellar rivers scattered across the country. In
peak summer there is 20 plus hours of daylight and as early as the
end of August you can see the Northern Lights if you travel to the
northern most part of the country. There are national parks scattered
throughout the country and its a big part of the culture to introduce
kids to the wilderness early in their lives so many adults remain
active throughout their lives.”
Healy's time in Norway not only
provided him with once-in-a-lifetime experiences, but also allowed
him to check off one of his personal life goals. “It's been a dream
of mine to work internationally since before I knew what I wanted to
do with my life and while this experience hasn't been perfect, it has
been very rewarding and I'm grateful to have taken the opportunity,”
said Healy.
The Sjoa River season recently wrapped
up September, and Healy is now preparing to tackle another season of
guiding for ACE Adventure at the Gauley River in West Virginia.
Working at the Gauley has become a highlight for Healy each year. “My
favorite job by far has been guiding rafts on the upper section of
the Gauley river,” said Healy. “It's 12 miles of the most
demanding whitewater available west of the Mississippi and arguably
the best single day stretch of river in North America. It seems that
no matter where I've gone to work I've always made sure that for the
six weekends in the fall I'm in the back of a raft in West Virginia.”
The Sjoa River is approximately 3,999
miles from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Healy's experiences growing up in
Fort Thomas and taking advantage of outdoor opportunities had an
impact on his career today, and helped bridge that 3,999 mile gap
between his hometown and Norway. “Fort Thomas has done an excellent
job investing in its park system and making sure that kids have an
opportunity to play outside. I joined the Boy Scouts much later than
most people because they were camping and backpacking and canoeing
and doing all the weekend adventures that might not have been
possible for my family to do on their own,” said Healy.
Healy also challenges the community and
local youth to get outdoors by creating opportunities to engaging in
outdoor activities in the area. “There are lots of trips that are
possible to take that are less than an hour away from downtown, and
even more opportunities for youth to climb, hike, bike, ski, boat,
sail, camp, and explore that are less than a five hour drive. There
really is a great opportunity to help give kids a jump start on
valuing and appreciating our own back yards if we can help lead them
and provide guidance,” said Healy.
Healy certainly isn't alone in his
quest for adventure. There are many Fort Thomas residents and
Highlands High School alumni, who have pursued careers in the outdoor
industry. There's no doubt that the current generation of Fort Thomas
youth will have many outdoor enthusiasts as well. Healy provides some
solid advice for those looking to follow in his footsteps:
“It can be intimidating and difficult to get involved in the outdoor industry if you grew up in Fort Thomas. My suggestion for anyone that wants to work in the outdoor industry would be to do some research on where you think you might want to explore, go online to www.coolworks.com, and see if there are any jobs available in the places you want to be. Outdoor industry jobs are seasonal and customer service driven, so there are always opportunities to work and live at places you would normally only consider a vacation destination.
If you commit to spending a whole summer in Yosemite National Park and find a group of people that are passionate about climbing, it won't be terribly difficult to transition that experience into a guiding position. The most common attributes in guides for the outdoor industry are a passion for the great outdoors and a willingness to help others get the most out of their vacation experience. I wish that I would have taken the initiative to get a job working as a guide as soon as I turned 18. The only thing stopping people from pursing those jobs are self doubt and a lack of examples of others succeeding in the industry.”
“It can be intimidating and difficult to get involved in the outdoor industry if you grew up in Fort Thomas. My suggestion for anyone that wants to work in the outdoor industry would be to do some research on where you think you might want to explore, go online to www.coolworks.com, and see if there are any jobs available in the places you want to be. Outdoor industry jobs are seasonal and customer service driven, so there are always opportunities to work and live at places you would normally only consider a vacation destination.
If you commit to spending a whole summer in Yosemite National Park and find a group of people that are passionate about climbing, it won't be terribly difficult to transition that experience into a guiding position. The most common attributes in guides for the outdoor industry are a passion for the great outdoors and a willingness to help others get the most out of their vacation experience. I wish that I would have taken the initiative to get a job working as a guide as soon as I turned 18. The only thing stopping people from pursing those jobs are self doubt and a lack of examples of others succeeding in the industry.”
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