MY WORK
This page endeavors to summarize over twenty years of professional experience. I have worked as a founder, manager, director, presenter, educator, team builder, tour guide, trip leader, public speaker and performer. I believe that the varied nature of my career path is quite beneficial because I bring an incredibly diverse skill set to all that I do. I am proud of my unique perspective on how to organize people in pursuit of a shared goal.
These three themes gracefully define my work history.
program design & content creation
I have experience getting new projects off the ground. I understand how important it is to learn a brand’s ethos before beginning any project. Once I have an understanding of it, I use that voice as my guide throughout the rest of the process: researching material, designing program structure, delineating procedures, forging alliances with partners, writing content and prototyping each project to see how audiences respond to the concept and construction of it.
Devour Tours
Devour is an international organization that hosts food tours in 9 countries, on two continents. They hired me in 2022 to design their first SF based program. The inaugural tour weaves between North Beach and Chinatown, both geographically and narratively, and centers the immigration history of San Francisco. Participants get to explore two iconic neighborhoods while examining the reasons why these areas have remained so detached, distinctive and delicious.
Sidewalk Tours
In 2013, as the first West Coast employee of Sidewalk Tours, I created content for three discrete neighborhood routes. I forged partnerships with local restaurants, trained other guides, built relationships with neighborhood organizations, and cemented the company’s local reputation when interest exploded. Sidewalk Tours has now been in operation for over a decade. It has become one of the top 10% of tour companies in SF and maintains a ranking of 4.5 stars on Yelp.
Museum Hack
Museum Hack HQ chose me to establish the West Coast wing of their business in 2015. So I created a “Renegade Tour Program” for four different host museums around the Bay Area. I wrote funny, insightful and surprising gallery tours designed to reach people who are skeptical about museum.
I created bespoke programming for corporate clients. And I invented several themed tours, one of which was adopted by the NY team and then mentioned in articles in the WSJ and NYT.
Odd Salon
I am one of the most frequent speakers. I have researched and written 20+ unique and entertaining lectures about the oddest corners of art, science, history and exploration, then presented them onstage to a cocktail drinking crowd at a bar.
I helped lay the foundation for our second branch, in NYC, and launched the inaugural season with a show that I designed and lectures that I curated. I am one of only two fellows to speak and create shows on both coasts.
tours & team building
I have been leading food tours in and around the Bay Area for more than a decade. In that time, I have guided 1,000+ tours, hosted 10,000+ people and earned hundreds of 5-star reviews on Tripadvisor & Yelp.
In order to guide guests on these experiences, I had to learn stories of the history, culture and cuisine of the Bay Area at large as well as the specific backstory of each neighborhood. This collection of local knowledge allows me to adapt my presentations to suit just about any audience, area or interest.
Sidewalk Tours
In 2013, I launched the San Francisco branch of Sidewalk Tours. I wrote and presented three neighborhood food tours: North Beach, Chinatown and the Mission. As I was the only guide for the first year, I cemented the company’s reputation and now Sidewalks is in the top 10% of tour companies in SF.
Gourmet Walks
In 2016, I joined Gourmet Walks to lead a high-end, seven course walking tour around NOPA. Soon thereafter I also started leading a multi-course gourmet chocolate tour in and around the Ferry Building. Gourmet Walks has been featured in numerous best tour roundups and has 4.8 stars on Yelp.
Marin Food & Farm Tours
In 2021, I joined the team at Marin Food & Farm Tours, which takes groups on tours focused on the agricultural heritage and local cuisine of Point Reyes. I lead three themed tours which highlight the Flavors of Point Reyes, the Artisinal Cheese culture, and the Oyster farming scene. Marin F&F holds a nearly perfect 5 star rating on Yelp.
Devour Tours
In 2022, I designed and launched the San Francisco food tour program for Devour. I worked as the inaugural guide, taking groups on a walking tour through North Beach and Chinatown. The tour was themed around stories of San Francisco’s immigration history, which tied gracefully into the menu we sampled along the way.
Palace Games & The Racket
The Racket is a Film Noir themed team building event disguised as a party game. The program mechanics are designed so that everyone in the group is motivated to interact in new and novel ways, often through blackmarket collaborations and devious exchanges. Palace Games is an award-winning escape room company located in the Palace of Fine Arts. Colleagues and friends get to know each other through problem solving and collaboration. I have worked at both since 2019.
Museum Workshops
In this professional development program run through Museum Hack, I traveled around the U.S. delivering multi-day storytelling and museum interpretation trainings. When I led these workshops, it was always my preference to combine my presentations with conversations, games, collaboration and hands-on prototyping. I wanted to make sure that I was engaging my audience in our study of engaging audiences. I presented these workshops with co-facilitators and alone.
education & adventure
I believe there are many pathways to learning. I have spent much of my career creating educational opportunities for curious people outside of classrooms. I have been a teacher of numerous topics in many fields, because I am a curious person too. The element that ties all of these Educational & Adventurous experiences together is my focus on creating space for people to learn in a less structured and more adaptable manner than many educational environments can provide.
Academy of Sciences
I worked as a Planetarium Presenter at the California Academy of Sciences from 2011 to 2020. I used cutting-edge software to pilot a 75-foot dome while delivering planetarium shows that combined recorded and live sections. On average, I presented to over 1,000 people in a standard work day. I learned to give 40 separate presentations on topics ranging from Astronomy to Physics, Seismology, Marine Biology, Sustainability and Cosmology.
Dinosaurs Rock
I worked as a Science Presenter with Dinosaurs Rock® from 2012 to 2020. I researched, wrote and presented an interactive curriculum focused on Paleontology, Mineralogy and Oceanography. I offered school-wide assemblies, classroom presentations as well as one-on-one interactions. I learned to adapt my stagecraft and presentation style to reach learners with very different ages and understandings, ranging from preschoolers to adults.
Bay Area Discovery Museum
I was hired in 2008 to manage the interpretive staff team at this children’s museum in Sausalito. We supported the learning and development of 0-8 year olds through hands-on exhibit elements, a VERY popular art studio and multiple opportunities for outdoor play. During my tenure, I restructured job roles to allow my staff to design and present their own creative programming on the museum floor. We added 125 educational programs per year to the museum calendar with zero need for increased budget or staffing. Not only did it drive significant enhancements to the museum curricula, it also reduced mid-year staff attrition by 75%.
Caritas Creek Outdoor Education
In 2002, I moved to Northern California to take a job as a Teacher / Naturalist at an Outdoor Education School called Caritas Creek. I used our redwood forest as my classroom, and guided students through a varied experiential education curriculum. In 2003, I was promoted to Head T/N, so I trained and managed our staff. While I held this position, mid-year turnover dropped by over 60%. In 2004, I was promoted past many of my peers to Site Director. In this role I acted as the de facto principal while schools were onsite: I liaised with teachers, communicated with parents, supported students, and endeavored to provide a cohesive experience for all.
BYM Wilderness Adventure Camps
This was the first step on my atypical career ladder. I was hired to teach backcountry camping skills and lead rock climbing & caving trips in Shenandoah National Park. After two years, I was promoted to a position leading the advanced trips with a program called TA.
Both of these jobs required a lot of emotional intelligence. When co-leading in the backcountry, was crucial to build a relationship of trust with my colleagues. I also needed to be able to do the same with my students. I had a very short period of time, at the beginning of the session, to establish a positive and supportive bond with these people. The core philosophy behind this program is that challenging adventures in the wilderness provide an opportunity for people to gain physical competence. But we also create a space for participants to expand their capacity for social and emotional growth. It takes a lot of inner strength for novices in this field to attempt these physical challenges. It takes even more to embrace that vulnerability which is what fuels that emotional growth. So the supportive bonds that I built were crucial to the success of the program.
In these roles, I was also challenged, both physically and mentally. I slept outside more nights than I slept inside. I learned many times over how to deal with the unexpected. I once led a night-caving expedition where we had to evacuate the group because a rabid skunk invaded our campsite. On another occasion, a bear ate all our food overnight. I am not listing these occurrences to imply that I was an irresponsible guide, or that the program was excessively accident prone. I just want to explain that no matter how prepared we were, we could not prepare for everything. My experience dealing with disaster, having to change plans at a moment’s notice, needing to make decisions about how to respond while in the backcountry and far away from help… these hard won lessons served as an excellent introduction to adaptive strategy and creative problem solving. I carry that skill set with me today.
Woolman Summer Program
This is by far the hardest and most rewarding job that I have ever had. I am so proud that I built this wilderness adventure school from scratch, taking ideas and dreams and making them manifest. I wanted this program to serve as a safe space for my participants to face challenges that pushed the limits of their confidence and capability.
I knew I was doing my job well when they would leave with tears in their eyes for the pain of parting.
But being the director of a program like this also challenged me in ways that I never could have anticipated. This line of work required me to be adept at soft skills like patience and encouragement. I had to know the hard skills and the ins and outs of backpacking. I needed to be a logistical wizard. There was always an endless list of things to do, and no day was ever the same. I managed calendars, made announcements, arranged trips, tracked budgets and managed staff. I responded to emergencies and communicated with parents. Usually, all of these things had to happen simultaneously. This constant juggle required me to be an agile problem solver and to take with grace the fact that working with people is ever dynamic.
But no matter how many responsibilities I list in this summary, it’s never going to be a comprehensive explanation of the labor that went into this endeavor. Much of it was not definable in a formal job description, and instead required me to respond to the needs of the moment. I mixed gorp by the gallon, rescued canoe trips that ended up in flooded rivers, woke up every hour through the night to care for someone who had a possible head injury, dealt with rogue bears on property, played the tooth fairy, and learned how to crack eggs for 100 people. This experience gifted me with enormous personal growth.
After eight years at the helm, my program tripled in size, eventually becoming the highest-grossing program at the center.