Ty Adams

From professional experiences as a wildland firefighter, alligator surveyor, newspaper reporter, magazine editor, green RV builder, founder of an educational nonprofit and marketing director, I’m working on mastering the jack-of-all-trades thing. I’ve ridden a rodeo bull, helped excavate a fossilized mammoth, launched a solar powered food cart, lived in mountain cold of 50 below and desert heat of 120 above and camped in the ruins of an Italian monastery (never again). After all this, I find deep resonance with the concept of cultivating people to lead passionate, fulfilling and interesting lives brimming with exploration, adventure, community and service. I like to think of myself as a Montexagonian, having spent most of my life in those three states with stints in exotic locales such as Spain, Saudi Arabia and New Jersey. When not consulting the oracles of Google Ads and Analytics, you’ll likely find me at the NE Portland homestead I share with my partner and two young ones, where mornings start well before sunrise and sometimes involve taming “dragon cats” to the soundtrack of top-volume Tejano music.

Being a present and emotionally available dad. People and how we communicate. Learning that seeks to stoke curiosity rather than education that seeks to cure it. Lifting others up. Making college more student-focused and early education more outdoors oriented. Nonprofits. Music. Travel. Renewable energy and alternative building practices, especially underground dome homes! Sustainability and how to live in balance with the rest of the natural world.

How to make college better by treating students as humans to be cultivated, rather than objects to be sorted. Also, why we should develop renewably-powered hobbit house communities.

Going wild on a drum kit. Also decent with a chainsaw and can do some pretty solid Harry Potter character accents