Not Just Business as Usual

Ethan Senturia (left) and Dalglish Chew hiking the Torres del Paine, Chile

With me here this week in the Tetons is Ethan Senturia, a Wharton graduate who is helping me to develop and promote my guiding business, Aerial Boundaries. Disillusioned by the world of high-finance, he recently quit his job with what was formerly Lehman Brothers and now is owned by Barclay’s Bank. He started his career in finance soon after graduating from Wharton in 2008, jumping enthusiastically into the New York City scene not long before the huge financial collapse we are now in the throes of.

In the winter of 2007-08 Ethan was one of the participants on our first leadership development program for Wharton. As it turns out, it ended up changing his life. He’s no longer bent on being a cog in the wheel of international finance, but combining a new-found passion for the outdoors, giving back to communities, creating a life that melds a job with life and everyday pursuits rather than just punching in and out to collect a pay check, then “living” during your two-weeks a year vacation. He’s a smart guy.

My wife, Sue Muncaster, guided that first trip with me. She’s a former international raft guide and pro-mountain bike racer, a ski guide (she taught me…), food activist and super mom. This is what she has to say about that trip in general, and Ethan in particular:

As I hunker into the Patagonian winds hammering the Torres del Paine massif, I curse my altruistic, optimistic husband for talking me into co-guiding a trekking trip with a group of undergraduates from the Wharton School of Business. I had officially sworn off guiding down here a few years ago after a swanky female “adventurer” from San Francisco asked me if the bathrooms had flush toilets in Calafate. This wouldn’t be a big deal except that we were high in the heavens marveling at the jaw-dropping Torres rising from the mist, and Calafate was two days travel and another country away.

As we stagger across the pampas, the black Gore-Tex clad students compare harrowing stories of summer internships on Wall Street and life accomplishments that include 122 boy scout merit badges and graduating from high school with 9 AP classes (all “5′s,” whatever that means). “Patience,” I remind myself, “there’s always more than appears on the surface.

I am particularly perplexed by the only one not dressed in black ““ Ethan. A milk-and-cookies genius surfer from San Diego, he sports a California swagger and toothy smile that could easily swindle or seduce. He is in the last semester of his senior year and I can’t quite figure out why he is here. Is he just using this trip to help him decide between a career with Merrill Lynch or the World Bank?

The stated mission of this “Wharton Leadership Venture Program” is to “build critical leadership and teamwork skills”¦ with community, self-awareness and reflection being the themes to explore on our journey through the Patagonian landscape.” The students will also complete a “social impact project” designed to enhance their contact with local people and “deepen our knowledge of the region, economy, challenges and opportunities.”

The project is to redesign AMA Torres del Paine, a local Chilean non-profit dedicated to reducing the negative impact of tourism. After an initial meeting we learn of the many issues facing Torres del Paine including uncontrolled growth, a shocking lack of research on native flora and fauna, trail erosion, and challenges presented by the money hungry National Park Service and private landowners within the park.

For the next week we endure two days of sideways, sleeting rain, wind gusts strong enough to knock over the smaller trekkers, and blisters the size of quarters. We gape at hot French women climbers living up in the ragged huts at Campamento Japones, and soak our toes in the icy waters of Lago Nordenskjöld.

As we nap in the sun at the top of the Valle Frances, Ethan, who was responsible for motivating the group to trudge this far, spins in circles looking from the Cuernos to Fortaleza to Paine Grande and announces “I never understood the allure of vertical climbing. Now I do.”

At the end of every epic day the Wharton students sit up for hours discussing ownership of private land, who owns the Earth, Pinochet, Allende, short-term vs. long-term profit, and who will fund conservation. After an all-nighter by headlamp, Ethan and two other students, unshaven and grubby, give the board members a brilliant presentation entitled Trailblazing: finding a path to AMA’s Success and Sustainability.

As the van pulls away and the Torres sink into the distance, Ethan keeps drilling Christian with technical climbing questions. “Are you actually thinking of climbing?” I ask.

“I know I can, I’m skinny as shit and can do a million push ups. I don’t know when I’ll have time. Maybe I’ll work on Wall Street, then quit and come down here”¦”

During our trip debrief, the students bring tears to my eyes with their insightful comments on their adventures, lessons on leadership, and respect for the outdoors. Being around a group of young adults about to embark on a career forces me to question how I’ve chosen to live my life. I quiver with the same anxiety I felt before going off to an Arthur Anderson interview a few weeks before graduating from Stanford.

I have no regrets about choosing a career as a guide, but other than a lot of fun and adventure I can’t help wonder what “successes” I have to show for it. Certainly if material wealth is a sign of success, I’m a failure.

About a month after the trip, an email from Ethan arrives: “I have been doing a lot of thinking and found myself pretty damn confused about life, future, etc. There are so many things I want to accomplish outside the Wharton/business world but as the list piles up it seems that balancing my time to achieve these will be a pretty daunting task. I’m having this scary quarter-life crisis that makes me feel like every day that passes is one day closer to being “too late” to try something new or learn a new skill.”

Two months later, another arrives: “I owe you a huge thank you for recommending that I do a NOLS course… I just got back from a 30-day backpack in the Northern Winds with NOLS, which was undoubtedly the most exhilarating, thought-provoking, educational, and fun month of my life. Our trip in Patagonia made me feel like it was okay to admit to myself that I might just not be built to be a “business man.” That maybe I can use my intellect, leadership abilities, and passion for teams in a novel way to combine my love for the outdoors with my love for education… I have a lot to learn about the mountains, but feel like now I have the passion, desire, and will to actually just go do it.”

With these words, Ethan makes my life of being broke, living out of a backpack and folding tents for rich executives all worth it. If I have helped just one young person think twice about becoming another cog in the capitalistic rat race then I’ll consider it a major accomplishement. I have no illusion, nor hope, that Ethan will become another adventure travel guide. Indeed, I know he will be much more. If he is the future of business ““ a person who will truly integrate environment, community, social justice and economics ““ we are well on our way to a better world.