It’s sad that we often don’t realize the impact someone has on us until they are gone. Our friend, Joel Cryer, passed away at his home in Austin, Texas on January 23. Joel was the Director of Adventure Mas, an adventure education service, specializing in the planning, design, construction, equipment sales, repair, training, and risk management review of ropes challenge courses, climbing towers, and zip lines. Joel has been training our Challenge Course staff, building our Challenge Course elements, and performing our annual inspections for the past decade. His teachings have spread from the confines of the Challenge Course to influence nearly all of the programs we offer. Joel will be remembered for his child-like zest for life, his amazingly funny jokes and stories, his love of Coca-Cola, falling asleep in the back of the pick-up truck after a hard day of training, challenging us to figure out the answers ourselves, and for mentoring countless staff members not only about experiential education, but also about this crazy ride we are all on called Life. Below is a short bio of Joel’s achievements. You will be missed, my friend.
Brent Birchler
Boys Camp Director
Joel Cryer, a graduate of the University of Texas, is a recognized authority in the field of Experiential Education. His career spans thirty years and includes successful management development programs for major corporations, state agencies, universities, public schools, hospitals, and other institutions. His most recent international experiences have included consulting with Industrias Savoy and Empresas Polar in Caracas, Venezuela, Innovative Business Development in Stockholm, Sweden, Moscow State University and the Academy of Cosmonautics and Space Research in Moscow, Russia. Joel has served as a Para-Rescue technician with the U.S. Air Force in the Southeast Asia, as a member of the NASA/Apollo Recovery Team, and an instructor with Outward Bound and six other adventure-based programs.
During the past thirty-five years, he has trekked, boated, and climbed in North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Joel is a member of the American Society for Training and Development, the American Alpine Club, the Vertical Section of the National Speleological Society, the Ropes Course Builders Network (Association of Challenge Course Technology), and the Association for Experiential Education. He has served on the AEE Select Committee of the National Task Force on Accreditation and Standards, and is co-chair of the 1994 AEE International Conference. Corporate Challenge is a member of the AEE International Safety Network.