Alaska Mountain Rescue

Well, what’s that like?

I first came upon Valdez Adventure Alliance in maybe late 2019 or early 2020 — or maybe I should say they came upon me. I had my profile up on a freelancing site and they were looking for an accountant. So we came to an agreement and I dug in. Not long after the person who was named their sport director took another job up in Girdwood. By then I had been taking on more and more tasks — and I was interested in the small nonprofit and the goals so it started becoming more than just a job, it started becoming a shared vision. As in I was starting to see their vision and began to have an appreciation for it.

More about that later. Enter, Devin Wilson. I agreed to become the interim sport director and audit the ice fest for 2022 and decide if it would be something I would continue to do. I relied on Devin tremendously for beta and truly enjoyed this conversation with him — one of our first long convos. Devin was professional, reliable, responsive, and had well thought out answers to my questions. And there were a lot of them. He stayed in constant contact with me from the point of signing on to be the lead until I dropped him off at home post event after helping with gear inventory, rope drying, and organizing our radios. I can’t say enough good stuff about Devin.