Martin Crawford runs Pomona’s new Outdoor Education Center, which actively encourages students to explore the mountains, deserts and beaches of Southern California and beyond. At the College since 2009, Crawford started on the trail to this woodsy role decades ago …
- Grow up in a piney little town just outside of Yosemite. Take annual school field trips to the top of Half Dome. Spend your free time digging for arrowheads with your teacher-anthropologist dad. Learn to love—and respect—the wilderness.
- Take an aptitude test to determine the best college major for you. Get results recommending “tourism and recreation management.” Enroll as a tourism and recreation management major at Cal State Northridge.
- After graduation, launch your own outdoor guide company. Lead backpacking trips in Costa Rica and Hawaii. Hold team-building events at mountain camps. Teach outdoor skills classes at your alma mater.
- Get married to Marie in a ceremony in Yosemite Valley below majestic Yosemite Falls. Name your first son Canyon. Buy a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains for your first home. Give Canyon a little sister, Mahalia, to explore the woods together.
- Land a part-time gig at Pomona overseeing Orientation Adventure and other outdoors programs. Train student trip leaders in wilderness safety and survival. Go full-time to run the College’s new Outdoor Education Center within the new Pomona Hall.
- Enjoy having a spacious new launching point for students’ outdoor adventures. Work to create a certification program for students seeking more wilderness training. Move with your family into campus housing in the new dorms. Hold on to that cabin in the mountains for the occasional weekend getaway.