I applied for a job at HIOBS in 1967. Peter Willauer (the director) responded and said that my resume looked good, but would I attend an instructor's course to determine if I was OB instructor material? Of course I would. In the months before leaving for Rockland, ME and in anticipation of what I expected would be a personnel evaluation, I trained as if for the Olympics and read every survival book I could find. I was ready and found the challenges at HIOB just what I was occupationally and personally looking for. I was a student with 11 other educators in H-5. Our instructor was John Feather.
Toward the end of that summer of 1967 I shared dinner with Pop Hollinsworth, the then selected director of NCOB who was visiting Hurricane Island. He indicated that he was looking for staff and was I interested? I was, and the following summer signed on as a Crew Instructor. I worked at NCOB from 1968 to 1971 as Instructor, Chief Instructor and Program Coordinator. I had the privilege during that time of working under the directorship of Murray Durst, a heavy smoking, over weight gem of an administrator. An analogy is the swim team coach who can't swim a lick, but is the best coach the team has ever had. I've never really had what I would call a mentor, but Murray came close.
Gloree and I were married at NCOB in 1969 (we talked a minister into marrying us on top of Table Rock, but it rained cats & dogs that day so we retreated to the Phillips Building for the ceremony). Attendees included Jed & Perry Williamson, Dave Mashburn, Bill Goble, and Murray Durst. Gloree became the school cook also serving as an assistant instructor during that time. I left NCOB in 1971 to become one of the founders of the Project Adventure program in Hamilton, MA.
The roots of my experience with experiential/adventure education are with Outward Bound. What happened with Project Adventure and the years beyond can be traced directly back to what I learned and experienced at Outward Bound.