The Red River Gorge in Kentucky is known across the country as a mecca for rock climbing. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced climber the Gorge offers many challenging rock faces to explore.
For a group of Berea College students, the Gorge became a place to build teamwork, trust, and leadership skills as part of the school’s Entrepreneurship for the Public Good Program, also known as EPG. EPG is a multi-year program for undergraduates where they learn to practice and use entrepreneurial leadership in rural communities of Central Appalachia.
In July fourteen freshmen and sophomores, led by Professor Peter Hackbert, came to the Gorge for a day of rock climbing. Many of them had never been to the Gorge or even tried rock climbing.
Hackbert who has led the entrepreneur program for the last sixteen years wanted his students to enjoy the beauty of the Gorge, and at the same time develop skills that will help them become future business leaders.
Hackbert says “My hope for the day is that students begin to feel the exhilaration that the Red River Gorge has promised to its world-class visitors. I hope students feel that, and that they personally challenge themselves because it does require some agility and some physical attributes.”
Hackbert and the students are at Southeast Mountain Guides in Wolfe County a few miles from Natural Bridge State Park. It’s a family-run business that teaches new climbers the basics, and guides climbers on various routes.
The students are eager to get started as they listen to a climbing instructor who goes by the name of Poe.
“Glad to have you here today. We’re gonna break this orientation down into three different parts. The first is gonna be the gear up where we get the gear on you and make sure you know how to use it.”
The students put on a rock-climbing harness that includes a leather belt and loops for each leg.
“We’re gonna step into these harnesses one leg at a time. We’re gonna pull the harness as high as we can on our hips, and then we’re gonna tighten it down.”
The students also learn about climbing clips and are fitted with safety helmets. Professor Hackbert sees a connection between rock climbing and becoming a successful entrepreneur.
“Entrepreneurs are risk takers, and the interesting part about being an entrepreneur is you can learn to mitigate the risk, you can learn to lower the risks, but you have to generally do that with coaches and mentors, and it’s not just thinking about doing that by yourself. It’s also about being guided through the process.”
He says rock climbing as a group like becoming an entrepreneur is about teamwork and building trust. “I don’t teach entrepreneurship as a lone ranger, as a single activity. Most successful ventures do in fact have small teams or groups that work together.”
The Berea students will put their new rock-climbing skills to the test in a rock canyon shaped like a horseshoe that serves as a practice area.
The rock-climbing training wall is 120 feet high with a continuous loop of cable to clip onto. There is also metal rebar embedded in the rock to step or hold on to. Before they climb, Professor Hackbert asks them to choose a partner.
“Somebody who you trust that you can work with as you’re going through this experience because you will come to challenges, and it’s so much fun to have somebody who you can trust who can work you through thinking how to overcome that challenge.”
As the students climb, there is nervous laughter and encouragement for each other. 20-year-old David Brother says he’s never climbed rock before and describes himself as a tech nerd.
“It was really exciting. If you can get someone like me who doesn’t like going outdoors in their free time at all…to enjoy something like this, I think you can get anyone, and that’s really what EPG has done for the last fifteen years.”
The students spend several hours navigating the climbing wall which becomes more advanced the farther you climb around it.
19-year-old Alexia Holderfield saw the connection between rock climbing and being an entrepreneur. “Being an entrepreneur requires a lot of working with other people. Talking to people, making connections, growing those relationships.”
Catherine Barile, also 19, says it’s about building trust whether you are rock climbing or growing a business. “I can trust those around me, and I can have encouragement from them and vice versa. I think that built a really solid community within us.”
Professor Hackbert watches his students navigate the rock wall. “I can teach them to be a traveler, and an adventurer, and a visitor. In their second and third and fourth year at Berea, they’ll start to major, and they’ll take this entrepreneur leadership, and they’ll apply it to their major.”
All the students come down from the rock walls safely. It’s been a good day of enjoying the natural beauty of the Gorge and learning more about themselves and their fellow students.
Alexia says “I’m extremely proud of everybody. They’ve all come far, and I know some people are extremely scared of doing this right now.”
As they head to Miguel’s Pizza for lunch in the Gorge, Professor Hackbert prepares for a new life journey. He’s retiring from Berea College. His legacy at the school has touched many young lives.
“To me, the Entrepreneurship in the Public Good Program has been a unique program in the way it helps students to transform their lives and their ambitions. Many of these students will end up in employment and working for firms they didn’t even know existed when they first came here, and they use the program and the college to transform themselves. And I’m real proud of that.”
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