In today’s episode, Rick and Sam are joined by professional guide Colby Brokvist. While leadership might not be the first thing one thinks about in adventure travel and professional guiding, Colby shares the importance of leadership to any successful professional guide. Colby, Sam, and Rick begin the conversation considering the professional guide’s role, or any leader’s role, as a facilitator & connector. Another key to leadership they touch on is the influence of those who mentored Colby and his hope to influence guides, of any age and stage of their career, through his forthcoming book THE PROFESSIONAL GUIDE’S HANDBOOK, due out in May. Throughout the conversation, Colby shares stories of his travels, advice for leaders, especially professional guides, and some of his favorite places to travel.

Additional Resources:The Guide (https://youtu.be/Io-wNpdNrNM)The Professional Guide’s Handbook: How to Lead Adventure Travel Trips and Expeditions (https://www.fulcrumbooks.com//product-page/the-professional-guide-s-handbook-how-to-lead-adventure-trips-and-expeditions)

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He was inspired to pursue guiding as a career during a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2000. Since then, he has led hundreds of adventure travel departures, ranging from backpacking and trekking adventures to mountaineering and rock-climbing trips, sea kayaking and sailing voyages, and wildlife safaris. His expeditions have taken him to destinations as far-flung as Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as across the United States and Canada. In addition to fieldwork, Colby assumes a variety of managerial, operational, and consulting roles within the adventure travel sphere. His work centers on guide training, guide team management, and itinerary development. He sits on the board of directors for the Polar Tourism Guides Association and is a certified Senior Polar Guide through the same organization. He calls Boulder, Colorado, home.

Sam Scinta is President and Founder of IM Education, a non-profit, and Lecturer in Political Science at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Viterbo University.

Rick Kyte is Endowed Professor and Director of the DB Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University.

Music compliments of Bobby Bridger- “Rendezvous” from "A Ballad of the West"