Heidi Riley joined the Outdoor Education team in July 2019 after a decade of working as an instructor and logistics manager for multiple outdoor guiding companies across the nation.
Throughout that time, Riley has drawn on her experience as an Emergency Medical Technician. She works in pre-hospital care and as a backpacking, paddling, and rock climbing guide to teach EMT and Wilderness First Responder courses for the Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI). She continues to teach for WMI and work field contracts with the National Outdoor Leadership School in the summer.
Riley believes the outdoor environment and the activities we do in them are important tools for meaning-making, personal growth, and understanding oneself in relationship to systems of people and places. Because of this, she finds that the best part of working in the outdoor industry and now at Colgate Outdoor Education is participants who choose to put themselves in the situation to grow in these ways. Facilitating experiences for students to learn and enact the leadership and technical skills they need to succeed in a dynamic outdoor environment with constantly evolving variables continues to be a passion that she thinks addresses personal, professional, and social needs of various shapes and sizes.
Riley holds a Master of Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Management from Texas A&M University.
Though originally from the swampy nature coast of northern Florida, Riley has taken a liking to winter weather and winter sports and has settled nicely into upstate New York with her partner, Julia, and two dogs, Denver and Lilah.
Let's get to know
Heidi Riley, our latest Guardian of the Gate presented by Community Memorial Hospital.
An influential person or people in my career or life: "My first climbing mentor, Scott. More technical rock climbing is largely passed down by one-on-one mentorship rather than in larger groups, so having someone take you under their wing and teach you the finer points of different aspects of climbing really changes how you climb. I was always a really nervous climber, but Scott got me through it not just by telling me that I could do it but implying that I should really stop wasting time being anxious and just climb the route – which somehow was really effective. This approach has time and again been helpful for me personally and professionally.
"Since then, while I've had a lot of awesome climbing partners who were men, I've also been super lucky to have a series of incredible female climbing partners. That's pretty unique in more technical areas of rock climbing, and those women and the experience of climbing with them has made a really positive impact on how I see myself and my place in traditionally male-dominated spaces."
What I love about my job: "Working with students to create and facilitate situations where they and others rise to the occasion to survive, thrive, and lead in unanticipated situations in a constantly changing outdoor environment – and seeing them transfer this to other parts of their lives. Outdoor experiences are a tool for meaning-making, and I'm at my best when I'm equipping others to make that meaning how they need and want to."
What I like about competing: "When I compete, it's in ultramarathons or endurance cycling of sorts. I like these because it's more a mental game than anything else. Your body can almost always do way more than your mind will, so if you can train your mind to take on a super long run or ride, you can do something you used to think was impossible. Sometimes that competition is against other people, sometimes it's against yourself, but it always ends up being for yourself. In that kind of endurance competition, no one ever knows better than you do just how much you overcame to finish or get as far as you did, so no one can ever detract from what you accomplish. You learn that you deserve your own respect."
What is one way you hope to impact or maybe you have impacted Colgate Athletics in your role?: "Continuing and building up the relationship between Outdoor Education and club sports/intramurals to use effective and impactful aspects of athletics to serve the general student body.
"Something that we always do well that has been especially highlighted during Covid is to adapt quickly and effectively to provide quality programming in rapidly changing circumstances where resources are low and constraints high. I bring a high degree of confidence in our ability to do this, as well as a significant commitment to supporting our student staff as they take on the challenges of doing so."
What I like that would surprise those who know me: "Symphony music. Listening to it, yes, but especially watching the conductors. I know absolutely nothing about this, but I love watching the music happen."
What is something about Colgate that you didn't realize until you started working here? "How many people I know directly or indirectly from working in other parts of the outdoor industry who got their start as students in Colgate Outdoor Education."
When not at my place of competition or the office, you can often find me… (hobbies/passions): "On a bicycle, running a long distance at an unreasonably slow pace, rock or ice climbing – depending on the season – and, in all seasons, reading theology with a cup of coffee."
Miscellaneous Favorites
Heroes: St. Oscar Romero, Will Gadd (the quintessential pro ice climber)
Possession: "At the risk of calling my dog a mere 'possession'… my 10-year-old blue heeler mix that I've had since he was 11 weeks old."
App: Strava for running and cycling!
Music type, singer or group: "All the punk and pop punk that emerged out of '90s rock - the angstier the better. I also have a fixation on cross-genre covers."
Books: "100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Til We Have Faces (CS Lewis), A Light in August (William Faulkner) – in that order."
Food: French fries, hands down. The floppier and greasier the better.
Movies: The Favourite.
Quote: "Nietzsche would not have been Nietzsche had he not written something profound even about things on which he was wrong." - Miroslav Volf
