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Home > About
Us > USA Staff
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| Kurt Kutay |
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Kurt Kutay is the founding
President and CEO of Wildland Adventures and the director
of the non-profit Travelers Conservation Trust.
He has traveled and guided throughout the world
since 1975. Kurt completed an M.S. degree in Natural
Resources from the University of Michigan after
conducting research in the National Parks of Costa
Rica. He has also worked on international programs
for the U.S. National Park Service. Kurt has authored
a chapter on adventure travel for Fodor's guide
books and published numerous articles on ecotourism.
As a recognized industry pioneer in adventure travel
and ecotourism, he has served on numerous professional
boards and conservation organizations including
The International Ecotourism Society, the International Galapagos
Tour Operators Association, the Maasai Environmental
Resource Coalition of East Africa, and the Adventure
Travel Trade Association.
Email to:
Read the Seattle Times profile on Kurt Kutay
and Wildland Adventures Word | PDF
Read the Seattle Metropolitan Magazine profile on Kurt and Anne Kutay
and Wildland Adventures PDF |
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Anne Kutay |
Anne Kutay is Vice-President of Wildland Adventures. Over decades of professional adventure travel experience she has designed and led dozens of family adventures and women?s rejuvenation retreats. She also works in the office to assure consistency and quality control across all Wildland destinations. Prior to her Wildland Adventures in Costa Rica, Turkey, Panama, Belize, East Africa, Peru, and Brazil, Anne worked summers in Yellowstone National Park and spent winters exploring and guiding groups throughout Mexico for 8 years. Anne is also a jewelry designer. She loves to prepare international cuisine for friends and family, and is always ready to hike, kayak, and go extreme dog-walking with her Tibetan Mastiff rescue dog, Romeo. Anne and Kurt have a daughter, Kelly Ohman, who works in the office (you can?t miss the resemblance), a grandchild, and a young son, Tarek, who travels around the world and currently attends Franklin College in Switzerland. Email to:
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| Rachael Garrett |
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Rachael Garrett is a member of
our Executive Management Team as Director of Operations.
She developed an excitement for travel to exotic
places as a child on family vacations to Costa
Rica and the ancient ruins in the jungles of Mexico.
Fascinated by the interactions between plants and
animals in tropical ecosystems, she studied biology
and French at university, spending a semester abroad
in France. Rachael served for three years in the
Peace Corps as an agro forestry volunteer in the
Gambia, West Africa where she gained a love and
understanding of African cultures and learned two
local languages. Rachael led her own family on
safari in Tanzania and has explored many countries
in West Africa, Europe, Central America, as well
as Mexico, Alaska, and Morocco. After joining Wildland
Adventures she directed our Costa Rica program
and then expanded to Panama, Guatemala, and Belize.
Rachael frequently travels to Africa as our East
Africa Program Director to Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda
and Uganda, while continuing to manage our Wildland
Adventures to Panama and Guatemala.
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Grettel Calderon |
Grettel Calderon is a native “Tica” from Costa Rica who began her career as an executive secretary then translated her penchant for details and organization to become one of Costa Rica’s most knowledgeable and proficient nature travel tour planners. She now has over 15 years experience organizing itineraries in Costa Rica including 5 years as Wildland Adventures’ in-country expert. She has traveled to many cities in the United States, gaining valuable insight into American culture and travel preferences. From the Wildland Adventures’ field office in Costa Rica, she assists our guests by direct line email and telephone communication. Grettel is introspective and a conscientious listener of each traveler’s personal interests and style. She enjoys cooking with fresh herbs from her garden and loves yoga, cycling, and volunteers for a local dog rescue organization.
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| Tad Bradley |
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Tad Bradley, Wildland’s Marketing Director, is a worldwide wanderer, always seeking opportunities to share the deeper experiences that define the 'Wild Style' of travel. He spent 10 years working for a boutique advertising agency in Boston specializing in Broadway theatre and entertainment. After returning to his native Seattle, he spent time at Microsoft where he worked on an international advertising sales team before taking the leap from the virtual adventures of Xbox into an adventure travel career. A lifelong traveler, Tad climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise funds for cancer research, dove the Great Barrier Reef and rode the rails of the trans-Siberian railroad. He traveled for seven months throughout Central America, where he worked as a guide throughout the highlands of Guatemala, and has experienced the best of South Africa. Tad has found a home at Wildland that combines his passion for exploration with his professional interest in cutting edge and personally meaningful marketing that helps Wildland continue to grow its community of enlightened and compassionate travelers. In addition to his passion for travel, Tad is an avid runner, hiker and unabashed fan of Ken Griffey Jr. and all things related to the game of baseball
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| Jeff Stivers |
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Jeff Stivers shares his passion for venturing out to explore new places and distant cultures both past and present. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Colorado College and has participated in archaeological field work on Easter Island, and in Tanzania, Niger, Sudan, and southwest Colorado. Along his journeys Jeff has developed language skills in French, Spanish, and Swahili. He believes that the ancient past can shed light the way for a better future. As Program Director with experience in Belize, Guatemala, Morocco, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, Jeff is intrigued by how both indigenous peoples and modern cultures cope with the new stresses and opportunities of globalization. Aside from travel, Jeff enjoys mountain biking, hiking, fishing, soccer, photography and cooking. Based on his extensive travel to remote regions of the world, he understands that the secret to having a rich and meaningful life-changing trip is to make honest, personal connections with local people.
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Sherry Howland |
Sherry Howland has focused her life around conservation, adventure travel and the ecotourism industry. She has traveled extensively throughout the world including numerous Wildland Adventures to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, Peru, Patagonia and personal explorations to Alaska, Europe, Jordan, Egypt and living in Turkey for a year crewing aboard a gulet on the Turquoise Coast. Sherry is a dedicated travel pro with extensive experience in customer service and ecotourism planning and development, and including event planning and management as Tourism Development Manager for the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau. Sherry contributes her professional editorial skills at Wildland, having worked several years as an online editor, writer and consultant. She has served on the Board of Directors for IGTOA (International Galapagos Tour Operators Association), advancing the cause of conservation and sustainable tourism in the archipelago. In her personal life, Sherry volunteered as a Keeper's Aid at Woodland Park Zoo’s feline unit, assists in cooking demonstrations at her local organic farmers market, and dances regularly with various Brazilian Samba and West African groups in Seattle.
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| Kirsten Gardner |
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Kirsten Gardner joined Wildland Adventures as South America Program Director with four years of experience in the travel industry as Director of Marketing and Program Manager for an international luxury travel company. She completed a BA in anthropology and history during her final semester sailing around the world. Kirsten inherited her sense of wanderlust from her parents; her mother was in President Kennedy?s first class of Peace Corps volunteers (stationed in Lesotho) and then traveled throughout the African continent as a single woman. Having traveled to over thirty countries in less than three decades, Kirsten is particularly passionate about Southeast Asia and South America, areas that share the appeal of vibrant cultures and history, genuine hospitality, savory cuisine and boundless opportunities for active adventures off the beaten path. Recently, she visited the Thai-Burma border where she spent the holiday season in a Burmese refugee camp, kayaked and hiked through southeast Alaska, and explored the Andes and Amazon rainforest. Recently relocated to Seattle from Pennsylvania, Kirsten is excited to bike to work and brings with her a passion for ethnic cuisine (creating and devouring), South American wines, fly fishing and all things outdoors.
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Nick Bay |
Nick Bay has one foot and a piece of his heart in Africa, having studied, worked and traveled throughout Eastern and Southern Africa. He studied conservation biology and Kiswahili in Tanzania, lived with Maasai in Kenya, and worked as a Ranger Assistant at a private game ranch in South Africa including game capture, wildlife tracking, handling injured animals and hosting safari travelers as a certified guide. His family is a shareholder in a game reserve near Kruger National Park in South Africa where Nick has lived and worked over the past 10 years. On his own, Nick has backpacked through Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania and conducted field evaluation of biofuel projects in Zambia and Mozambique. Nick joins Wildland with a strong conviction to collaborate with local communities so that they benefit from tourism and conservation. He worked in education and helped coordinate programs in the African exhibit at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo and is a founding member of The Nature Conservancy's Next Generation working with other young professionals to promote sustainability and conservation science.Email to:
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Kelly Ohman |
Kelly Ohman, It is usually Kelly’s voice you first hear when you call the Wildland office. She brings extensive office management and organizational abilities to her position, running the day to day operation of the Wildland office, making the complex multi-tasking demands seem easy. She is foremost a mother raising her son to grow up in a world that is healthy, safe and prosperous. Kelly enjoys camping, volleyball, reading, and tasting quality wines from around the world.
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| Katharine Gallagher |
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Katharine Gallagher brings extensive qualifications and travel experience to Wildland?s operations department, including six years hands-on event planning for groups of all sizes. She holds a Business Administration degree with a concentration in information systems from the University of Washington. It was at university that her love of travel blossomed into a fully grown obsession, inspired by the insights gained through exposure to art history. She has traveled extensively in the Philippines to visit family, and has explored Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Greece and most of Western Europe. After her most recent adventure - a Wildland trip to Egypt - Katharine was so taken with her experiences that she was inspired to join the Wildland team. She brings with her a valuable perspective, providing pre-departure trip services understanding exactly what you need as a Wildland traveler. She is also tasked to partner with our destination program directors to ensure the right information gets to our travelers at the right time and is up to date. Katharine enjoys yoga and reading, and travel of course!
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Tim Hocking |
Tim Hocking As Director of Communications, he specializes in information systems, graphic design and brand management. He is the quintessential adventure-travel IT and web manager; with a little creativity and lots of ingenuity Tim always manages to come up with a solution to any IT or graphic design challenge. He works all hours developing Wildland's website and keeping our systems in working order so that he can maximize his time on the slopes of the Cascades during ski season; he even has a ski helmet with cell phone mic and ear piece in case anyone needs tech support when he's skiing--now that's dedication! Tim enjoys motorcycle road trips, camping, hiking, and everything about the gear associated with the outdoors as he was previously a manager in North Face stores in Chicago and Seattle. Tim lives with his wife and baby girl in a log cabin in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
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| Elizabeth Pelham |
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Elizabeth Pelham. Her whole life
wrapped up in theatre, Elizabeth has been a producer,
director and an actress under the direction of
Alfred Hitchcock and the Barrymores. She is currently
the editor of the Seattle Repertory
Organization "Backstage News." Bookkeeping is her
day job, acting by night. Although
she couldn't tote her 5 children around the world,
she brought a diversity of cultures into her home
by hosting over 200 students from Japan, Russia,
China, Poland, France and England-who now know
her as their "American mom." Now handling
the books at Wildland she has managed to bring
the world back into her career.
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