ALUMNI ALIVE!
A Look Inside the 2019 World Scout Jamboree
Newsletter for Alumni and Friends FALL 2018
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N u S ARith OCreek E L W
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
2 Message From the Director
4 How Philmont is Recovering From the Fires
5 The Summit Goes Green
9 Why Youth Protection Training is Important
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Do You Recognize Any of These Scouts?
How This Alumni’s Career was Guided by Scouting
A Message From The Director If you don’t know the difference between a bluebird and a blue jay, you can be thankful you weren’t a Scout back in 1928. At that time, the Bird Study merit badge was required for Eagle Scout rank, and one of the badge’s requirements was to identify 50 wild birds. Of course, a Scout from 1928 might have similar trouble with today’s advancement program. What, for example, would he make of merit badges for robotics or computers? The word robot had only appeared in English a few years earlier, and 90 years ago, a computer was a person who did computations, not a machine you can set on a desk or slip into your pocket. It’s easy to look at examples like these and think that Scouting in 1928 was nothing like Scouting in 2018. But nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the requirements, uniforms, and camping techniques have changed, but the essentials have remained the same. Scouts still learn the Oath and Law like they did decades ago, and the Eagle Scout badge is still universally recognized as a mark of high achievement. The stories don’t change much either. Scouts of every generation know what it feels like to scale a mountain or do a daily Good Turn or end a busy day at camp staring into the embers of a blazing campfire. And Eagle Scouts know what it means when someone tells them that you always are an Eagle Scout—never were— and that the Eagle Scout trail never ends. To those Eagle Scouts out there, I hope you’ll consider joining the National Eagle Scout Association (NESA), getting involved with your local council’s NESA committee, or giving back to Scouting in some other way. After all, there’s a new generation of Scouts who want to know what it’s like to scale mountains, do daily Good Turns, and maybe even learn the difference between a bluebird and a blue jay.
Once a Scout, Always a Scout,
Dustin Farris Director, Scouting Alumni and Friends
ALUMNI NEWS Answering Questions and Making Connections: This Year’s Alumni Conference at Philmont In July, Scouting Alumni and Friends hosted a conference at the Philmont Training Center in New Mexico with an intriguing title: “Scouting Alumni and Friends: Your Answer to Everything.”
Association and the Philmont Staff Association,” he says. “They already have a proven model for using alumni as a vehicle to keep people engaged.”
That title, of course, implies questions. And participant Mike Kleckner from Madison, Wisc., had plenty of those. “I knew it was all about building relationships,” he says. “But exactly what relationships are we trying to create? What are we trying to do with them once we have them? How will it benefit the council to develop these kinds of relationships?”
Keeping people engaged — and getting others reengaged — is just what Kleckner hopes to accomplish in his council. And he knows that if his committee succeeds, it will help the council succeed on many levels. “We could have a potential major impact on everything from garnering staff and resources for various committees to generating funds and soliciting contributions from people who understand what we’re trying to do as an organization,” he says.
Kleckner, who chairs the new Scouting Alumni and Friends committee for the Glacier’s Edge Council, got answers to those questions — and a whole lot more — during the weeklong conference. “I’d have to say it was probably one of the most practical conferences I’ve ever attended,” he says. “It really did exceed all of my expectations.” Chaired by Scouting Alumni and Friends Associate Director Ryan Larson and committee member Rick Bragga, the conference brought together 11 Scouters from across the country. Kleckner says about half the participants had active alumni efforts up and running, while the rest (like him) were just getting started. (He took on the job of leading his council’s nascent alumni program after finishing his term last spring as council commissioner.) The youngest of the participants, Jake Brillhart of Collinsville, Okla., just began his freshman year at Rogers State University, but he already sees the value in connecting with alumni — in his case, those who’ve worked on staff at Hale Scout Reservation (HSR). As part of his Wood Badge ticket, he committed to organizing a camp staff association and figured the PTC conference was a great place to start. “I thought this might be the perfect opportunity, especially since it’s the answer to everything!” he says. Brillhart quickly realized that he and his fellow HSR alumni won’t have to reinvent the wheel since all the BSA’s high adventure bases have created alumni groups they can learn from. “We’re modeling ours after the Summit Bechtel Staff
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In fact, Kleckner sees his fellow council executive board members as his customers. “I want to make sure that what they’re looking for is something I can provide,” he says. And if he needs help, he’ll only have to look as far as his conference roster. “I’ve got people I can call for advice,” he says. “We’ve developed good relationships where if I need help with something or I’m trying to solve a problem, I’ve got a variety of people with different perspectives that I can call.” That support — plus the magic of being at Philmont — made the conference especially valuable to him. “If you were to attend a call-in type conference, which I’ve done, you get the information, but you don’t have the interaction with the other attendees and you don’t have the inspiring environment that Philmont provides,” he says. Next year’s Scouting Alumni and Friends conference planning is underway. Visit www.philmonttrainingcenter.org for more information.
Rising from the Ashes: Philmont and the Ute Park Fire This summer’s first edition of PhilNews, the Philmont Scout Ranch’s weekly staff newspaper, appeared on May 29. In it, ranch leaders offered words of welcome and advice to the 1,100 seasonal staff members who would soon scatter to points across the 140,177-acre facility. Director of Camping Steve Nelson, one of more than 20 permanent staff members who had taken a new role in the offseason, challenged readers to live their destiny. “Take time to enjoy every moment and sing in the rain,” he wrote. “In other words, there will be challenges, but enjoy them because those challenges will make us stronger.” Those words turned out to be prophetic. Just after 2 p.m. on May 31, a brush fire was reported near the community of Ute Park, which lies just outside Philmont’s boundaries. Fueled by wind and drought — there was precious little rain to sing in — the fire quickly spread eastward. When it was finally fully contained on June 19, it had burned a total of 36,740 acres, including 26,387 acres of the Philmont backcountry. Fortunately, the fire struck before staff members scattered to backcountry camps and the first campers arrived. As the fire grew, ranch leaders decided to cancel the first half of the camping season, but a few weeks later they were forced to cancel the entire season. Although base camp and the Philmont Training Center were unaffected by the fire, seasonal staff members temporarily evacuated — in less than two hours — to the fairgrounds in nearby Springer, N.M., due to concerns about air quality. While there, they continued their training, held a horseless rodeo, and even found time to pick up trash along nearby roads. That good turn to the people of Springer was just a taste of what was to come. Rather than go home, hundreds of seasonal staff members stayed on the job — but to do very different work than they’d be hired for. Some, like Program Counselor Arizona Duff, joined the Philmont Recovery Corps and worked on timber stand improvement projects designed to reduce future fire risk. “[Participants] may never know that we were out here for four days cutting down trees, but we’re doing it so that there will still be a Philmont to enjoy.” Others worked to strengthen
the foundation of the Villa Philmonte or went into the village of Cimarron to complete projects at local schools and the visitor center. Other staff members deployed to eight other BSA camps, including Northern Tier in Minnesota. After those camps began to take in crews that couldn’t attend Philmont, the ranch offered staffers to help them cope with the extra participants. In the second issue of PhilNews, Catholic Chaplain Father Steve Hoffer offered his perspective on the unexpected summer — and on the lessons staffers would take away when they went home: So how can the fire relate to us? At times, God uses things to help us to grow. Sometimes we have to experience pain and discomfort before we experience growth. When we came to Philmont, did you expect to be displaced by a Type 1 fire? I know I didn’t. But through the evacuation and subsequent return, I feel we, as a Philmont staff, have grown together. We did incredible things...[that] have brought us together as a staff and family. Everyone pitched in and worked together. It impressed the Red Cross when they came and thought we needed help. It was impressive to see. Yes, things might not be the same as last year; they might not be what we expected when we signed up to work at Philmont this summer. I think the fire helps us appreciate the beauty of the Philmont program, its staff. We are what makes Philmont so special. As we return to a sense of normalcy, we need to continue to develop our relationship with others around us. Take time to pray and develop your relationship with God. Take time to appreciate the beauty of Philmont and each other. May we all continue to experience the wonders of Philmont, with all its twists and turns. May we all use this summer’s experience to grow into the man or woman that God wants us to be. That last sentence, of course, describes the goal of every Scouting experience. As Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell wrote in 1939 (the year Philmont welcomed its first campers, incidentally) “Field efficiency, backwoodsmanship, camping, hiking, good turns, jamboree comradeship are all means, not the end. The end is character — character with a purpose.” 4
HAPPENINGS The Summit Goes Green — Venturing Green, That Is Much of the news around the Boy Scouts of America this year has related to girls. The BSA opened Cub Scouting to girls earlier this year and will do the same with Boy Scouting — soon to be called Scouts BSA — come February. Perhaps overlooked has been the fact that 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of Venturing, the BSA’s program for older youth (which, incidentally, has been co-ed since its inception). This dynamic program was created in 1998 as a way to separate what was then called Exploring into separate tracks. One, which retained the Exploring name, would focus on career exploration; the other, Venturing, would focus on adventure in whatever form that might take. In July, nearly 2,000 of them flocked to the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia for a weeklong birthday celebration called VenturingFest 2018. (A similar, but smaller, event was held there two years ago.) VenturingFest allowed participants to enjoy all of the worldclass thrills the Summit has to offer, from zip-lining to mountain biking to whitewater rafting, without the lines familiar to National Scout Jamboree participants. Jake Brillhart, vice president of the National Venturing Officers’ Association, called it “a 100-percent green-shirt takeover” that utilized the whole sprawling site. For Franco Allegro of Gainesville, Va., the Canopy, a tree-to-tree zip-lining adventure, was a highlight — although not at first. As he told Scouting magazine blogger Bryan Wendell, he was pretty shaky at first. “I got through the first one and just hugged the tree,” he said. “I got more confident, and then I started looking around a little more. By the third one, I just started looking around to see how beautiful it was.” But adventure was just the beginning. As you might expect at a teen-centric event, there was plenty of socializing. Linda Potvin, a Venturing Advisor from Elburn, Ill., thinks one of her Venturers probably made 300 new friends. “He was our social butterfly,” she says. “I said they’re going to come over the loudspeaker and say, ‘Tom is leaving camp now.’” The adults and Venturers in Potvin’s crew were among roughly
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100 attendees who completed the Kodiak Challenge during VenturingFest. This unique course teaches leadership skills in the outdoors, using examples of leadership from nature. Potvin says she especially enjoyed getting to know adults from crews in other parts of the country. “How often do you get to spend a week doing that?” she says. In fact, there were participants from around the world, since four other countries sent delegations to the event. And while their uniforms and languages were different, their love for Scouting wasn’t. “I remember seeing by the end of the week a pure integration,” says Brillhart. “You’d see a Scout from Canada running down Jack Furst Drive with a Venturer and you couldn’t tell one from the other. They were both just excited about being part of the Scouting movement.”
The World Comes to Appalachia: 2019 World Scout Jamboree If good things come truly come to those who wait, participants of the 2019 World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia are in for a very good time indeed. By the time the Jamboree opens at the BSA’s Summit Bechtel Reserve on July 22, it will have been 52 years since a world jamboree was held in the United States, although Canada did host such an event “just” 36 years ago next summer. The BSA is cohosting the 2019 event along with the Scout associations from Canada and Mexico, which has never hosted. So what can the event’s 45,000 participants (who will represent more than 165 countries) expect? The splashiest draws will undoubtedly be the Summit’s world-class adventure sports venues, but that’s just the beginning. Unique to the Jamboree will be the Global Development Village, where Scouts can learn to become agents of change in their own communities; Centro Mondial, where North American cultures, worldwide faith practices, and much more will be on display; and World Point, where Scouts from across the globe will share their unique cultures and traditions with music, dance, and cultural exchanges. Since those program areas lie within Scott Summit Center, day visitors will be able to experience them alongside youth and adult participants. Day visitors will park at the J.W. & Hazel Ruby West Virginia Welcome Center, located a few miles off Interstate 64, where they’ll check in and board special buses to the Jamboree site (which is closed to private vehicles). Staff members on the buses will provide an overview of the event and highlight what visitors will be able to see. Although day visitors will not be able to visit the subcamps or program areas outside the Summit Center, they will have access to large trading posts, international food houses, information booths, toilet facilities and places to fill water bottles. Patch trading, meeting Scouts and Scouters from across the world, and making new friends will all happen in the Scout Summit Center, as well. According to longtime Seattle Scouter William Larson, meeting Scouts and Scouters from other countries will be the highlight of the Jamboree for participants and day visitors alike. He should know, having attended the 1967 World Scout Jamboree at Idaho’s Farragut State Park.
At first, Larson was disappointed that the only world jamboree he could attend as a Scout was occurring just a train ride away in Idaho. But his disappointment evaporated as he began to meet people who’d crossed continents and oceans to attend the event. One day, for example, the prince of Lichtenstein dropped by his subcamp for a visit. (“I didn’t really know where Lichtenstein was, but this guy was a full-fledged prince, so that was remarkable,” Larson says.) He also made friends with an Italian Scout, even exchanging hiking boots a year after they both returned home. But his strongest connection was with the British troop camped next to his — and especially with a Welsh Scout named Robert Hearndon. “In his little village in Britain, they all came together so that they could help fund his trip to the Jamboree,” Larson says. “The first form of crowdfunding was in Rob’s little village.” Despite the absence of email, social media and cheap longdistance calls, Larson and Hearndon remained in touch after the Jamboree. In fact, they remain friends more than half a century later. Hearndon has returned to the U.S. twice to see Larson and other American friends, and Larson took his family to the UK to see Hearndon in 2003. “He’s very friendly and, I would say, a fine emissary of the Scout Oath and Law all of these years later,” Larson says. “He’s a fine person that I like to have around my own kids and, in our recent visit, my own grandkids. And it all started at the 1967 Jamboree, whose theme was ‘For Friendship.’” So what advice does Larson offer to next summer’s Jamboree visitors and participants? “It’s going to be a top-of-the-mountain experience to their Scouting career,” he says. “They should take it on in big bites, and they will not be left disappointed.” For more information on visiting the 2019 World Scout Jamboree, see https://www.2019wsj.org/attend/day-visitors/. Although tickets will be available at the Welcome Center during the Jamboree, visitors are strongly encouraged to purchase online as the number of visitors per day will be limited. Tickets will go on sale in late 2018.
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Survival Hacks with
Former President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” This is precisely what Creek Stewart, our contributor to this new series, had in mind for Survival Hacks with CR///EK. Creek gives the definition as: Sur-VIV-al Hack-ing: (v) The act of using what you have to get what you need to stay alive in any situation. He continues to say that “hacking” is making due with what you’ve got. It has three aspects: using knowledge of basic survival principles; innovative thinking; and exploiting available resources. We think he is right! Scouts are resourceful and prepared. And, they are always open to learning new things. So take a look and maybe you will learn a new trick or two!
About Creek Stewart CR///EK Stewart: Survival Instructor, Author, Host. Creek’s survival knowledge comes from experience. His life-long study of outdoor living and survival skills is backed by thousands of man-hours in the field. Creek is a frequent guest survival expert in the media and has been featured in/on magazines, talk shows, and countless radio and online events. He is a regular contributing author to the hugely popular men’s interest blog ArtofManliness.com, and his survival writings have been featured on thousands of websites. Creek is a published author of many titles, including Survival Hacks available here. In 2015, Creek was presented with the NESA Outstanding Eagle Scout Award (NOESA) by the Boy Scouts of America. The NOESA is a prestigious recognition granted to Eagle Scouts who have demonstrated outstanding achievement at the local, state, or regional level. Creek recognizes his experiences while earning the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge in the Boy Scouts of America as the fuel for a lifelong passion in learning and teaching self-reliant skills. Creek is the owner of and lead instructor at Willow Haven Outdoor Survival School in Central Indiana. He is also the owner and curator of APOCABOX, a bimonthly subscription survival box. Currently, Creek is the lead survival instructor for the traveling survival training and competition series, ESCAPE THE WOODS.
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Cr///ek Stewart here! I am extremely excited to be a contributor to Alumni Alive and share some more of my favorite survival hacks! My first hack provides an easy way to create a light source. Whether you’re at home with no power or in camp with no batteries, this hack has you covered. My second is a great way to hack a little pulley for hoisting needs or some creative cooking cranes. Enjoy! And remember, it’s not IF but WHEN.
Ladle Slush Lamp The term “slush lamp” has dropped from most modern disctionaries – lost in history like so many other important survival skills. It is a crude lamp that typically burns on grease or animal fat. Eskimos used this style of lamp to burn seal blubber. However, the concept and principles can be applied to many different objects and fuels in a survival scenario. This hack uses the slush lamp model and three items found in almost any kitchen or grocery store – a ladle, some olive oil, and a strip of cotton fabric. Fill the ladle with olive oil and lay in the cotton strip (a cut piece of t-shirt works great) so that all but 1/2” is submerged in the oil. The lamp can be lit just like a candle once the 1/2” of protruding cotton “wick” absorbs the “fuel”. A slush lamp of this variety will burn brightly and for a surprising long time.
Bottle Cap Pulley HDPE plastic bottle caps (marked by a number 2 inside of the recycle symbol) can be found anywhere. Fusing two of them makes a very impressive little gear pulley. Start by taking two equal-sized bottle caps and heat the flat tops until they are gooey enough to be fused together. Placing them upside down on a hot rock for a few minutes should do the trick. Now, press them together and let them cool. The top edge of each cap is slightly rounded, which creates an indented seam around the middle of the fused caps. This will act as your pulley channel. Drill or carve a hole through the middle of the cap to inset an axle, climbing carabiner, or rope loop, and you’ve got a perfectly functional gear pulley to hoist large game for dressing or send a 5-gallon bucket into a well or over a cliff for water.
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Program Youth Protection Stays Cutting Edge In 1988, the BSA unveiled “Youth Protection Guidelines: Training for Volunteer Leaders and Parents.” It was Scouting’s first training to focus on preventing and recognizing child abuse, and it built on Chief Scout Executive Ben Love’s 1986 declaration of child abuse as one of society’s “unacceptables,” along with hunger, illiteracy, teen unemployment and drug abuse. Thirty years later, child abuse remains a problem, with more than 3 million cases reported each year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau. But much has changed as well, including the explosion in internet usage, which can make it easier for sexual predators to find and groom victims and for young people to victimize each other through cyberbullying. Fortunately, the internet has also made it easier for the BSA to train volunteers. Although Youth Protection training can still be completed in the classroom (where DVDs long ago replaced VHS tapes), the vast majority of volunteers now complete the training online through the BSA’s Learn Center. And that majority is truly vast given that Youth Protection training (and completion of a criminal background check) is required for every registered BSA volunteer, as well as for all nonregistered adults who spend at least 72 total hours participating in activities like summer camp. This year, the BSA went a step further by requiring that individuals take an updated version of the training, dubbed YPT 2, by Oct. 1, even if their two-year certification hadn’t yet expired. The new version, which takes a little over an hour to complete, adds video interviews with psychologists and law enforcement professionals who discuss the known causes of abuse and how to prevent, recognize, and respond to it. “There is no substitute for hearing directly from experts who have spent their careers studying child predators and abusers, or the survivors of these forms of abuse sharing their experiences. This is life-changing information,” says Michael Johnson, BSA’s Director of Youth Protection. “They shine a new light on the challenges we all face in protecting kids and how parents and volunteers can put barriers in place to keep them away.” 9
Perhaps as importantly, the new training also includes interviews with abuse survivors, who offer their firsthand perspective. “In developing this training, we discussed whether or not to include survivor videos,” says Johnson. “[Including them] was the right decision. Their testimony is powerful and highlights how predators work and the tragic impact abuse can have like nothing else. For these survivors, their hope is that we listen and act.” Although the training is Scouting-focused, it is open to any adult interested in protecting children. As Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh notes in an introductory video, “All youth should be safe in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, places of worship and in Scouting.” For more information, visit https://www.scouting.org/training/ youth-protection/.
A Troop of Their Own: An Alumnus’ View on Girls in Scouting On Feb. 1, 2019, girls across America will make history by officially donning the familiar Boy Scout uniform. They won’t be Boy Scouts, however. Like their male counterparts, they’ll be just-plain Scouts, part of what will then be called the Scouts BSA program. And they’ll be joining separate girl-only troops, which are designed to allow males and females alike to grow at their own pace without having to compete with or try to impress the other gender. To find out more, Alumni Alive talked with Scouting alumnus Kes Stadler of Marietta, Ga. Stadler is an Eagle Scout, as are his brother and two sons, Hayden and Harrison. He serves as program chair of the Atlanta Area Council’s Foothills District and is an assistant Scoutmaster in his son’s troop in Marietta. Despite his heavy involvement in Scouting, Stadler was caught off guard by the BSA’s announcement that it was welcoming girls into what is now called Boy Scouting. When he heard the news on the radio, his first reaction was, “Why are they messing with a good thing?” Then he got home, where his 13-year-old daughter, Helen, had a very different reaction. “So, Dad,” she asked, “I get the chance to be an Eagle Scout like you?” That was all it took to convince Stadler that Helen should get to enjoy the same opportunities as her brothers. So he started learning more about Scouts BSA and talking with other Scouters in his district about what would be involved in launching a troop for girls. “Before I knew it, people were coming up to me and saying, ‘I heard you may be starting a troop; how can we help?’” he recalls. Stadler surveyed the chartered organizations (mostly churches and schools) that sponsor the district’s 32 existing troops. His own chartered organization wasn’t ready to start a girls’ troop yet, but he found a willing partner in the Episcopal Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, which also sponsors a Cub Scout pack and a Venturing crew. (Several other churches were also interested; one private school across town is planning to start a girls’ troop.)
a Scoutmaster and a grandmother whose only Scouting experience was years ago with a Cub Scout pack. “They see the need, they see the excitement and they want to be part of the positive change,” Stadler says. Stadler himself plans to serve as Scoutmaster (in addition to serving on the district committee and remaining involved in his sons’ troop). He plans to recruit a female troop committee chair and is aiming at a 50/50 mix of male and female leaders. What about girls? “I know five without question that have paperwork signed and are ready to rock and roll,” he says. “I’ve been told there’s another 15 in the wings, and I’m getting calls daily from people that are asking questions.” He also expects some pushback, but he finds most of that dissipates when people understand the program, especially the fact that boys and girls won’t be camping together or even participating in the same troop. He also cautioned Helen to be ready for some negative reactions. She’s not worried, however. “I’ve got two brothers; I can handle it,” she told him. Ahead of the Feb. 1 start date, Stadler is working on the myriad details involved in starting a new troop: opening a bank account, securing equipment, making camp reservations, etc. He’s also challenging his girls to design their own troop T-shirts. He doesn’t want the shirts to be dark green, the same color as the boys’ troop at the same church, but otherwise has no preference. Recently, he suggested to Helen that the girls might pick yellow, red or pink. “Not pink,” she told him. “We’re not girls; we’re Scouts.” If all goes well, brand-new Troop 2019 — Stadler chose the number on purpose — will participate in the Foothills District Winter Camp the first weekend of February. They’ll be decked out either in familiar Scout uniforms or in troop T-shirts that are any color but pink.
By his first organizational meeting in early September, Stadler had 15 adults committed to helping, including retired Scoutmasters, a 19-year-old female who’s the daughter of 10
Scouts: Then and Now If we look at photos from those two phases of life, the visible changes will be obvious. The non-visible changes — more confidence, better character, stronger leadership skills — are there, too. This life-changing power of Scouting inspired Scouts Then and Now, a Bryan on Scouting (blog.scoutingmagazine.org/) blog series. The premise is simple. He shares two photos of the same Scout or Venturer: once in their early Scouting years, and again in their later Scouting years. We are continuing his project here in AlumniAlive!
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Brandon from Missouri
Cameron from Maryland
Eric from California
Harmon from Texas
We are excited to see our alumni and friends as they have progressed in Scouting! If you would like to feature your young Scout, or even yourself, in Bryan on Scouting’s blog, here’s how. Send two photos of your Scout(s) or yourself: one in their early years and one in their later years - and include their name and home state. The photos will be combined as a side-byside, so no need to fret about that. Send the images as attachments in an email to scoutingmag@gmail.com with the subject line “Scouts Then and Now.”
Jacob from Colorado
Justin from Texas
Matthew from Oklahoma
Rusty from Pennsylvania
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Profiles Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Endurance Cyclist and Entrepreneur
Gihan Amarasiriwardena
As the sun sank into the Pacific Ocean on July 2nd, 29-year-old Gihan Amarasiriwardena hurried across a San Francisco beach to dip his bicycle’s front tire in the water. That moment marked the end of a 38-day, 3,358mile solo ride across the country from Boston. But it also marked the culmination of a journey that started when he was in sixth grade.
Amarasiriwardena, back then, was a member of Boy Scout Troop 504 in North Amherst, Mass., a troop whose calendar included regular cycling trips to destinations around Massachusetts. The weekend he turned 12 years old, the destination was Cape Cod. “I grew up biking around the neighborhood and biking to school, but that was kind of my first time doing a long-distance ride,” he says. “It got me hooked.” Cycling soon became a regular part of his life, from the troop’s regular bike trips to long weekend rides to the 100mile trip between home and college in Boston. And when he was studying in the U.K. one summer, he did a three-day ride that took him from Manchester to Dover and then to France. “That was my first time crossing a large country under my own power,” he says. “It was pretty exciting.” Before he could bike across America, however, he had other business to attend to. In 2012 he and a group of fellow MIT alumni launched Ministry of Supply, a company that makes and sells business and casual apparel that breathes and stretches like the best outdoor clothing. (He currently serves as president.) “I started my business out of the experience of biking across town here in Boston,” he says. “I was biking basically in cotton
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shirts and would just be completely soaked; I started cutting up my running shirts and making dress shirts out of them.” Amarasiriwardena’s interest in fashion hacking also dates back to his years in Troop 504. He and fellow Scouts made rudimentary crampons for mountain climbing and even created their own winter vests. In 2004, they launched their own company, Ascendure Mountain Technologies, to market jackets, gaiters and other cold-weather gear. He continued his exploration of performance fabrics at MIT, where he earned a degree in chemical and biological engineering in 2011. He also continued by volunteering with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which celebrates and encourages youth involvement in inventing. While there, he learned that the program was helping the BSA relaunch the Inventing merit badge. Invention Education Officer Leigh Estabrooks suggested including his story in the new merit badge pamphlet. A sidebar in the pamphlet reveals yet another connection between Scouting and his later success: “I first learned about chemical engineering through the Personal Management merit badge. One of our objectives was to learn about careers that may be of interest to us. I found that with chemical engineering, which is now my major, I could learn how to solve problems and combine my passion for innovation and business.” During this summer’s cross-country trip, Scouting was never far from Amarasiriwardena’s mind. He camped about a third of the nights and managed his water supply like he’d learned during a trek at Philmont Scout Ranch. But perhaps more significantly, he used the trip as a fundraiser for inventing-related Scouting efforts, including merit badge universities at MIT and a forthcoming update to the Inventing merit badge pamphlet, which is now eight years old — a lifetime in the tech world. “The space is moving so quickly and the maker movement’s taking off,” he says. “It’s kind of a great moment to align it to that.” It’s safe to say Amarasiriwardena’s story will still appear in the merit badge pamphlets. And who knows? He might somebody find a place in the Cycling pamphlet as well.
Bill Jennings, Senior Vice President, FarmX The term factory farming has negative connotations, but the best farms run like super-efficient factories, creating finished products like vegetables and fruits out of raw materials like seed, nutrients, sunlight, and lots of water. According to the Pacific Institute, production of almonds and pistachios in California consumes enough water to cover 3.8 million acres of land to a depth of a foot per year. Much of that water goes to waste, according to Scouting alumnus Bill Jennings. The senior vice president of engineering for tech startup FarmX, Jennings works to help nut, fruit, and grape growers use less water while keeping their plants healthy. “We could save about 20 percent of the water on a farm or about 2 percent of the total fresh water in California,” he says. “That’s a meaningful impact.” A big part of the savings comes from reducing overwatering of trees and vines that have decades-long lifespans. To address that, FarmX uses sensors that measure water levels every 6 inches from ground level to 4 feet below the surface. “The roots that actually pull the water in to do photosynthesis are at about 3 feet of depth for nut trees,” Jennings says. “Any water that goes down below that becomes ground water, and effectively the farmer has put water back into the earth that he does not benefit from.” FarmX also measures the diameter of the tree as well as temperatures around the leaves, both of which fluctuate ever so slightly during water absorption and photsynthesis, respectively. All that data is fed into a central computer, along with weather data from both FarmX and NOAA and spot prices for water and electricity. The company can then tell growers when and how long to water their crops — or even control irrigation systems directly. The service costs between $50 and $100 an acre but can save 10 times that much money, according to Jenkins. “We’re nearly doubling their profit when they follow our process,” he says. Jennings’ work at FarmX builds on a lifetime of engineering accomplishments at Cisco Systems and other companies. As his (successful) 2018 nomination for the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame put it, “Today 80 percent of internet
traffic depends on products that Bill conceived and led teams to build.” But Jennings’ work also builds on a lifetime of participation in Scouting. “Scouting really helped me understand a lot about the world and what’s important: giving back to others and conservation and the ability to support the earth,” he says. That’s why he’s working 100 hours a week for a startup — and Bill Jennings deferring his compensation — rather than make more money at an established Silicon Valley company. A 1980 Eagle Scout, Jennings is the son of active Scouters from Memphis, Tenn. His father, William Jr., was a longtime Scoutmaster who received the Silver Beaver Award and would have received the Order of the Arrow’s Distinguished Service Award had he not died prematurely. His mother, Ann, received the OA’s Red Arrow Award, a rare honor that goes to nonArrowmen. Jennings himself completed a Rayado Trek at Philmont Scout Ranch and later served as a Philmont Ranger and as an OA section chief. Today, despite a grueling work schedule, Jennings volunteers as an assistant Scoutmaster with his sons’ troop in Saratoga, Calif. And he strives hard to teach his Scouts perhaps the most important thing he learned in Scouting: that it’s okay to fail gracefully. “Learning how to do this ‘fast fail’ and how to recover from it gives people permission to try new things,” he says. “If you don’t have that sense of comfort with making mistakes, you’re just never going to advance to the state of the art. Because if it was done before, it’s not the state of the art.” And advancing the state of the art could just help California’s growers do a better job of feeding America.
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