Good morning Camp Gravatt this is your Program Director, Evan Mikula, here to give you a look behind the scenes of what goes on in my world here at Gravatt. I do in fact have the shortest commute to work amongst the year-round staff. My family and I live behind Stewart Hall in the Roy Stewart House. I walk out my front door and the adventure begins.

You can often find me working with our conference center guests on the team-building course, lifeguarding, instructing some archery, out in the woods teaching environmental education courses, or belaying on the ropes course. Being a Program Director isn’t all fun and games though, yes I too have to sit in the old office every now and then responding to emails, answering questions for future guests, or updating our courses policies and procedures. I help guests achieve their goals for their time out here at Gravatt. Every group is different and so I have to set up a schedule of activities that will best meet their needs.

Outside of the direct work I do with our guests, I’m in charge of the care, maintenance, and repairs that happen on our low ropes and high ropes course. I work with a great accredited third party team that comes out annually for inspections, repairs, and new installations. Every rope, harness, helmet, carabineer gets inspected by me and our third party team to ensure that safety standards are being met here at Gravatt.

I work closely with Thomas Coleman, helping out with both facilities maintenance and environmental stewardship when I can. I patrol our trails, assess the health of our forests and creeks, monitor wildlife on the game cameras, research new forestry techniques, and keep our fire breaks nice and spiffy. I try to learn as much as I can about the various ecosystems at Gravatt so that our environmental education program is top notch and engaging. Plus time spent traipsing around the woods at Gravatt is just good for my soul.

It is truly a blast and a half to work out here as the Program Director. My hands get to be involved in so many aspects of the guest experience both directly and indirectly. I think that’s all from me for now my friends, it’s a beautiful day out here and I reckon I could keep working on our fire breaks.