Steve and Andrea Charest
Co-Owners, Petra Cliffs
TBD
Steering Committee Member
The Basics
Company Name: Petra Cliffs Climbing Center & Mountaineering School
Location: Burlington, VT
Founded: 2000
Full-Time Employees: 5 full-time/25 part-time (they’re very much included because they’re the life and energy of the business!)
Products: Education and Recreation through our indoor climbing gym, summer camp, and outdoor mountaineering school programs
Social: Instagram // Facebook // Twitter /
Claim to Fame: Andrea & Steve were voted VT Sports’ Outdoor People of the Year in 2019!
The Culture
The best thing about working at Petra Cliffs is:
The community, and the bond that climbing can create. We are a small company, but our reach goes way beyond our walls. People often think we are much larger than we are because no matter where we go, we are almost guaranteed to run into someone who has worked at, been to or has heard of Petra Cliffs. Being an active business for 20 years, we have been fortunate to interact with so many people and groups, and we’ve been able to see many sides of our extended community on a local and national level.
When we’re not working, we’re:
Climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, cooking, checking on the veggie garden, and spending time with our three year old.
What we’re reading:
The ABC’s of Diversity: Helping Kids (And Ourselves!) Embrace our Differences, by Carolyn Helsel and Joy Harris-Smith, The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoors by James Mills, and the newest editions of Alpinist and Rock and Ice magazines
What we’re listening to:
Podcasts: Road to Resilience, For the Love of Climbing, The Enormocast, The Curious Climber, EntreLeadership, Ologies, No Barriers, Master Your Mindset, TimeSuck / Music: Lots of Disney music that is always stuck in our heads (thanks kid!)
If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:
Nothing Can Keep Us Down
Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:
The outdoors doesn’t judge the color of one’s skin, their gender, their size, their ability, or their beliefs. We want everyone to have access and feel safe out there, because we all deserve the vast benefits that the outdoors can offer.
Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:
That we’ve helped to make a change that can be felt and seen inside and outside of our walls. That our invitation to more diverse groups is accepted, and those groups are then excited to extend the invitation; that everyone truly feels not only welcome, but invited. We hope to instill this action in our youth, who will become the next leaders for equity in the outdoors.