Shay Ciezki

Professor Jen
RPTM 101
11 April 2023
Career Report

Introduction
The person I decided to interview for this report was Greg Zbrzezny, Program Director,
for Adaptive Adventures. I conducted this interview on March 7th, 2023. I chose to contact Mr.
Zbrzezny because I was curious to see what work program directors do for a nonprofit
organization. I see myself one day being a part of a nonprofit, so interviewing Greg allowed me
to see what it takes to run such a successful nonprofit. Adaptive Adventures provides outdoor
sports to children, adults, and veterans with physical disabilities. Greg has been the program
director for about 7 years. He graduated from Illinois State University, studying Recreation and
Park Management with an emphasis in Therapeutic recreation. His first two years of college he
was an education major with hopes of one day becoming a teacher and coach. Greg never
thought he would end up at a place, like Adaptive Adventures, but he always knew he wanted to
be involved with sports and helping others. He decided to change his major and go into
therapeutic recreation. His career started at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago then after a
few years decided to work as a special recreation associate. On the side, Greg was also a
personal fitness trainer. He joined Adaptive Adventure in 2016.

Mission/Purpose of the Agency/Department

Adaptive Adventures mission statement is, “to provide progressive outdoor sports
opportunities to improve quality of life for children, adults, and veterans with physical
disabilities and their families.” The purpose for this organization is that every individual with
disabilities will have access to participate in any and all outdoor sports regardless of that
individual’s location or economic status. Adaptive Adventures does not work for a larger agency,
so there is no other mission statement.

Clientele Served
Adaptive Adventures serves children and youth, ages from 6 to 20 who have physical
disabilities. They also serve adults, of all ages and backgrounds, with physical disabilities. Lastly
this organization has AAMO (Adaptive Adventure Military Operations). They serve injured
veterans and even active-duty military the opportunity to play the sports they loved prior to being
injured. Adaptive Adventures work together with over 24 VA medical centers and military
hospitals. There are 2 Adaptive Adventures location, one in Colorado and one in Illinois.
Customers travel all across the country to participate in the programs that Adaptive Adventures
provide. They even have customers that travel from Canada and Mexico. A current project that is
happening at Adaptive Adventures is to expand their services to Puerto Rico and Hawaii. They
have a small team down there for a 6-month time span and are hoping the next time they go
there; the organization can send a full team. There are no other qualifying demographic
characteristics that go into participating in Adaptive Adventures. All genders are welcome to
participate. There are no memberships for Adaptive Adventures, most programs they offer are
actually free. Any fees that Adaptive Adventure charges are the ones where there is a field trip
involved, usually when the team goes on a skiing trip for a weekend. For ski trips there is a $50
registration fee which will cover part of the lodging and the ski lift ticket. All of the ski lessons,
equipment, food, and half the lodging are all covered by Adaptive Adventures.

Services and Program Provided

Adaptive Adventures provides a total of 7 programs, alpine skiing/snowboarding,
cycling, dragon boat racing, kayaking/paddleboarding, rock-climbing,
waterskiing/wakeboarding, and whitewater rafting. Every single one of these program’s
equipment is provided for by Adaptive Adventure. The skiing and snowboarding facilities are the
local mountains in Wisconsin, such as Wilmot Mountain, Alpine Valley, and Cascade Mountain.
They also extend out to Keystone, CO; Grand Targhee, WY; and Jackson Hole, WY. The
facilities for cycling are all outdoors in Colorado and Illinois. There are multiple biking and
cycling paths that Adaptive Adventure will take their students on. The dragon boat racing,
kayaking, and paddleboarding, waterskiing, and wakeboarding facilities are different lakes and
streams in Colorado and Illinois. For rock climbing, Adaptive Adventure offers lessons in their
own facility in Colorado and Illinois, along with outdoor climbing experience which would be on
small mountains. The facility for whitewater rafting is the beautiful Yampa River in Western
Colorado.

Staffing
Adaptive Adventure has a pretty small staff in both locations, 3 in Illinois and 9 in
Colorado. There are 10 full time workers and 2 part time. All 12 people on staff are in the
recreation department. Even though they have a small staff, Adaptive Adventures depend on
their volunteers to help run all the programs. As of right now, Adaptive Adventure has between
500 to 600 volunteers every year. The volunteers that help out with the skiing programs are
seasonal because of how challenging the sport is and of all the certifications that they have to go
through in order to just be a volunteer. For the rest of the programs, the volunteers will work
year-round.

Funding Sources
Adaptive Adventure’s does a great job with fundraising, contracting, and grants. The
biggest source of funding comes from their grants and contracting. They are a big partner of the
VA, Adaptive Sports Grant, Adaptive Sports actually get the biggest Adaptive Sports grant in the
entire country. When it comes to paying staff, they can only take a little bit of the funding
towards salary and the majority of it goes to the operations and equipment. The contracts that
Adaptive Adventure has with various camps, corporations, and groups that want to help their
non-profit will go into the staff’s salary.

Professional Issues
Greg Zbrzezny had mentioned that the most challenging part of his job is not being able
to meet the demand with such a small team. In the RPTM field it is a big challenge for non-
profits, like Adaptive Adventures to have a big staff. It is hard for them to find other staff
members that are qualified and want to contribute to helping children, adults, and veterans be
able to play outdoor sports with disabilities. Mr. Zbrzezny said that one of the most exciting parts
of being a Program Director is allowing someone to do something they never thought they could
or had the opportunity to do. Watching a child, adult or veteran be so happy to participate in an
outdoor activity is the reason why Greg is so passionate about his job. When working in a non-
profit, seeing someone smile when they didn’t think it was ever possible because of their
circumstances is what keeps a non-profit going.
 References

https://adaptiveadventures.org/about/