Rowan Spahn

At the challenge course, I work closely with my group of co-workers to come up with program activities for participants. With this job, I get to strengthen my public speaking and leadership roles, as well as my attention to detail and safety for participants. I've also become familiar with the technical side of the challenge course, and quickly learned to do maintenance on cables, guy-wires, skylines, and bolts to make sure they are functioning at a safe level. Overall this job has strengthened my teamwork and leadership skills, and familiarized me with technical gear and PPE.

At Nordic Tree Trimmers, I learned how to take down large trees in urban areas using ropes and pulleys to keep logs from falling on neighboring houses. With this job, I learned how to use climbing gear and safely operate machinery such as chainsaws and poll saws. Adhering to safety guidelines was of paramount importance in this job, and I got to apply newly-learned safety techniques to using climbing harnesses and belay systems to keep the climbers safe.

For almost three years, I've worked as an assistant groundskeeper, ensuring that the Waldorf campus is safe for the students and well kept. In this role, I've intermittently stepped up to take over the head groundskeeper role while my boss is away. Not only has this taught me how to better my time management, but it's also given me an opportunity to learn how to manage a team and grow as a leader.

I worked for a local company in Eugene working for a small number of selected clients. For these clients, our team did landscape design, stream restoration, and tree trimming. This experience included long, hot hours in the sun and getting my hands dirty every day, as well as learning to work with my peers so we could get the job done as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Over my work experience years I have worked with many different outdoor camps. I volunteered with Whole Earth Nature School and River House, both in Eugene. At the River House, I gained experience managing and working with gear, which included cleaning things like wetsuits and other whitewater kayaking equipment.

While working at Whole Earth Nature School, my role gave me experience guiding and working with students and children to complete outdoor survival tasks. My daily responsibilities were varied, and included taking groups of kids on hikes, teaching them how to safely handle knives, how to create shelter and fire, make survival gear, track animals, and identify plants. Not only did I learn how to stay calm and patient in stressful situations, but also how to take on leadership roles and get the most out of them.