Training for a Future I Could Not See: How Conservation Experiences Build Lasting Capabilities

Webinar Outline

What happens to the capabilities we develop through conservation work after the original assignment ends? 

During his senior year at Morehouse College, Robert Graham followed an opportunity with the Student Conservation Association into a fire-prevention internship in the Chickasaw Nation and wildland-fire training in the Arkansas Ozarks. Nearly two decades later, he began recognizing unexpected applications of that experience while helping care for Smith Family Farm in Virginia. Drawing from his essay *Training for a Future I Could Not See*, Graham explores how outdoor service develops capabilities that can endure beyond their immediate purpose: physical readiness, observation, adaptability, comfort with difficult terrain, and an understanding of work within a larger landscape. 

Through personal narrative, guided reflection, and practical discussion, participants will consider how conservation and trail-related experiences can prepare people for responsibilities they cannot yet anticipate. Designed for trail and conservation professionals, volunteer coordinators, outdoor educators, and program leaders, this session offers a framework for recognizing transferable capabilities, communicating the long-term value of outdoor service, and helping participants connect present experiences to future possibilities.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify at least three capabilities that conservation and trail-related work can develop beyond the immediate technical requirements of an assignment.
• Examine how skills developed through outdoor service can remain useful when applied in different professional, community, or land-stewardship environments.
• Use a structured observation-and-reflection exercise to identify a capability developed through outdoor experience and describe one potential application beyond its original setting.

Location

This is a virtual training. See the event website for more details.

Trail Competencies

• Program Administration
• • Communications
• • Education and Public Outreach
• • Partnership and Collaboration

Relevant Trail Types

General. All trail types are relevant.