Guest Bio
Russell Walters is a seasoned professional in the adventure travel industry, with experience spanning over four decades. Born in Windsor, England, he began his career in the early 1980s and has since become a prominent figure in outdoor recreation. An accomplished kayaker and registered Maine Guide, Russell has held various leadership positions, including:
- ✓ General Manager at O.A.R.S.: Oversaw operations in Angels Camp, California, for four years.
- ✓ President of Northern Outdoors: Leads a four-season adventure resort located in The Forks, Maine in the northeastern United States
- ✓ Regional Director, North America, at Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA): Works with destinations, tour operators, agents, and guides to promote the economic and conservation benefits of adventure-based travel.
Russell also serves on several boards, including Maine Huts & Trails and the Maine Sports Commission, reflecting his commitment to community engagement and sustainable tourism.
Show Summary
In this episode, Russell Walters shares his extensive journey in the adventure travel industry. He discusses his transition from the UK to the US, the evolution of adventure tourism, and the importance of balancing customer and employee experiences. Russell also emphasizes the significance of adapting to technological advancements and the role of collaboration in promoting sustainable tourism practices.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Adaptability: Embracing change and technological advancements is crucial for business growth.
- ✓ Customer Experience: Focusing on personalized experiences enhances client satisfaction.
- ✓ Employee Engagement: Valuing and supporting staff leads to a more motivated workforce.
- ✓ Collaboration: Working together within the industry promotes sustainable tourism.
- ✓ Community Involvement: Engaging with local communities enriches the impact of tourism.
What You’ll Find on Northern Outdoors’ Platform
- ✓ Whitewater Rafting Adventures: Guided trips on Maine’s renowned rivers.
- ✓ Snowmobiling Tours: Winter excursions through scenic trails.
- ✓ Lodging Options: Comfortable accommodations ranging from cabins to campgrounds.
- ✓ Brewing Company: An on-site brewery offering craft beers.
- ✓ Event Hosting: Facilities available for weddings, corporate retreats, and group events.
Learn more about Northern Outdoors | Maine and connect with Russell at:
https://www.northernoutdoors.com/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:03.402)
Welcome back to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Super excited to have each and every one of you back today. Today we’ve got a special guest. We’ve got Russell Walters with Northern Outdoors. Russell, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here. Hey Jason, thanks for the invitation. Happy to be here. Well, it’s a real pleasure and you and I had a conversation before and actually it was the Zoom call and you were sitting in your lodge and I…
just I thought maybe you went out and went to some place just for the call and then you mentioned that it was your place and it was just absolutely beautiful. So we’re going to talk a little bit about that. But before we jump into that stuff, I would love to just connect with you as a human being on this big planet. Kind of hear a little bit about your story. How did you get from where you started to where you are now and what happened along the way? Yeah, I mean, boy.
It’s been an unplanned and I would say, you know, wonderful journey. I’ve been involved in this as an industry now for probably 40 years. And, you know, never really intended that to happen. Like many people in our industry, you get involved and it’s so much fun. And it’s, you know, it is this lifestyle industry and we get to shape it. And we get to.
Jason Elkins (02:00.278)
write our own rules, you know, more or less, but really it started, you know, I grew up in the UK and was involved in whitewater kayaking in the UK in instruction and racing and competing. And going through university, you know, needed somewhere to train in the summer and…
found out about these wonderful rapidly flowing rivers here in the Northeast. I’m based in Maine, Northern Outdoors is based in the state of Maine. And wanted to be on the rivers all summer and came out here with the idea that I was going to spend one summer on the East Coast, one summer on the West Coast, and maybe one summer in Australia. That was the plan going through university when here I am 40 years later.
You know, I was very fortunate, and we’ll talk about that part of the journey. I was very fortunate along the way to get to spend five years in California, working for George Wendt at Oars. But, you know, my piece of being involved in Northern Outdoors was, you know, just starting from the river and then looking at it and just seeing this amazing landscape, you know. The state of Maine is very remote, certainly for the Northeast.
very large, are forested with these magnificent hydro-controlled rivers that allow us to raft every day. And so, as a younger person, really enjoying soaking up that experience, it was a dream. And coming out of university, the folks that had started Northern Outdoors, Wayne and Susie Hochmeier,
who had started the company back in 1976. I first joined the company in 83, offered me the opportunity to work in marketing and promote what it was we were doing up here. So that seemed like a great opportunity. I get to spend the winters down in Boston and talking to…
Jason Elkins (04:17.058)
people around the 128 highway, the digitals and the wangs and the polaroids of that era. And then I would come up and ski at weekends and be on the river all summer long. So that was really how I got involved in it. And, you know, things progressed later on. You know, I went from marketing to being involved in the entire operations. And the thing about Northern Outdoors is it was, you know, yes, it’s a rafting company. We were asked on
three rapidly flowing rivers up here in Maine, the Kennebec, the Penobscot and the Dead Rivers. But probably the wisdom or the genius of Wayne and Susie when they established the company was that it was always going to, they wanted to establish a year round company because they recognized just how hard it was to train staff on a seasonal basis. So, their vision,
was pretty bold because the town that they’re established in, that we are now working, living in, is a town of 37 people. And here we have a workforce, a staff of over 100 people now at the moment. So people are coming in from adjoining towns and what have you, but it was always part of the vision that Northern Outdoors would be a year-round company.
Um, you know, so then you look at it and say, well, what an earth you can’t, you, you certainly can’t, uh, Raft in the winter in Maine. Well, you know, we can’t, but we had snowmobiling, um, and we have a, uh, an incredible network of trails, um, 14,000 miles of trails running right, you know, right, right by the lodge, right through the forks. And so that was the other piece. So basically we were able to.
Jason Elkins (06:12.942)
program of adventures. So that was the adventure side of it. But then people needed somewhere to stay. And so we went from this organization where, most people would come from Boston, a large 50, 60% of our guests still to this day come from Massachusetts. So it’s a drive time. And they would take four and a half hours and they’re not gonna go rafting and go home.
wanted somewhere to stay so we used to have a lot of camping. Now that camping has morphed into lodging, really nice comfortable cabins for 15, 16 people or so or cozy cabins for just a couple getting away for the weekend. So all along we’ve had to sort of listen to what it is that the guest wanted. It went from cabins, now of course we’ve got cabins. Well,
What are we going to do for food? So we got to, we got to start a restaurant. And then we selfishly, we enjoy drinking beer. And so we, we built a brewery and this was 20 years ago before the advent of, you know, craft beer really being very popular. So, you know, I think it’s all that whole journey has always been about what is it the guests looking for? Um, and how do we, how can we, uh, appeal to that? How can we satisfy their needs?
while at the same time being cognizant, realizing that we are based in rural Maine, we’re not the four seasons and we’ve got to deliver a standard quality package of activities. So it’s been that balance all the way along. Wow. I see a lot of things going on there. And you’ve mentioned that the owners were very foresightful to expand that season because it’s really hard
new group of guides or the guides, you know, they go find something to do in the winter, they may or may not come back. It’s great that they called it Northern Outdoors and not Northern Whitewater or something like that. Well, that was so that’s funny because that was the original name, Northern Whitewater Expeditions. So there you go. So it was, that’s how it started off, Northern Whitewater Expeditions. I think it was a good choice to rename it. And then it got renamed and you know, and it’s the, and we always think about, I mean, the guides,
Jason Elkins (08:36.342)
Surely, yes, they’re the stars of the show, right? They get to be out there on the rivers, on the trail every day. But probably some of the harder positions to fill are those, you know, backroom positions, those people on the phones, those people servicing the housekeepers, you know, the working the rooms and those people in the kitchen. So I think it was more about how do we provide them with the year-round job? Because the…
you know, they really support everything. And so, you know, it’s proven, and I think the last three years, you know, since COVID, you know, and what we’ve seen happen, you know, this escape to nature, as I call it, and at the same time, people having a real time finding staff, you know, I think because we’ve been, we hopefully have been fair to staff and…
Hopefully we’ve always had staff in mind during the evolution of the company. We’ve been fairly fortunate to maintain a staff and keep a staff and be able to grow even coming out of the pandemic. That makes a lot of sense. Cause you know, I’ve been working on this and you’re right. If they really like a place, they kind of they’re okay with that nomadic thing. It’s like, okay, if I really like a place for the summer, I’ll be there for the summer. And then…
Maybe I’m a ski lift operator or schoolteacher or something like that in the winter. Whereas the other folks that maybe come in to join the team, you know, you can do kitchen staff, housekeeping, management, logistics, all of that stuff. There’s, yeah, that’s a little harder nut to crack for somebody to just come in and work seasonally. And I’m in business.
A little bit of a gap, I would think, between the end of the summer season and the beginning of the snowmobiling and then another gap in the spring, or do you just go straight through? I don’t think, can you? Not quite. And we would love to. We can’t quite make it. December in Maine is there’s not enough snow on the ground to go snowmobiling. What we have seen, I mean, it used to be that, you know, towards once we got to…
Jason Elkins (10:55.722)
Labor Day, people would start going back. Now we’ve seen the state of Maine has done a great job of marketing foliage season, fall season. Yeah, because you guys have that too. It’s not just Vermont, right? That’s right. Don’t, we think it’s the other way around. We think they might have it, we own it. But so we’ve got foliage season, which is, and weather, climate change has sort of made the seasons a little bit warmer.
So we’re seeing more people at the back end of the season, getting us into October, now Columbus weekend. We have a few contract programs that we run. And then actually through the month of November, we actually have a white tail deer hunting operation. Traditional sport up here in Maine with some of the guides that work on the rivers. And then December, we closed down
everyone’s a little grateful for that pause, right? They’ve all worked hard and we use that time to do a little refresh and do some cleaning and take care of those projects that you can’t take care of when guests are around. So that takes us, and then January, February, March is snowmobile season. We get April is another of those breaks, mud season in Maine. It’s not that much fun. And then we start off again in May, but funny, the changes that we’ve seen
May used to be a really big season, you know, high water, the spring fresh hit, the, you know, the snow melt and what have you, but more and more, I think people recognize that they can still go rafting in July and August when the water’s warmer and the weather’s warmer. And so we have to really convince people, but still there’s the diehards. There’s a certain crew that just wants to be out there first run or early in May and getting
potential for higher water conditions, but they’re becoming less and less. So you mentioned obviously like kind of that late September through October, the foliage season. So what I hear, so it sounds like you have guests that’ll come up there, they’re not rafting, they’re obviously snowboarding, just being there like long weekends, or is that pretty much what you get?
Jason Elkins (13:24.034)
I mean, we never used to see that five years ago. Everyone that came to our location was really all about the adventure. Today, we see a number of people just coming up for a long weekend or just to camp or go hiking. We’re blessed, we’re within three miles of the Appalachian Trail. So that’s another activity. And of course, probably the fastest growing thing that we’ve seen
of the last five years is the advent of side-by-sides, ATVs. So we have a very popular destination for snowmobiling. It’s the same sort of mentality of person that they’ve got the same spirits and that wanna go out on these side-by-sides and that whole system, due in part, I think, because of the manufacturers,
you know, people like Polaris Adventures really coming up with some innovative campaigns to promote late model. I mean, brand new machines every single year for first time trial and pretty much the same trail system that we use for snowmobiling you can use for ATV. So now we’re seeing people coming up and, you know, one day of rafting, one day or half day of ATVing.
Jason Elkins (14:51.986)
ATVing, fishing, hiking, and rafting all in one stay. So we’ve been really, really pleased to be able to sort of see these sportsmen and women and families sort of expand their adventures and the types of things that they’re doing when they get to come up to the woods. Very cool. And I think I heard you say it, I wanna check to make sure I understood this right. Cause you mentioned the manufacturers with the new models every year.
Is that a deal where they’ll make you guys a pretty good deal and then you use them for your clients? Is that what that’s all about? Well, not quite. Yes. And we’ve, as an organization, we’ve kind of, we’ve managed to think about that. We tried really hard to work on the things that we’re good at. And what we think we’re good at is offering trips for one too many. When you take somebody rafting, you’re taking, you know,
one trip for 30, 40, 50, 80 people. We also offer guided fishing trips, but that’s what I call a one-to-one experience. One person, one guide or two people and one guide. That’s not our sweet spot, but we have some former rafting guides that wanted to start up their own business. Great fishermen, great anglers.
and great rivers and lakes and ponds around us. So we basically said, look, you take care of that. You take all the equipment, you do your guiding. They’re getting a little bit older, longer in the tooth. They’ll probably kill me for saying that, but for guiding white water, but they can still fish. And so, you know, they went off and started their own fishing company, Kennebec River Anglers. And we do a lot of their booking, a lot of their administration for them.
So it’s a really good subcontract. That leads me to sort of the same way what we do with ATVs. Our skill set is not in motors or ATVs or snowmobiling. So we’ve been very fortunate to form a really tight relationship with a group called 201 Power Sports based out of Bingham, just south of us. And that’s their specialism. They do that really well. They’ve got the equipment, they’ve got the mentality, they’ve got the skills and experience.
Jason Elkins (17:13.67)
They form the relationship with Polaris Adventures. Polaris Adventures works with them to provide these machines. I think this year, well, for the winter, we’ll have 26 machines, 26 snowmobiles based at the lodge. And that’s only a small part of what we do for snowmobiling. I mean, most of our snowmobiles come up and bring their own equipment. So these subcontract operations have been really…
beneficial to us because they let us focus on the things we’re good at and work with others that are better at some of the things that we’re just not capable of. What a brilliant idea, actually leveraging and working with people. I’m curious, did you as an organization, did you learn that the hard way or was it just kind of, okay, people want to do this, so we’re going to find a partner or because sometimes
Operators learn things the hard way, or they go into it thinking they want to be everything to everybody. And I’m curious, what did you learn through that process? Yeah, probably like most guide and operator, through the school of hard knocks, we thought we could do everything. We thought we could do all of the fishing. That’s where it first started. And we actually arranged for a training program and training different people. And we just…
It wasn’t a sweet spot. It wasn’t, we, because we were, we, the company owned all the equipment. We owned all the rods. We owned all the boats. And, you know, it’s different. A raft is, you know, that we know how to take care of, but an individual fishing rod or a reel or a boat, um, going out there after they, they just got abused. And so we looked at that after a couple of years and said, this is, this is, this is not
It doesn’t work. There’s no alignment. Um, and so, you know, that’s when the idea was hatched of, well, we’d like to own the equipment, we’d like to own the boats, but we don’t know how to do the marketing. We don’t know how to, we don’t, we want to be fishing. We don’t want to take reservations. So it was like, that sounds perfect. And, and of course, you know, the benefit for us is that we might be able to get people to stay an extra day in campsites or lodging and, uh, and, and so it’s just.
Jason Elkins (19:36.822)
you know, it’s hitting the guests where they’re at. And once again, really putting, I think the guest first, exactly, rather than putting ourselves first and mucking things up, we’re really capable of that. Aren’t we all? Yeah, I get it completely. I worked as a fishing guide in the past and managed fishing lodges that were specific. So if it’s a fishing lodge, okay, it makes sense. Right. If
80% of your business is fishing. It makes sense that you own the boat, you own some equipment, you have rental gear, you have all that stuff. But otherwise, I think it’s always better to partner, especially with fishing. It’s interesting to use that as the example, or as a big example, because you’re right with, because you’ve got to have someone there at the lodge that’s really into it and really wants to take care of the equipment, maintain the equipment, and all these things. And if that one person who’s the real gear head,
as we called them when I was in the business, you know, was gone for a few weeks, or if your fishing host or manager was gone, things went sideways quite quickly. And I’ve also visited a lot of lodges that outsource their fishing, and if they outsource it right, it’s just, it’s always, I can say always a better experience. It’s, so I get that completely. And it’s, you know, you’ve been around,
doing tourism for a long time. You’ve learned a lot of these things along the way. I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of stories like that. And there’s so many questions I wanna ask you, but I do wanna jump into, actually the first question I wanna ask you is go way back to the beginning of the conversation. You said that you had spent your summer, you took the summer, the UK came over, fell in love with it. Were you guiding that first summer or were you just kinda hanging out?
spent it on the river? No, I was, I was, I had, I had seen this river. I had read about this, this Kennebec river on a, and a, and a, in a book of, see we didn’t have internet in 1983. And I was called the Nexus International Travel Handbook. And I read this book and it talked about this river and how it flowed every single day. And so I just, I wrote a letter, you know, you.
Jason Elkins (21:59.938)
put it in the mail and put a stamp on it and wonder if it’ll ever get there. And, uh, just, I wrote to every single company. There were, I think 11 companies at the time and said, look, this is what I want to do. I just want to be on the river. I’ll, I’ll teach kayak school. I’ll be a safety boat or I’ll do whatever. Um, and one gentleman, the gentleman I referenced before Wayne Hotmire, um, called me back one night. He actually, um, he actually called me, I think at two o’clock in the morning cause he got the time, time zones mixed up.
at my house school of residence. And we had a conversation there. So my first job was really as a kayak instructor, which I did for a season. And then I got involved in photography on the river, photography and taking photos of guests and videos. And then by the third year, I think I was into guiding. And so it was a pretty…
in interesting ways to spend my summer. Help me and the listeners kind of understand the difference between, you said I started as a kayak instructor. I’d love to kind of get a glimpse of what that is compared to being a kayak guide per se. What was the biggest difference in your experience? Yeah, I mean, kayak instructing, and we no longer, unfortunately, do we do kayak instructing because it’s another one of those.
you know, sort of one-to-one, one-to-two experiences. But it was something that the company was interested in when I was just starting off. And literally you take somebody that’s, you know, seen kayaking on the TV or on a video or something and wants to learn how to do that. And you start off on a flat water, on a lake or, you know, and you progress over the course of four or five days to being able to get onto moving water and rapidly flowing rivers. And…
Obviously everyone always wants to learn. So there’s a progression there and teaching people to roll the kayak so that if they go upside down, they can hopefully right themselves and come back up the right way. So kayaking can be a very frustrating, especially whitewater kayaking can be a very frustrating sport to learn. It’s like anything. You’ve got to put the time in, you’ve got to learn how to read whitewater. So we would have people that would…
Jason Elkins (24:22.562)
back a couple of times, they go off, they learn the very basics, go and practice it at home for a little while and come back and try and do another section of the river a little bit harder. But again, it was so labor intensive and equipment intensive and time intensive, but it wasn’t something we were able to, as a company, grow successfully with any scale. But the
The managers, the owners said, hey, you know, we wanna take videos of these people as they’re going down rivers on the rafts. And, you know, as long as you can get yourself down the river, which obviously I could, then we’ll teach you how to take photographs, which I couldn’t. So that, you know, they would teach me how to take photos of the boats going by, and we have that as part of the story at the end of the day.
So I learned that skill the second summer and then the third summer really didn’t spend so much kayaking, so much time in the boat, but more now taking guests down rivers in these rafts, where you’re taking six or eight people down a particular river section with them doing most of the work and you just shouting and staring.
Jason Elkins (25:43.142)
I suspect, so they got rid of the kayak instruction, but they kept you, which is great. I love your story about writing the letters. It reminds me kind of myself. I think you and I probably have a similar mindset. When I decided, I started learning how to fly fish, taught myself, read every book I could get, because we didn’t, again, didn’t have the internet to go to.
Finally, I was at that point in my life where I was like, I wanna be a fishing guide or I wanna work in the fishing business. I have no idea. And I went up the Big Farm River in Montana and I didn’t write letters, but I went door to door. Yeah. And knocking on every lodge. And I said, look, my name’s Jason. I want to be here. I do whatever. I’ll dig holes. I don’t care. I just wanna be close to the river. I wanna learn the business. Eventually someone handed me some keys. And unfortunately, the…
manager of the lodge had been killed in a car accident a few minutes earlier, and they just getting ready to start the season. So the timing, I guess, was good for me. And yeah, it’s a great approach to just, you know, just kind of reaching out to people and just saying, look, I’ll do anything, whatever it is, because usually there’s something in their mind, if you just go say, I want to be a river guide. Oh, yeah, okay, so does everybody. But show up and say,
I’ll do whatever, you know, these are some things I’ve done in the past. And if there’s something else I can learn, I’ll do it. And I’ve had a few interesting, several interesting conversations with folks like yourself that work in this business and that’s how they got into it. So I appreciate you sharing that. Well, then I think, you know, you’re, you’re in that business, but it’s, it’s not the endless summer, right? So that summer is going to come to an end and the river is going to freeze over. So I think that the next evolution, the next step in that is how am I going to
what am I gonna do to make myself useful? And that’s where the marketing piece came in. I mean, if you’re not on the river, you were selling the river. Do you think that was tied to the photography or were you doing other things that kind of led to the marketing? Yeah, good. I think photography was part of it at the time, but I also think it was just, I think in all of these things, it’s a curiosity, right? I mean, I was not a marketeer.
Jason Elkins (28:01.698)
My degree was in three dimensional design, interior design. Nothing there to do with marketing, but I was curious about how people would, learn about this stuff. And at that time it was all through catalogs and rack cards. There was no internet and other skills. So we, we’re all, even today, we’re still curious. I mean, as, what is gonna be the next new thing? I mean, is it TikTok? Is it?
X? Is it, you know, Facebook’s dead? Is it? So, I mean, that curiosity never, maybe it’s podcasts. I don’t know. Maybe it’s podcasts. Exactly. You know, I think it’s, I hope so. I think, I think it’s a little bit of all of those things. But I think you have to remain curious. And so to people that, you know, come through the company today is like, well, hey, I’d like to stay a little bit longer. What can I do? And he’s like, well, what do you want to do? You know, do you want to be involved in the food and beverage side of things?
you know, is your interest in being involved in the operational side or the sales side? And I think that, you know, some of our best staff are those that have, they’ve managed to sort of morph from they’ve got both the operational side, the guiding side, the human side, the personal side, as well as they’re able to come up with some other aspect that enables them to be valuable.
Um, and be valued during the off season months. Cause we, you know, we spend, we spend six months of the year getting ready for summer and then it’s six months of the year in summer. Oh, and it’s the same. So you want to find a way that you can be part of that six months of getting ready. Correct. Or you’re, or you’re standing at the bottom of a ski slope somewhere, helping people get on the left. Yeah. Which, you know, not knocking that. And you, and you better find a way to enjoy that.
Right? Because otherwise that becomes work. If you can’t find the joy in it, then it’s just going to be work. And you’re right. I mean, we have a number of staff that their enjoyment comes from summer on the river and winter on the hill. I mean, I’m right here by Sugarloaf mountain and a number of our staff for ski patrol over the winter. And they love that lifestyle of being outdoors, you know, 10, 12 months of the year.
Jason Elkins (30:23.266)
and having a real break between summer and winter and doing different things. So, you know, that’s where they find their joy. My joy is in trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and make it more efficient and simpler every year we go about it so that, you know, it makes it a better experience for the staff that are there and for the guests that come with us.
I suspect just listening to you, I’m envisioning that you are the kind of the HR operations, a little bit of everything, still doing some marketing, probably. Is that accurate? I mean, I know you have a team, but do you feel like you’re what you’re doing is super focused? Or do you have a lot of different things that you were dealing with on a daily basis? I think I’m fortunate in that we are of a scale now that we are able to employ
specialists in specific tasks. I think my particular role is more involved with, I would say, certainly marketing. I’ve always maintained that interest. I’ve had to learn finance and budgeting and cashflow. So there’s those things. And then just thinking about what does the future bring? How are we going to look to the future? So a lot of that is really not marketing,
analysis, reviews, reading reviews and being an analyst of what it is the guest comes about. The operational side, we’re really lucky. We have a separate operations team and a separate sort of maintenance team and then a crew that is doing housekeeping. And I have two partners who are involved in the business as well. And
they sort of take care of the operations and the housekeeping side of things. So we’ve been able to divide and conquer pretty well and not overstretch ourselves. And all too often in this is a people business, right? And all too often it’s 24 seven, 365. And we as guides or we as people think we’re irreplaceable. Nobody…
Jason Elkins (32:47.314)
one of the big learnings I had, I thought I was a good river guide. Until I saw some people that were better than me. And then I realized, man, it’s not about me, it’s about the river, it’s about the experience. And I think that when you understand that, it’s not really about you, it’s about the team, and about the experience that everybody is providing. That’s a great learning. And so some
to be able to have that team and the benefit of not having to be there 24 7, 365. And, you know, have people do their jobs and sure we have to convene meetings and we have to put the thing back on the rails when it comes off or divine what we think is going to be the next big thing.
But I really do think that I’m very fortunate that there are a team of specialists, just even configuring reservation systems. That’s nothing that you can do today. Willy nilly, you’ve really got to have your heart and soul in that and specialize in that. We’re lucky to have a couple of people that are involved in that very heavily. That’s very cool. I feel like I could ask you about each individual.
team member, different role that you have. And I’m going to stick with this one on the guiding. Cause you, you mentioned you thought you were, you know, a great river guide until you met some other people that were better. I heard you talk about, you know, the team and the experience and there’s a lot of, a lot of stuff there. And what’s the one thing you look for? So somebody shows up knocking on your door, reaches out to you, writes a letter, whatever, says, I want to be a river guide. What is…
What do you feel is the most important skill that they can either bring with them or learn quickly? What are you looking for in a river guide? That’s a great question. I got a really simple answer. It’s their human skills, their soft skills, and their personality. We run a guide school. We run a five-day intensive technical guide school to take somebody who knows absolutely nothing about being on a river to being able to guide and be a…
Jason Elkins (35:07.594)
be registered because in the state of Maine, we have to, we are licensed by the, the state of Maine department of inland fisheries and wildlife. So you have to be able to pass a technical test, um, uh, a knowledge test, knowledge-based test. And we take people that have got zero experience, um, and within five days can take them through that and, and how they get a boat down a river. And, but
we cannot teach somebody to be a nice person. So we do quite a lot of, we do quite a lot of with those applications, you know, we don’t just read the application, we do just what we’re doing. We have a Zoom interview with somebody and try and get into their head a little bit as to why it is they wanna do this. Because they’ve also got to be, they’re working as part of a really close, tightly knit team. So it’s, how do they?
How do they bond that? What are their views and their values on that? And I think we do a pretty good job of bringing people into that. But short answer is, are they a people person? Because again, if you’re not a people person in a people business, it’s gonna be work. Because this- For everybody. For everybody, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we like to say, we have a little saying in the office
guests and rivers and you know what we talk about is don’t sell anybody everything. You got to sell the right person on the right trip at the right time. Because if you sell the wrong person on the wrong trip, but the wrong time, they’re going to have a bad experience. And if they have a bad experience, everybody around them, it’s not going to be pretty. So it’s really about I use that word a couple of times alignment.
alignment of the guest to the experience. It’s about the alignment of the staff to the business. Okay, so since you mentioned on the sales team, I wasn’t gonna ask how did the other roles there, but I suspect, you know, the full skills are important in sales. I think we all know that, that being able to identify the right trip for the right person at the right time,
Jason Elkins (37:31.138)
takes a certain element of people skills. I’m curious how you would describe it if you’re interviewing somebody for a position on the sales team. Is it the same answer or is it a slightly different answer?
Jason Elkins (37:47.79)
It’s slightly different because they’ve also got to have an aptitude towards, you know, being involved in a transactional part of the business, you know, that the phone’s going to ring. It’s, it’s a much more reactive side. Um, but they, you know, we, we put three people, again, we have a training program that we put people through, put stuff through so that they can be better on the phone and, um,
There’s a, there’s a hierarchy, there’s a progression start at certain places and learn, uh, learn by doing, we have a very, very small sales office, a small in, in square footage by design, because literally everybody can, can hear it’s open plan and you can learn from, you can learn from each other. We don’t, we’re not in separate, you know, closed rooms or cubicles and
there’s always, my office is just off of that. And so if there’s something going on in the office, I can hear that and we can immediately jump to it. So it’s, the personality is still there because we’re everybody in the office is also at some point they’re dealing with checking of guests or checking in for river trips. So they’ve still got to have that human connection. And hopefully, they not.
doesn’t always happen, but hopefully they spent some time in the out-of-doors too, so that they’re familiar with the rivers and the trails and everything else that we’ve got going on. Right, I ran a sales team for Orbis Travel, and it was the same setting where we were all very close to each other. And at one point they said, oh, do you want an office? I mean, no, I don’t want a office. Right. Because then I’m gonna miss out on things because I can learn from.
from the team, I was still doing sales. And it was so cool because we would, somebody would finish a call. I or someone else on the team would look over their shoulder and say, oh, I heard you must them this or you said that. And I didn’t know that about this trip. And I mean, frankly, we spent 40 to 50% of our time just talking to each other, communicating about these different things. So,
Jason Elkins (40:02.754)
five, 10 minute phone call would end and then we’d go into 15 minutes of conversation. And that was our nine years. And it was, it’s like that for nine years. When someone that doesn’t understand this space, you know, would look, you know, maybe come walk by and look over and just see us spending so much time talking like, hey, you know, what’s going on here? And I learned so much about, and we all did. And it was, I would not change that.
And I also realized that with COVID, a lot of companies, a lot of businesses have kind of gone a different direction. Yeah. Working remote, it doesn’t sound like you are. So let’s, maybe this is a good opportunity to speak about how things have changed over. You’ve been doing this, you know, 40 some years. We discussed how marketing or initially was the cards. What do you call the cards that you put in the little? Rack cards or flyers, you know, little like. Rack cards. Yeah, little. I did want to ask you though.
I did want to ask you though, before I forget, are those still effective? I mean, do you have a feel for what percentage of your bookings are coming from those or are those just done? For us, they’re done. I hear they’re, I mean, we want things that we can measure. You know who I think makes the money off those though is the one that sells the rack, right? Yeah. And they sell you a placement in the rack because most of our operators, they’ve seen a rack somewhere and it’s maybe a matter of ego or pride or it’s like,
No, I want to have my card in every hotel and town. They put in, but. Oh, their competitors, they feel like they’ve got to be there. We’re no longer there. We, uh, we, we chose to go another route in that, in that role. Very cool. I was, uh, I was curious about that. And now, now more on change. What are the top two or three things that you have seen change over the last 40 years that you think are the most, uh, either relevant, interesting or. I mean, I think the, the.
The demographic, I mean, I think where, you know, it once was certainly whitewater rafting, was really once the just for the adventurous chosen few. Now we’re seeing families, you know, and older folks come and raft. I mean, they’ve older, they’ve been, they’ve probably been rafting with us.
Jason Elkins (42:22.078)
since they were 20. I was gonna ask you, did the demographic change or just the age? Did we, yeah, so they probably been rafting since they were 20 or 30 years old when they started. And we take, you know, we have one gentleman, he’s 87 years old and he still comes rafting every year. So I think that, you know, I don’t know if I wanna call it the softening of adventure, but I definitely think there’s a trend towards comfort.
I mean, people used to be able to, you know, they used to be comfortable sleeping under their car or in a tent and that no longer is the case, right? We’ve got to have a nice, if we don’t have a nice cabin with a meal and a nice craft brew. I was just going to say that. So that’s why you have cabins, a restaurant and a brewery. And then of course, you know, I mean, you know.
I suppose you would look at the biggest changes have been those changes in things like communications, internet and cell phone. And the good and the bad that is, because people demand that their cell phone work and that they’ve got access to internet 24 seven. We don’t have it in our cabins. We have it in the main lodge by design, but we- You have televisions?
We broke down and did use that, did buy televisions about six or seven years ago. But it was only, that’s a tough one. Yeah. I mean, and it did, and I use those words, you know, lightly, we broke down, um, because we didn’t want to do it, but we, we definitely, you know, we fight every week about whether or not we should have internet in cabins. Um, because we, we hear so many people say, well, I, I’m missing, I’m missing connecting with my work or my family.
if they’re not with them, or we have so many people thank us and say thank you for not having internet. We spoke for the first time in a month or what have you. Our philosophy on that is if you really need it, it’s there at the main lodge. It’s free. You can come and get it. But while you’re on vacation, enjoy your time in the campground or your cabin and enjoy the people you’re with. So I think that-
Jason Elkins (44:43.31)
I’m an area like a lodge. I’ve been to both, I’ve been to many. And the ones that have been internet and televisions in the rooms, the main lodge is kind of quiet. I travel solo a lot. Honestly, it’s kind of boring for me because I wanna, I’m outgoing, I’m friendly, I wanna talk to people. And I realized not everybody wants that. But when I’m at a lodge where they’ve got televisions and internet in the rooms, I tend to feel kind of lonely.
and want them at a lodge without television and enter the room. So miraculously, there’s more people hanging around the bar and the lodge having conversations at the end of the day until eight, nine, 10 o’clock, and then it gets quiet and everybody goes off to bed. So I think- It’s tricky because you want to cater to people too. Yeah, you want them to feel accommodated. You want them to feel comfortable, but-
at some point we are design, I think we’re designers of our own experiences and we’ve just chosen to, that that’s an important part of what we think is part of the experience. Coming to Maine, coming to rural Maine is unconnect, de-connect for just a little bit. So I think those- And especially with kids, right? I mean, I’ve got a teenage son, love him to death.
He’s adventurous. He spent a whole summer with me in Central America. Last summer it was Southeast Asia. And it’s so frustrating when he’s laying on his bed in the room, you know, watching, or YouTube or whatever. And it’s just a real challenge where if he doesn’t have those things, he goes out and, you know, cause we stay a lot of guest houses, lodges, he’ll go out and socialize with people from Croatia or.
You know, just wherever we bump into all these people. And yeah, next summer when I spend time with him, I’m going to be very purposeful about finding places that have a social area without internet in the room. So I’m in that camp for sure. Yeah, well, and I think, I think, but I don’t know for sure. I think the majority of our guests are, but it’s a little bit difficult at first. I mean, I know seeing people when they check in and they…
Jason Elkins (46:54.966)
the fear in their eyes when they realize that there’s no internet in the cabin is like, oh boy, what am I going to do? And they’re always relieved when they know that they can walk down to the lodge and connect with somebody if they have to. Before you continue, because I know you’ve got more to share, and for our listeners sake, I’m sure they read it in the bio that you’re in a leadership role at the Adventure Travel
which impacts a lot of things in your life, I’m sure. And the reason I am sharing that with listeners is because we’re not just speaking about experiences that you’ve had there at Northern Outdoors. This conversation has a more global reach than maybe what it sounded like up until this point. So when we’re having these conversations, it’s not just your experience there. So I wanna just add a little color to that. Yeah, no, and I think, you know, I think you and I, when we spoke earlier, is that…
Um, my role at Northern is, you know, president of Northern outdoors is, is an, in, in a, in a company in a town of 37 people, you know, sometimes that can, that can get a little, little insular and you’re, you’re doing the same sort of things and, um, you do the same things year after year, which makes it both comforting because we know where we are in the schedule and we know what we’re doing and the cool thing is just, you could put your arms around everybody there.
Right? You know them like family and that feels great. My role at the ATTA is regional director for North America and the ATTA is a growing global organization. There’s no way I can put my hands around every aspect of that multi tentacled beast because I think it’s really struck a chord with the adventure community, with the guides and the outfitters.
You know, it’s a very fragmented lifestyle, right? I mean, unfortunately, often in tourism, it could be perceived that if I’m winning a piece of business, my next door neighbor might be losing that same piece of business. We might be two guys, and yet we might be friends. And so it’s sort of seen as a zero sum game, which oftentimes doesn’t make for good neighbors. With the ATTA, I think that, you know,
Jason Elkins (49:20.726)
the colleagues, the people that I meet, the other folks that I meet from around the globe, I’m not competing with them directly. They’re not the guy just down the street. They’re in a different state, they’re on a different river, they’re in a different aspect of adventure. So there’s an incredible amount of collaboration and sharing that goes on in that organization that I think is, to me, it’s been incredibly rich.
I’ve learned so much. I mean, hopefully I can share some of my, I think that’s the piece, I can share some of my experiences with folks and those folks that might be thinking about moving from a one season to two seasons or two seasons to four seasons or activity to lodging. So I can share some of them and I can hear about what it is they’re doing in marketing or what it is that they found that really works or with their staffing or training. So I…
That though, having a foot in both of those camps has been very valuable to me. And, you know, and I hope to continue to do that for a while. Yeah, I had my first experience with ATTA, which if I haven’t mentioned it, the Adventure Travel Trade Association was very, it was a lot of what you just said kind of hit on that. I was working at Orvis and we were doing our things and we had our partners. We were now Bound Tour operators. So we worked with a lot of partners.
but it was still kind of insular. And when I went to my first ATTA event, it was the World Summit in Libya. And I was blown away because there’s all these faces, all these people that I’d never had any interaction with whatsoever, definitely too big to put my arms around. And at the same time, I remember very clearly feeling like, oh, this is my tribe. We weren’t working with a single operator that was there.
I was there. I’m not even sure why I was there. Thank goodness I was there as a delegate. And it was just like, holy cow. I just felt like this is my tribe. When I started the podcast, I, you know, I’m like, I’m going to go find my tribe. I went to the ATTA website and started looking at some names and have had some great conversations. And so I appreciate you sharing that, sharing that with our listeners as well.
Jason Elkins (51:36.822)
Yeah, no, I think it’s just the nature of the leadership there. And it tries to be very progressive, tries to be very forward thinking, global in nature. And I think there’s not everybody, but for those that are looking for that, potentially looking to grow their business or streamline their business, I think it’s been a valuable resource as many people that I work with.
I’ve said, it just feels like a very, it’s a little bit like Cheers, you know, it’s a familiar, friendly place. Yeah. I get it. And as I’ve been having conversations and our listeners will recognize some trends and patterns, some of the conversations we’re having, you know, most of the conversations we’re having are with members of the ATTA. And I see some recurring themes come up.
And we’re not talking about where it comes from. I’m just hearing it, because I have the benefit of hearing all of the conversations. They’re only having one conversation with me and I see these recurring themes around sustainability, around things like e-bikes. I don’t, I wasn’t there, but I have a feeling that at some point there was big conversations about e-bikes going on in the AT&T world, just a guess, because of the conversations that I’ve been having with operators that are members. And it’s…
It’s just cool to see that and kind of be, you know, a little flying while looking on in on from the outside. It’s been, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s amazing to see how, um, you know, you can bring these groups together and, you know, whether we use the word, curate the experiences or curate the, uh, the learning sessions, the, the networking, the, um, breakout sessions, but so many people now have got their own.
sub community within the community that they’ll be hosting their own little networking sessions and there will be an e-bike session and the bike guys will get together for drinks. And so it’s just really cool as I say, because sometimes being in this, I mean, everyone thinks this is the best business to be in, right? Man, what a lot of fun it is. And yes, you’re right when it all goes right. But when it doesn’t, it’s not so much fun.
Jason Elkins (53:56.962)
can be pretty lonely and to have the opportunity to share some of those things with colleagues and people that have been through a similar shared experience is a great way to learn and grow, I think. So that’s what I think. You’re right. And I think a lot of people listening to this, whether they work in this space or not, but if they are entrepreneur types at all, I think they get it. Because the vast majority of the members, the vast majority of the people I’m having conversations with
entrepreneurs, they may have a few people on their team or not. And being an entrepreneur can be very lonely when you don’t have a network. The typical tour operator entrepreneur may not feel like they necessarily fit in at the local Rotary Club meeting or at the local Lions Club or at the local chamber or commerce meeting, because what they’re doing is so different. They walk in there and somebody says, what do you do? Oh, well, I do hot air balloon ride.
tours on the outskirts of town. Oh, I see you’re blowing up in the air all the time. And then they don’t even know how to have a conversation about, oh, have you been doing stuff on TikTok or YouTube or what angle do you take for this or that? So you’re in a little bit of a business vacuum and sometimes just socially in a social vacuum, you set business aside. I know I’m 50 and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve.
a conversation with somebody and say, I do this, I do this type of tourism, I’m traveling full time. They might think it’s cool and then there’s nothing to talk about. You know, even my family members, they come a little bit crazy. So it can be isolating. So I think any organization that brings together tour operators is a pretty good deal. And my books are appreciate you sharing that. What do you think? Just one quick question before we kind of
What do you think the biggest challenge is, either for you with Northern Outdoors or on a more global scale, like we were just discussing, what do you think the biggest challenge is for going forward in the next couple years? Wow, I think there’s a couple of them. I think staffing is gonna be a major continued challenge to encourage people to, you know,
Jason Elkins (56:24.866)
to give of themselves and work to serve the public. When we’ve all been isolated or we all can work from our desks or our homes, it takes a certain mentality to step outside of that and want to be with people. With Game Face On 24 seven. So I think that cultural shift is gonna continue to be a challenge. I think…
Good companies that look after their guests, look after their staff well and treat them well and appreciate them and we’ll train them and do all of those things, I think we’ll do okay. But I think you gotta really think about, in the past we had to market to staff, market to guests. I think we’re almost having to market to bring in the best staff today. And…
And the other thing I think you kind of mentioned it is, it’s climate change. I mean, we saw a summer in Maine that we’ve never seen before with rain and we’re seeing different impact. We don’t know what the impacts of that will be on the snow. You heard me talk about how important four seasons is to us. If there’s no snow, what does that foretell in the future? So it’s…
it really impacts our ability to think about capital planning and operations three to five years down the road because there’s just that little level of uncertainty into what it is we’re investing into. So I think that that’s something that has got us all wondering. I think…
Will we find the guests to do these things? I think we will. I think guests wanna be out there. I’m not too worried about, but we’re never gonna find enough guests to go on the trips. I think we will always find enough guests to go on the sorts of things that we do. Can we do that during the right season? And do we have the opportunity to plan for those things appropriately, given the changes in…
Jason Elkins (58:44.302)
in what we’ve seen for climate. And I don’t think that’s just in Maine. I mean, all around across North America, I mean, we’ve all read what’s gone on this summer and last summer with fires and floods and what have you. And those things certainly impact the operations and people’s psyche on a day-to-day basis. Absolutely, so if there’s one thing that you wanna tell travelers that can help
that you feel and it’s not necessarily a whole big conversation around global warming and all of that. But I think all of us have something that we’d like to see less of or more of in our clients or the, you know, just people that might be listening to this show getting ready to take a trip. Is there one thing that kind of pops to your mind? Don’t be afraid to go off and explore the unexplored. I mean, we all, you know, we all go to the familiar.
And we all go to the Instagram place. But I think that getting, being able, I think the word is destination dispersion. That’s the technical term for it. But, you know, don’t be afraid to go your own path there, but don’t take those footsteps lightly. Make sure to do that with a professional outfit or.
good instruction and good equipment so that you don’t put yourself in harm’s way or anybody else. So yeah, I think just having the curiosity and the bravery to go do something a little bit different, will make you stand out. I think that’s great advice. It’s great for the communities. It’s equally good, great, or maybe better even for the individual that heeds that advice because
I can tell you I’ve been to a lot of Instagram spots and they’re not the spots that I remember. If you were to ask me, where’s your favorite spot? Tell me some stories about favorite experiences. 98% of the stories I would wanna share that you’d never see on Instagram. And they might be just around the corner from the place or further along, but I’ve just had so much fun just walking down alleyways that just like…
Jason Elkins (01:01:04.962)
something interesting is going on down there. And I’ll let people decide, you know, how that fits in with their plan for safety as they’re traveling. But yeah, I was just, I would encourage, that’s just great advice. So thank you for sharing that. Russell, I feel like we could probably do a whole bunch of episodes and have a long conversation, do the whole three, four hour long podcast episode. And we’re not gonna do that today. So let me ask you, is there anything that I forgot to ask or should have asked or anything else that you wanna share with our listeners before we do wrap?
No, I honestly, Jason, I think you’ve been pretty comprehensive and pretty fair and pretty open. So I appreciate the opportunity and wish you well with your podcasts and hope we’ll get to do this some other day when we wrap up another episode of this. So we will. I look forward to more opportunities collaborate with you and hear some more stories and share some thoughts and ideas as we were discussing earlier. So appreciate you being here and let’s see, we’re recording this.
in November, so you’ve about to have a little bit of time off. I don’t know if it’s time off or just time to get ready for the next group, but December is coming soon. So enjoy your December, your holidays, and I’ll see you down the road. Thanks, Russell. And the same to you. Thanks, Jason. Take care.
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