June 2, 2024

Dave Secunda | Avid4 Adventure

HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

WorkBright was, I think, my sixth startup overall. I’ve always been engaged in starting new things and on the for-profit and nonprofit side. After studying outdoor education and psychology, I worked for a number of large organizations like Outward Bound, leading outdoor leadership training seminars in that industry of outdoor education. I pretty quickly moved to direct the Outdoor Education Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. That program had been around for over 100 years, so it was an incredible opportunity to get in there and work with students and faculty members, facilitating trips and instruction programs worldwide.

From there I started a couple of publications, a consumer magazine and a trade publication both in the outdoor space, then was hired by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) as their director to lead the trade association for the outdoor industry. I grew that 501c6 nonprofit organization from 99 member companies to about 1,300.  My work then shifted to an internet retailer and the venture capital world, and I realized I had moved from my outdoor roots. I thought about what I really wanted to do, and Avid4 Adventure is what came forward. It was at a time when my kids were three and five years old. Even though I had what I would consider a deep experience in the outdoors, my kids, with their screen time, were not necessarily following that path. I felt it would be o,f service to start talking to pa,rents and understand what their needs and desires were for their kids to spend time outdoors. I spent about a year doing research, focus groups and survey work to understand what the need is, and then I started Avid4 Adventure in 2004. 

After running that for seven years, onboarding staff was one of the pain points. We were hiring staff quickly, and at that point, everything was paper. I worked with the co-founder to start WorkBright initially to work with the camp industry and then quickly found that it was highly applicable to anybody hiring contingent workforce members. I jumped over to that company and ran it for the next 10 years and then, a year and a half ago came back to the helm of Avid4 Adventure.

WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR? WHY IS THIS WORK IMPORTANT TO YOU?

Our mission is to engage kids in active outdoor lifestyles, and so just by doing the nature of the business we are contributing to the big picture. For me, the connective fiber is running great conscious capitalism-driven businesses able to drive strong economic and contribution results. Often, what I’ve seen in the past is people feel a company needs to be in the either/or category. They can’t be both mission-driven and an economically successful company. I actually think that we lack incredible role models in this accord. There are companies that people look at as great mission-driven companies (like Patagonia, when making clothing is a byproduct of saving the world), and then they look at companies on the other side (like Exxon) and say that’s totally profit-driven. What I’m trying to do with these different companies is create models of companies that do good work and contribute back. Along the lines of conscious capitalism, they’re very positively contributing to all of the various stakeholders, and that includes employees, customers, investors, and owners. When I think about the connective fiber, it really is this idea of conscious capitalism being ideally the next opportunity for the evolution of types of businesses in the world.

WHAT IMPACT ARE YOU MAKING?

I’ve always been one to measure results. At Avid4 Adventure, we measure the impact we’re making in dozens of different ways: the impact on kids, the quality of the program, the perception of parents and kids, the working opportunity for staff, and what else we can do to move in that direction. Those are all things that we’re tracking alongside the company’s financial results. 

On the WorkBright side, we track things like the number of papers and trees saved by moving companies from classic paperwork onboarding. Our customers are onboarding tens to hundreds of thousands of employees, so going digital is a huge environmental saving. We’re also carbon neutral, so we measure our carbon footprint in both companies and offset that when necessary. 

I believe that impact isn’t one size fits all, but it is a theme to really make sure that you understand the impacts that you want to make, measure them, and then very transparently report that every year to your constituents. That includes your customers, your employees, your owners, your stakeholders, etc.

WHAT (OR WHO) INSPIRES YOU TO DO THIS WORK?

I love the work that I do, and I always have. Everything that I’ve done, I recognize that I have the blessing and the opportunity to do this particular thing. I tend to really look at my unique ability and how much of my time I can spend in that zone of delivering my unique ability. The inspiration really comes from finding things that align with that. My unique ability is leading people and creating a clear vision that allows people to move towards goals that might be bigger than they thought they would be able to achieve and do so while living a balanced and healthy lifestyle. I look for opportunities within that each day, each week, and each month. When I’m able to do that, that is really when I feel inspired, and that’s what gets me up each day.

WHAT’S YOUR VISION, YOUR BIG DREAM FOR THE IMPACT YOU WANT TO MAKE?

There are certainly impacts with each of these companies. I’ve had that with each nonprofit and for-prototprovidee run, and I’ve had the specific impact that I want to make with that organization. I would say generically, across these experiences, I want to create a really applicable conscious capitalism model that entrepreneurs can choose to apply when starting new businesses and see that there are great opportunities for financial stability and success right alongside true impact in the world.

WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING?

We are a camp company. Right now, we’re in a time of family budgets tightening, labor costs going up, and supply chain issues that began with the pandemic increasing prices of everything. So, it has become increasingly difficult to thread that needle of providing an accessible price, a quality program, and a profitable business model. That is the greatest challenge. Camps run for three months a year, so 100% of revenue comes in three months. If you need to do something different in terms of price or offering, you have to wait a year to do it again.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAUSE AND/OR THE WORK YOU’RE DOING?

I truly believe in the magic of outdoor environments for society and kids in particular. I believe that it gives incredible opportunities for learning and incremental experiences interacting with situations of risk that provide amazing learning for future situations. It develops connections to the environment and constituents of our planet and our public lands. For me, the message is to look for opportunities to spend time in the outdoors and in the wilderness, even the wilderness of your backyard. Those benefits are long-lived both personally and societally.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE QUOTE OR WORDS OF INSPIRATION TO SHARE?

“Move forward with high commitment and low attachment.” It’s about being incredibly clear on where we want to go but having a looser grasp on the path to get there.

HOW CAN OTHERS SUPPORT YOU OR YOUR CAUSE?

On the Avid4 Adventure side, come check out what we’re doing at Avid4.com. We’d love to interact with you in the outdoors. The site has great content and amazing opportunities for kids and families to get out and enjoy the outdoors. We’d love any thoughts or feedback on how we could do more or better.

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