NOC marks 50 years in business

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR

In retrospect, it’s no surprise Ken Howle ended up at a place where lives are transformed through renewal of soul, mind and body — because that’s exactly where he started.

Howle has served as the executive director of Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center since 2018, but prior to joining the staff at the lake, Howle worked at NOC for 14 years.

“You could call it recreation, but in many ways, it was really re-creation of who we are,” he said. “We were able to take people that had never experienced something like that and give them those transformational experiences and forever change their lives, as well as ours.”

The Greenville, South Carolina, native attended Western Carolina University from 1987 to 1991 and earned a degree in business administration with an emphasis on marketing. He began working at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in 1990 because of what he called a “deep love” for the outdoors and for sharing that with others.

While there were plenty of summer jobs at NOC, year-round jobs were scarce, so that first summer Howle set off to work for the National Science Foundation doing logistical support as well as search and rescue on the Antarctic peninsula.

When he came back to Western North Carolina in 1992, he was offered a yearround position at NOC.

“We all wore a lot of hats at NOC,” said Howle. “Cross-training was a big part of the NOC experience. While much of the work that I did was centered around marketing, public relations and group sales, I worked in every department at NOC.”

A typical day, Howle said, could involve leading a raft trip, running a new employee orientation or meeting with group leaders planning trips to NOC.

“I was also heavily involved with the employee ownership program and served on the board of directors at NOC most of the time I was there,” he said.

Howle’s career trajectory took him from NOC to Lake Junaluska in 2004, where he showed up ready to go, thanks to his experiences at NOC.

“There are many similarities between leading an outdoor venture and leading Lake Junaluska through a pandemic,” he said. “Both required being fully immersed in the situation, keeping focused on where you are going, and then constantly adjusting based on the situation and the safety of everyone involved.”

Payson Kennedy, who founded NOC in 1972, taught Howle the value of being fully present in one’s work as well as the possibility of both living in the moment and also being practical and rational.

“The two truly can coexist and when balanced together, it creates the highest quality of life,” Howle said. “Payson used to read from Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ at new staff orientations.”

The other thing Howle learned from Kennedy was that since the quality of the guides at NOC was important, they needed to be hired based on their personalities, and not necessarily their experience or credentials.

“Here at Lake Junaluska, the same holds true. Any staff person we hire, when they’re driven by the mission and driven towards creating amazing guest experiences, they’re gonna be phenomenal employees,” he said. “We can teach anyone theology. We can teach anyone how to clean a room or rent a canoe or work an audio/video system for an event. But first and foremost, when we hire them, we want them to have that passion of sharing things with others and the passion for the mission of Lake Junaluska. And that’s something a hundred percent that I saw firsthand at NOC.” but it was also about culture.

“Horace, Relia and I envisioned a community where a group of friends who loved sharing outdoor adventures together could enjoy those activities more frequently while providing support and instruction to others to make it safe and easy for them to do the same,” Payson said.

Payson’s 2018 book “NOC Stories: Changing Lives at the Nantahala Outdoor Center since 1972,” catalogues that culture through a collection of essays written by those who lived it in the decades following the center’s founding.

“For the privilege of working, I was paid $80/week plus room and board,” wrote Sue Firmstone Goddard, who worked at NOC 1974-1975. “I’ve never been happier. I had to be told to take my mandatory days off, or I would just keep guiding.”

That team-player, joy-driven atmosphere combined with recruitment of topnotch guides to put NOC on the path to success. In addition to a retail business, NOC became a respected training ground for world-class athletes, and a hub for innovation in whitewater technique and instruction.

“I remember teaching myself to roll a kayak from a piece of paper that had a stick figure on it,” Bunny Johns, a gold medalist, Whitewater Hall of Fame member, longtime employee and, later, president of NOC, said in a 2017 interview. “I’d turn over and I’d try something. Eventually I taught myself to roll. Now a good instructor could teach somebody to roll in an hour or so.”

Advancements in instruction are partially due to Johns’ own work, and that of other innovators at NOC. According to the nomination package that resulted in Johns’ induction to the Hall of Fame, she spent “countless hours” in the 1980s working on the American Canoe Association instruction certification program. As head of NOC’s whitewater instruction program, she helped develop whitewater rescue techniques that “profoundly influenced the lifesaving whitewater/swiftwater safety courses now taught worldwide.”

To date, NOC has served as home base for 23 Olympic athletes, including two gold medal winners, of which Johns was one. Just last year, Bryson City resident Evy Leibfarth, 17, competed in the Tokyo Games, finishing 12th in kayak and 18th in canoe. In 2019, she medaled in two World Cup events.

Lake Junaluska Executive Director Ken Howle got his start at the NOC. Donated photo

SOAKED WITH JOY

May 27 is the first dry day in a week of heavy rain, and the Nantahala is roaring. The NOC website describes the stretch of

river as “crystal-clear” with “splashy” rapids and occasional calm waters, but today it’s all white, rushing along at 3,600 cubic feet per second compared to the usual 750 cfs.

“If you go on this trip, you will get wet,” Jess Austin, the lead guide for the 1 p.m. trip, tells the 40-odd guests sitting on the wooden benches in front of him. “The only dry seat is on the bus.”

He runs through his safety speech and plays a video that warns of the risk inherent in a whitewater trip. It all sounds pretty serious.

Then we load up in the bus, and the mood changes. Everybody who’s accepted a seat has also accepted both the risk and the reward of an afternoon on the water, and the anticipation births a buzz of excitement that reverberates through the metal tube. The long-haired 20-somethings assisting Austin, a retired lawyer with an admirable repertoire of dad jokes, can barely contain their enthusiasm. They whoop and holler and eye the whitecapped river rushing along the road.

They’re young, but they’re experienced. With the river so high, only returning guides are working today. For his part, Austin has decades of recreational paddling and seven years of guiding to his name.

NOC AT FIFTY

He’d always wanted to guide when he was the age of his fellow guides, but instead he had to pull down higher-paying construction jobs to put himself through college. As soon as he retired, he started working at NOC.

“Their guides are the most professional and put safety at the top of everything,” said Mark Moseley, 34, a camp program director who, along with his leaders-in-training, shared the raft with Austin and me. “From being a trip leader and now hiring trip leaders, what do I want my campers to be on? NOC every time.”

Professionalism and safety still leave room for fun. As the current bore us down the river at nearly twice its usual pace, Austin had us ducking tree branches — with helmets protecting our heads, of course — as he issued instructions to steer the raft safely and splashily through each successive rapid, to the cheers of all aboard.

He’d been right — there were no dry seats. At the takeout just above Nantahala Falls — ordinarily the trip’s finale, today it was too gnarly for novice paddlers — we waded up the underwater concrete walkway soaked with the water and exhilaration that envelopes NOC guides every day.

FIFTY YEARS DOWN, HUNDREDS TO GO

“The soul of the company is the river,” McBeath says as the Nantahala hurtles past the window beside his table at Rivers End Restaurant, one of two eateries on campus.

Originally from Vancouver, Canada, McBeath has lived everywhere from Taiwan to Alaska to Miami in a career that until recent years focused on hotel and resort management. In 2018, he became CEO of Grand Canyon Resort Corporation, a business owned by the Hualapai Tribe that welcomes millions of visitors each year to explore the Grand Canyon area.

He moved east with his wife and daughters in 2021 and has now been leading NOC for a full year. He’s liking the vibe.

“People who go on the river and out in nature are generally a little bit different than people who stay in five-star hotels,” he said. “I think I was just drawn to that clientele.”

Western North Carolina, with its lush greenery and abundant water, reminds him of home in British Columbia. The place has a spiritual quality to it, and the people are genuine. McBeath said he respects the culture Kennedy and his successors have built here.

“They had a dream and they made it happen,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive what they’ve done.”

As NOC marks its 50th year, McBeath is bent on anticipating the future at the same time as he honors the past. The world of 2022 is much different than the world of 1972. Staffing, inflation and recruitment challenges are top of mind.

“Whether you work at a Best Buy or a Costco, those people who fill your frontline positions are scarce,” he said. “They’re hard to come by, and if they do come in, they want $15, $16, $17, $18, $19, $20 an hour. And that model’s not built for us.”

There’s an upper limit on how much people will to pay for a raft trip, which means there’s an upper limit on how much NOC can pay its guides. Right now, they make about $10 an hour, and NOC sweetens the deal any way it can — by offering housing and meal options, unlimited time off and a positive workplace culture.

“You make their jobs as easy as possible,” he said. “They’re out here for an experience, and that experience has got to be a good one.”

On any given summer, NOC has about 700 employees, of whom 550 are seasonal. As summer kicks off, the company is still down about 50 positions, most of which are servers, raft guides and housekeeping staff.

As McBeath looks around, he sees untapped potential in the proliferation of outdoor leadership programs now popping up in four-year-colleges. Those students could help NOC by filling much-needed positions, and NOC could help them by offering paid work and an experiential component to their education. Going forward, he hopes to establish formal partnerships with those universities.

When Holden and the Kennedys started NOC, they envisioned it as more than just a whitewater base camp. They saw it as an all-encompassing outdoor center, and McBeath wants to build on that legacy. “If somehow something happens to this river, what do I do with my 1,000 employees?” McBeath said. “Can we survive? I have to think, how do I make this a bulletproof company?” In 50 years, he said, he anticipates a big lodge on campus, with a “bevy” of activities for people to do outside rafting — though rafting will remain a staple. “We’ve got 500 acres, so if I build a lodge, I’d expand my mountain bike trail. I’d put fly fishing on the river,” he said. “I’d put more ziplines. There’s going to be something down the road that’s going to replace zip lines. What is that? I don’t know yet, but I’m looking. So something along those lines that gets people to come to Bryson City and Wesser and enjoy themselves and enjoy nature.” This spring, NOC held a reunion for former NOC guides, and McBeath was struck by the emotion that permeated the event. “They’re all older now, but they all felt NOC was one of the most important parts of their lives,” he said. “It was amazing. You don’t see that very often.”

McBeath credits Payson as the “father figure” who created that culture, and he hopes that the guides leading trips in 2022 will have the same tender feelings toward NOC 50 years from now — when they’re retired men and women and, McBeath wholeheartedly believes, NOC will still be introducing new generations of paddlers to life on the river.

“I think NOC will be around for hundreds of years,” he said.

Harrison Metzger contributed to this report.

Payson Kennedy, who co-founded the NOC with his wife Aurelia and friend Horace Holden sits on the Founders Bridge in October 2020.

NOC photo NOC hosts up to a million visitors each year across its eight campuses, with the original location in Swain County still its flagship. NOC photo

Consider the Source

Safeguarding our health can go hand-inhand with home improvement as well as new construction. New Zero VOC (lowtoxin) paints, flooring, and other materials make a healthier home easier to achieve.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:

Attend our free workshop on June 11. See the inset for details.

Want real hardwood floors or cabinets? The only regionally-made, sustainable flooring is by Somerset: https://www.somersetfloors.com/ This eastern Kentucky company grows its own Appalachian hardwoods, managed by certified foresters for minimal environmental impact.

After searching in vain for local makers and distributors of new zero-emissions, waterproof linoleum, I chose Marmoleum by Forbo. Marmoleum costs more than hard tile but is safer for fall-prone people, and it comes in many finishes, styles and colors: https://www.forbo.com/flooring/en-gl/inspiration-references/marmoleumroadshow/pc23sh

The nearest seller is Green Building Supply: https://www.greenbuildingsupply.com/ Its customer service is excellent. Its operation is 100 percent solar-powered.

Locally-owned businesses and the big box stores sell paints, stains and finishes that are zero-VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds are carcinogenic). Or you can order them: Ecos Paints (paints, stains and durable coatings) are made and sold out of Spartanburg, SC: https://ecospaints.net/

See our previous column “Weatherize….” http s://www.themountaineer.com/life/weatherizefor-savings-and-comfort/article_79e36aba-72d 2-11eb-96ee-6b29253005ac.html#tncms-sour ce=infinity-scroll-summary-sticky-siderail-next

To go full-tilt green in new construction, consider the multiple services of the Asheville Green Built Alliance. It is “the administrator of an affordable, local Green Building education and home certification program, Green Built Homes as well as a LEED for Homes”: https://www.greenbuilt.org/about/ The Alliance also advises on public and private construction. Its Energy Savers Program has weatherized 500 Buncombe County low-income homes.

NEXT INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

"Your Home and Building Toolbox: A Pathway to Energy Efficiency and Lowering Costs" June 11, 10-2 How to attend: https://WNCclimateaction.com An interactive workshop for anyone wanting to build or retro-fit any kind of structure Presenter: William Hite, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments; and Green Environmental Management Systems (GEMS) Committee, Charles George VA Medical Center, AshevilleMaterial Life: Remodeling or Building Greener Homes

WIN-WIN-WIN:

1) Most products listed above support local and regional businesses. 2) Green remodeling and construction can re duce our risk of cancers and lung disease.

MORE INFORMATION:

When the project is done, follow these guidelines to save money if you consider ac/heating duct cleaning: https://www.epa.gov/indoor-airquality-iaq/should-you-have-air-ducts-yourhome-cleaned

Asheville GreenWorks’ next Hard 2 Recycle event is July 16, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.. See http://hard2recycle.org/dates-items/

Store any paint, etc. with cancer warning labels outside your home. To decide what to discard and how, see NC Dept of Public Health, Environmental hazards https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/oee/index.html

The WNC Climate Action Coalition is an allvolunteer group working to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis in our region. By WNC CAC volunteer, co-founder and Triple-win Editor Mary Jane Curry MJCinWNC@gmail.com https://WNCClimateAction.com Twitter: @WncAction