In heading to Colombia to teach after graduation, Dave Kramer was anticipating honing his Spanish and having an adventure. Instead, he found a life mate and an appreciation for the environment that would both lead him to choices and projects that make connections across continents. Find out how being an idealist who’s a match-maker for ideas can spark what you need for your next adventures.
Guest Dave Kramer stayed in Hanover after graduation to complete the teacher preparatory program and answered a classified ad to teach in Colombia. He headed to Cali with a mind to reinvent himself but anticipated honing his Spanish and having an adventure. Finding both his life mate and an appreciation for the environment there, he became a passionate advocate for not only the environment but also Colombia as a place and people. But continued unrest at the turn of the century made his wife anxious to get her gringo back home, thus beginning a recurring theme of “back to Boston.”
Dave found his way at a number of environmental organizations, building networks and connections as he went, including through his cohort at Harvard’s Kennedy School. A move to Austin allowed him to branch out on his own, consulting for a variety of organizations, but always keeping an eye to projects that support the people and environment of Colombia.
In this episode, find out from Dave how being an idealist who's a match-maker for ideas can sometimes spark what you need for your next adventures…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley,
About This Episode's Guest
Dave Kramer is an environmental generalist who has skills in grassroots organizing, experiential education, and supporting the next generation of global change makers to reimagine our world. He is currently the program director for Planet Texas 2050, coordinating interdisciplinary climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives at UT Austin. But if you're heading to Colombia for a visit and need a guide, Dave's your man. He is also the founder of the Colombia Rising Project. Follow them on Twitter @RisingColombia.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Dave Kramer: A friend of mine said "hey, you don't need to beat yourself up if you're not a specialist. I don't hire specialists unless it's for a consulting job that we want something very special for. I am looking for people like you who are versatile." And I came out of that call feeling a breath of fresh air because often I feel like I'm a, you know, a millimeter deep and an ocean wide.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: I'm here today with Dave Kramer, and we are going to talk about roads that take us far away and bring us closer to home and then try to tell us where home actually is. So, Dave, welcome to Roads Taken.
DK: Thanks yeah, it's great to have this opportunity. Thank you.
LJR: Excellent So I start this the same way every time. And I ask to pretty easy questions depending on the day where when we were in college, who did you think you were. And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you were going to become?
DK: It's a really interesting question, I guess when I first entered college, I was a swimmer was definitely my main identity for sure, having grown up in Florida and swam competitively. And done well. And really enjoyed that part of the Dartmouth kind of preparation for an application and recruiting and all that stuff. But I think during my years at Dartmouth, I still identified strongly as a swimmer and I was professionally really interested at first in medicine. And that kind of crashed and burned quickly with some challenges, challenges of chemistry and math. But I, I think by the time I left Dartmouth, I was pretty convinced I wanted to do something related to education, whether that be urban or quote unquote urban Ed or something more internationally focused that I wasn't really sure at that point. But certainly something that had I was really impacted by the education courses at Dartmouth and the kind of energy and I guess social impact opportunities. It was a real awakening for me, having grown up in suburban Orlando, Florida, to start to think about other communities, other types of folks.
LJR: Yeah, well, you've definitely been able to tap into different kinds of communities, and we'll talk about that for sure. But when you were taking that first step then, off of college, what was the path and how did you get there?
DK: Yeah, well, I was able to enroll, first of all, in the a program that no longer exists, but the teacher preparation program. And so I did an extra semester at Dartmouth for the fall of 96 into the and then I stayed up there for the spring of 97. And with that, I had. So I had teaching certification and that I earned through Dartmouth and stayed in New Hampshire. And I was actually dog-sitting at the Women's swim coach’s and bristling at her house in I think Etna New Hampshire. And I remember reading. I was freezing, and a little lonely, not having the 96s around anymore. And I found a Boston Globe classified ad that had an ad for teaching job in Columbia. And I had previously done the language study abroad, which is probably the single most impactful thing I did at Dartmouth, the LSA at that time in Canentro, Mexico, Northwest, Mexico City. So I just had a hankering to go back to Latin America and brush up, get better at Spanish. And yeah, so I found that ad, applied for it. And along with a couple of other applications to places like Hawaii and Arizona, there was a theme.
LJR: You were cold in the winter.
DK: Yeah, exactly. And I just applied for that. And then started that in after the summer, in the fall of 1997.
LJR: I didn't realize that soon and a classified. I love of my kids are like, what is that. I don't even my daughters, my daughter's 16, my son is 10. And I don't think they've ever really seen very legitimate classified.
LJR: No, totally. I know I do the same thing. I had one classified ad job and it's just it's astounding that that ever happened. So but that wasn't just a fly by night. Like, let's go teach English. Like, that was a real thing. And you were there quite a while, so tell us about that experience
DK: Sure. So I was there, first of all, the intention of being there for one school year. I wanted to improve Spanish. And I didn't really know where I was going after that. I guess really important. And difficult experience that I had in during college was my mom passed away my senior year. I matured as anyone would pretty quickly, and she was a huge influence in my life. But I think being it was almost like a rebirth post her death and having no more swimming rigor or regimen. I was like, wow, this is—it challenging, of course. But I was, it was it was, like I said, a rebirth or a whole new me, I guess. And I fell in love with a Colombian woman there who is my wife now. My name is Carolina. I met her October 18th, 1997. She still has like the flyer from the party we went to. She was a teacher at the same school. So my kids are like, you guys are cheesy, but we’re like Sorry it was true, kind of love, fell in love pretty quickly. And she helped me learn Spanish better. I spoke pretty well, but I was laughing at the old letters I wrote her mistakes I made. And that first year was magical. I mean, we just went all over the place. And around Cali, I got to get the real experience with her family who's, you know, grew up in a very humble neighborhood. I was just walking around town like a clueless idiot, I guess in a sense of where I stumbled into with no problem. And I think the things that I did that year I’m really proud of were things that were like joining the University underwater hockey team, which I didn't know that existed. But that's a sport. It's actually, if you look it up, it's a thing people play around the world. But it was popular at the Universidad de Bajai, and it was like a club sport and it was fun. I like holding my breath as any of my swimming friends would tell you. And yeah, so that was one thing. Other joining like hiking clubs, taking kids on trips. I taught grades that first year, I had a pretty tough teaching load too I taught grades six through ten, so five different grade levels and just sort of flew by the seat of my pants. And I ended up transitioning to another school after that first year that I don't think they recruit via classified ads. But the first school was a legit place. They just happened to really concentrate on New England and Boston area recruiting just to target a place that they know is rich with colleges and good grads, I guess. But and then the other schools called that school is called Colegio Bennett and the second school is called Colegio Bolívar. And I was there, ended up being there for three years, teaching English and then US history and environmental studies, which led me towards my futuremore my current path really getting was really, really interested and concerned with what I saw as I got to know Columbia better. I wasn't just a naive fool anymore like I was that first year and saw major challenges. The country was having severe challenges in 1998, 99, 2000. And the opportunity to teach kids how to think about social studies and issues, as well as sustainable development nd all that was fun.
LJR: Yeah And so that was we would have been. OK, so five, five, six, seven years out and. There comes a time, though, where you think Columbia, home, yeah, talk to us about that.
DK: Yeah, sorry. What actually happened was my grandma said my senior year. That's how it felt for years in Columbia, my final year in Columbia. So my wife and I got married, my third year there June 16, 2000 And I had some friends come down from the states and my family. It was awesome. But then we were there in that year, 2000 to 2001, some folks might recall the Clinton administration had a program called Plan Colombia and they gave a ton of foreign aid and foreign assistance to Colombia, ostensibly to end the drug war. But it was also very much an anti-guerita operation. I mean, they're kind of intertwined. And, long story short, it really got to be a really scary time for the community of wealthy people that I worked with and worked for. They some of my eighth grade students were kidnapped on the way to school and held in the mountains for quite, quite a while, probably taken right past my house because I lived outside the city with my wife and a beautiful little tiny cottage kind of and just sort of freaked my wife out more than…I was normalizing everything. And I had no real plan yet to move back. I was pretty happy there. Columbia was where it was at. And she and her family were like, this is not OK for him. You know, they called me the gringo, et cetera. So we basically my wife was graduating; her undergraduate degree took a really long time to complete with a lot of different teacher strikes and things over the years when I was there. But she got her degree, then. And actually, I had to come up to the states a month before her and to Florida and my dad's house while I waited for her to get her actual diploma and stuff, and then met me there. And we actually drove up to Boston where we had gotten jobs. So we had, I guess…to back up a little: We had thought, OK, let's go to the US, wherever we want to go. And again, it was kind of like back in 97 where I was like, Alaska looks cool, Oregon looks neat. Oh, Hood River, it looks fun. It was really sort of like woo! And I was looking at jobs like outdoor ed. I was really getting into that sort of angle with education and I think my wife had been offered or at least had gotten interviews (It's a little fuzzy now, right?) in Alaska with some really interesting indigenous education programs. So we were dreamy and still are in some ways, but idealistic. But she and I both decided Boston made sense, because we had seen it on our honeymoon. And we also knew a lot of the folks who were originally recruited from the Boston area. The Boston area felt good to her because of the ability to get around without a car and all that kind of thing that felt right to her having grown up in such a big city. And we went there. And it got cold real fast. And actually, we arrived there in August 2001 and September 2001, September 11 happened. And we were like, what is this stuff following us? We have bad karma. It was really awful feeling.
LJR: Yeah, but you did, like, start a new life there.
DK: It was also an awesome time. Yeah, we had a yellow lab that we had gotten in Colombia, Shenandoah was his name, brought him with us. And he was awesome. He traveled back and forth to Colombia several times after that…not sure how easy that is to do now. We lived in a neighborhood called JP, Jamaica Plain, which we love, ended up living there for a long time. And yeah, the life we started there was one for my wife figuring out how to be a teacher and kind of grow up. I was also trying to figure myself out. So I worked at a non-profit called citizen schools, which is still going strong. That's a really good organization. And unlike my peers who were there to try to learn how to be teachers, I was trying to figure out what a nonprofit operates like. But we were doing the same role. And I was kind of looking back in a weird spot where I was seen as kind of more of the experienced teacher. And I was young, but I was old compared to my peers. And we did this program called the teaching fellows program at Citizen Schools, which is I think it's now an AmeriCorps thing. But at that point, it wasn't. And Yeah. So one of the coolest things, though, and I tell people when I give people career advice or think back on my life, I think the most powerful experiences I've or I've had or the ones that have paid the most dividends for me and others are these sort of cohorts that have been in me, whether it's a fellowship network or whatever, just because it's a bunch of highly energetic people, in my case, usually some sort of idealism related to it. And that I, still some of my best friends and people doing amazing stuff that I can, you know, give a shout out to or rely on are from that and a few other different cohorts, Dartmouth, also Dartmouth alumni. So, Yeah.
LJR: So in this particular case, though, Dave, you were kind of the old guy around and you said you had an eye toward the nonprofit. You also said earlier in how environmental education and conservation and sustainability in general was important to you. So that was a chance where you were able to pivot in Boston. So can you talk us down that road toward the education of environment?
DK: Absolutely. What actually happened was the fellowship program at citizen schools was only two years, so it was intended to end. And in my second year, I was really looking at environmental studies programs without a lot of…I did some science because I had to at Dartmouth and enjoyed it. And even like audited and immunology class that spring that I was hanging out there. Because I still really liked it as long as I don't have to get graded. Anyway, I guess what I found was I was talking to folks at citizen schools. And one of my colleagues said, why don't you consider the Kennedy School for policy? I was like, what's the Kennedy School? So I feel bad saying that now because some people, a lot of people really try and think about it for a long time. But it kind of surprised me. I was like, I didn't even really know what policy was, to be honest. I thought about it a little through education, but not in a profound way. So thanks to that sort of moment where colleagues said, why don't you try that? I looked into it happened to have a lot of connections through citizen schools, folks who had gone there or had just ties to Harvard. So I ended up going there and studied from 2003 to 2005, a master's in public policy, where it's—at least the degree at the Kennedy School is pretty broad. But I was able to focus and specialize on environment and sustainable development, international development. I gravitated more towards things like negotiation, community organizing and stuff like that. It was kind of magical in the sense that I found an internship at an organization that I ended up working for later for 11 years. But it's called EcoLogic. And the organization just spoke to me. It was like, wow, at that time, the website was great. If we looked at that old website now, you'll say it’s from 2003 I think. But what really spoke to me was it was an organization focused on grassroots leadership and empowerment, which I know is a loaded term, but grassroots organizing and community-led conservation in Latin America, specifically, they worked in Central America and Mexico. And when I worked there, I was always pushing for a little further South to get down to Colombia to go for that... But I guess at the Kennedy School too, it was what is interesting to look back now. I remember some conversations where there were a really small number of folks who profess to care about the environment. And we had some conversations with folks who were kind of like, come on, social policy is more important. And there wasn't really this awareness yet of climate change. The Inconvenient Truth didn't come out till, I believe 2006. And that was a big turning point. But that was after I had left the Kennedy School. So, yeah, I think it was definitely a profound time for me. But what was interesting is I guess this is me kind of ping-ponging back and forth. Looking back, I know I got some sort of cold feet. My daughter was born my final semester at the Kennedy School, and that was huge. And it certainly also just made me want to spend more time with them. And I had these dreamy ideas of going back to Colombia. I had also created through a course, at the Kennedy School, a nonprofit that I've never, never actually made happen, but the idea was to work with former soldiers and guerrillas and paramilitaries, former combatants creating sort of a cohort of environmental Conservation Corps type thing. But I, especially at that time, I think that was insane. I had some professors tell me you don't you know, be careful. Since then, in 2016 there was a peace accord and there's been a lot of work, but a lot of challenges, too, and a lot of people and a lot of tough things happening to people who want to make change. But anyway, the cold feet led me to was actually to apply to a program at a Greenfield Community College in Western Massachusetts. And I went there as a student for a year after spending the summer, the summer in Colombia with my family. And I studied outdoor leadership. And I look back and sometimes I beat myself up about it. Why the hell did I do that? It was a great way to just keep from having to pay off loans. I even took loans for that program. So definitely not living in reality, when it comes to money. But I had this dream, I guess that was not fully articulated, which may be a common thing for me, but I was thinking, Oh yeah, I'll go, I'll go do this thing for a year, then I'll become this mountain guide. And I can take people all over Colombia. It was, if I look back, and I think that was the narrative in my head. And now I have a lot of respect for mountain guides because they don't just do that in a nine month program; for example, the guides and nature guides, et cetera, spend a lifetime learning their skills. But I still, even to this day, I still have a hankering to go take people on trips around Colombia. And I've gotten this close, really close before, but different things have intervened with job situations that have limited that from happening. But in any case, I did that with my wife and I lived in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which is, if you don't know, and a lot of people don't, it's down the Connecticut River at the intersection of route 2 in Massachusetts and 91 to drive north to Dartmouth, up to Norwich. The reason we had had our eyes on that is one of my wife's best friends from college was and still lives in that area. And moved there at the same time we moved up to Boston. It was great to be with them and her family nearby. But we both feel like we just need to get back to Boston. So back to Boston also becomes a theme, I think, for us.
LJR: However, back to Boston, that means you have to leave Boston. So at some point, you're doing, you said an 11-year career at this [Non-profit] yeah, and then you got cold and you needed to go South. That's probably not the narrative, so can you fill it in a little?
DK: So my sister moved to Dallas originally for college and then did other stuff. And then graduated from another place. But she's still there. And over the years. She came to visit us when our kids were born and other events where we meet each other. And she thought JP, Jamaica Plain and Boston looked a lot like to her, had a similar vibe to Austin. In some ways she's right. I think in sort of a Keep Boston Weird/Keep JP Weird sort of thing. And she also knew that my wife wasn't too psyched about the cold all the time. So it's sort of like I’ll check it out. So over the years, we actually visited several times and started to dip our toes into the idea. So we moved here and my wife had gotten a job teaching. She teaches elementary school Spanish and she got a job in a school here where our son who at the time was going into kindergarten could go there as well. And our daughter got into a public magnet program called the Lamar fine Arts Academy here. And I was able to work remotely for EcoLogic at the beginning. And EcoLogic had some tough times, actually this is after the Trump administration took office. And there were a lot of changes made. And I don't know if there's a direct causality here, but there was certainly a major dropoff in funding and support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service that kind of came crashing down on us. And so I was left from one day to the next looking for a new work and started creating a consulting gig where I was just able to do some stuff and earn money and also tap into the networks. I had learned about things like technology and rainforest acoustics and things like that, which are kind of exciting and. Yeah And so from that point, I think my entire time here in Austin has been—the best way to put it is it's been challenging but exciting. But one of the biggest challenges for me was actually my son got really sick and was hospitalized with a thing called Kawasaki Disease. And then later diagnosed as juvenile arthritis. And he's an avid soccer player, total energetic little goofball. And to see him with, like, literally inflamed blood vessels and an inflamed heart, it was very scary. But that in particular made us really and my wife think a lot about our networks and my sister is way up in Dallas. They were super helpful and awesome this the entire time my son was really sick, but we definitely felt a desire to be reconnected to folks we knew in Boston at that time. And that was in 2018 early 2018. So it's been percolating for a while trying to figure out when the right time is. Our daughter's in high school now. What do we do? And it's complicated, I think when you don't want to hurt that kid's development or social relationships. But professionally speaking, in that time, I was able to also do some really fun stuff when I was consulting, connected to some of the networks I connected to before. I was able to go to Sydney, Australia, for a conference and present there on conservation standards and kind of conservation planning, and then to go to Costa Rica to also work on what's called Landscape based conservation through it with an organization called eco agriculture partners. And it was really cool. It was fun and scary at the same time. And then I got a job with an organization called verra, which focuses on standards for sustainable development and carbon finance, and originally really started out not only with the express purpose of developing a voluntary carbon market. And so I've also bounced between these ideas, these ideas of, you know, international grassroots development and what do we do about the climate problem, big scale. So all these things are interrelated, but I can't say I've had a laser focus. So but with EcoLogic previously, I was able to live in Guatemala for summer with my family when my daughter was 4. And then with Vera, I was able to go to Germany and then to Guatemala to lead a retreat. There's an international kind of retreat of all of our partners. So I think for me, bringing people together and exploring the world is really what makes me tick.
LJR: Yeah so you've gotten a lot of great kind of back-door experience to do that. And one day I can see you leading those mountains. But with the work kind of as this environmental generalist, you do have these networks and can kind of find your way, wherever you need to go. So now it sounds like the next the Back to Boston is happening again.
DK: So, yeah, that's on the horizon, I guess I should say, where I am now. It's strange because I was in Texas thinking, OK, I need to stop this remote work. I really want to reconnect and work with somebody, some folks together in the same spot, whether that's teaching or something else. So I actually applied to teaching jobs here and I applied to a job that I got at the University of Texas. And my final interview was the night before everything shut down the March 12th, 2020. So I wasn't able and still haven't been able to work in any other setting than on Zoom with my colleagues. And it's that program is called Planet Texas 2050. And the focus is very Texas-focused and very much about building climate resilience in different ways, whether that's from the geosciences or community empowerment. And I'm basically helping a bunch of different really dynamic researchers collaborate better. And so I'm a facilitator and the administrator really. And I am assuming at this point that. I'll be able to continue that role for a bit, and I don't know how much longer I may do that for quite a while longer, because a lot of what we can learn here and do here has great lessons for the world. It's not just about Texas, you know. But I think I also have really a lot of interest in Boston. There are quite a few really good organizations looking at things like international agricultural development. And there are foundations there, philanthropists that do some really neat work. So I think the fact that you called me an environmental generalist is a great way to put it. A friend of mine who's the director of an organization called Trees, Water People based in Fort Collins, Colorado—we talk to each other for advice and just to keep in touch—and he recently said, hey, you don't need to beat yourself up if you're not a specialist. I don't hire specialists unless it's for a consulting job that we want something very special for. I am looking for people like you who are versatile. And I came out of that call feeling a breath of fresh air because often I feel like I'm a, you know, a millimeter deep and an ocean wide. So I think sometimes there's insecurity related to that where I'm not an expert.
LJR: But you see, it's one thing to be millimeter wide and do nothing with it. But when you're in the light and can then draw the connections and build network across the Great Lakes, you know, I think it’s a real gift.
DK: I've had people tell me in over the years, do you know everybody? And I'm like, no. I don't and didn't think I did. But I really love matchmaking and finding…and I do a lot of, I guess, follow up generous emails saying, hey, you should meet this person. It wasn't requested, but I just see those possibilities and that excites me. I think the creative side of me is excited by what if maybe which is kind of how I've approached various parts of my life, right? So, yeah, there's been a lot of that, you know, to go grab a parachute jump.
LJR: So and it's not like you choose one thing and turn your back on the other. So I know that you've kind of kept your hand in some way with Colombia. So tell me a little bit about that.
DK: Yeah, absolutely. Sure thank you. Back in 2017 when EcoLogic was having trouble and I was also working remotely, I started creating this pet project, if you will, called the Colombia Rising Project. And right now the Columbia Rising Project really consists of a Twitter feed that I try to retweet cool stuff happening there, as well as some isolated small support projects which are right now really just sweat equity support, currently helping an organization of mostly younger people, not all, but a bunch of really cool Colombian 20-, 30-somethings that are looking at the way the tropical glaciers are receding in a unfortunately rapid fashion. And they're trying to do something about it. And so I'm helping them translate this really cool book that they have produced and also joined forces with them just to amplify their message. And it's called Comres Blanca's. And they do work in other countries, too, like Mexico. But in Colombia, they've got a lot of energy. And I also have this crazy cockamamy dream, which I think is probably going to have to get scoped differently. But I've gone ahead and told folks about it and everyone I've told about it is excited. And there are some other models that are similar, like in Chile and of course, the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. But the idea that I had actually when I was visiting Colombia for my 40th birthday. And my best friend, there we go on adventures together, we were with a group up in an area called the Sierra Nevada Del Kukui National Park. And I was having trouble sleeping because of the altitude. So I walked around in the full moon at night. I was like, oh, it would be cool (I don't know why I would think this when I was having not feeling well, you know) I was like, why don't we make a trail that goes across all of Colombia. Let's do it, let's find a way. And so I started talking about it. And we got maps and, you know, GPS, different waypoints and stuff. I've talked to different folks who were like, yeah, and other folks: you should probably start small and just start around Cali and build out from there. And see how the nodes work. And it's more than anything, it's sort of like I've just threw it up on the wall and maybe it'll stick at some point.
LJR: Yeah, sometimes you have to do that. I love that altitude-induced…
DK: Yeah, but no, I think if anything, I can see myself in a more humble fashion. My wife and I talked about it pretty much every day about wanting to move back there at some point. Not full time, though, you know, we're at this point now we're moving back to Boston, where there's a pretty sizable Colombian community as well. But to spend part of our time, she's a teacher. She certainly can spend summers there and stuff. But to be able to bridge the two countries, start a school in the region outside of Cali It's just beautiful. The mountains there and all the different little micro adventures you can have kind of gets us keeps us excited.
LJR: Yeah, well, it sounds like the road so far has been exciting. And I do not doubt that the next ones will be. It's been so exciting to hear about the ways that you've found the connections and found the networks and found where home really feels like it is. So thanks so much for sharing all of this with us.
DK: Thanks, Leslie. I appreciate it.