I had an amazing time working for Backscatter for the last three years. The staff there are some of the most fun, wildest and incredible people I’ve been fortunate to work with. From the very start, they welcomed me to the team, took me diving, taught me a ton about underwater photography and treated me like a friend more than a coworker. The pandemic was tough on all of us, but the management went to great lengths, and sacrificed on a personal level, to keep the all of us employed. I’ll always be grateful for this.
With our growing family, Mikaela and I decided we needed a little more room. And we’ve always wanted a house of our own, where we could have a dog and a garden. We found the perfect little place in the foothills of the Sierra, near Pioneer, California. We moved up in March and have been settling in since.
As things start to open up and retail stores start to get back in the swing of things, working remotely for Backscatter was not ideal for the customers and the staff. I’ll always miss the beautiful view out of the shop windows and the goofy banter between my coworkers.
As luck would have it, I stumbled onto another amazing opportunity. I’ll be working for OARS, which happens to have their worldwide headquarters a few towns away. With deep roots in the Grand Canyon and California, they offer whitewater rafting and river adventures all over the West. And the company has a legacy of actively pursuing river conservation and promoting DEI within the whitewater community. My official title will be digital marketing and foundation coordinator. I’ll be working on their social media (@oars_rafting, @oarsamericanriveroutpost) and blog. I’ll also be coordinating the Pam and George Wendt Foundation, which takes groups of under-resourced youth on river trips at little or no cost. I’m pretty excited about that part!