Enriching Youth Through the Outdoors with Rob Barnowsky

[00:00:01] Fly Shop, The Ugly Bug Fly Shop, The Ugly Bug Fly Shop, The Ugly Bug Podcast. Today I sit down with Rob Barnowsky and we discuss enriching the youth through the outdoors. Rob's unique individual as a full-time guide or part-time guide as well as a counselor.

[00:00:30] Rob brings a unique angle to the industry and has made a difference in a lot of kids' lives. I think you'll really enjoy today's episode. First let's step away for a quick word from our sponsor. The Ugly Bug Podcast is proudly sponsored by Fly Omen.

[00:00:49] Why Omen rooted fly-fishing apparel and accessories, challenging the traditional move, designed by English or English? Tell Rob. How are you Blake? Good man, yourself. I'm not bad. Just making it through Wyoming winter this year. Kind of been brutal. Actually legit winter. A little legit real winter.

[00:01:07] Yeah, fill the reservoirs finally. I went out and tried to dig out my boat a couple hours ago. Yeah. I spent about an hour of it. I spent an hour and a half helping Devon and gave up on mine. How's mine look? Yours is better because it's close.

[00:01:24] It's further away from the big barn. Mine's got a good five foot drift in front of it. Good. And the old diesel tractor jelled up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not an operational at this point. Yeah, damn cold here. Yeah, it's been brutal. Damn cold everywhere across the country.

[00:01:41] That's I was talking to my brother-in-law in San Antonio. He said, man, it's been a cold winter here. So I don't want to hear about it. He said, let's move 50 degrees some days. I think it's actually going to like, there's chance to snow and like central California.

[00:01:54] That's what I've heard. It's like a blizzard warning in LA County and yeah. Good for the natural gas market. Yeah, good. That's right. Invest in natural gas. Yeah. Yeah. So you do all kinds of stuff. Obviously you guide quite a bit.

[00:02:11] Used to guide full time but you move into kind of a different role now. But maybe you can explain to some of our listeners, you know, your normal kind of years as far as what you do for work and kind of how we move through it. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:26] So as Blake said, no, I used to work full time guidance. I'd left. I'm trained as a counselor. I'm a licensed counselor in the state of Wyoming. So I have a couple masters degrees. Work for a while in counseling and need to break.

[00:02:42] Like I, you know, live in Wyoming. There's a sort of fishing bunch and I was like, I can't be in an office five days a week for 52 weeks a year for the rest of my life.

[00:02:54] And so at some point I left started guiding and worked for you full time for, for quite a while. And after a few years, my wife said it's time to grow up Peter Pan. Well, and I had a good opportunity where I could keep guiding and working counseling.

[00:03:15] So I took a job in the school district where I work with gifted and talented students. And so I work, you know, work normal like teacher schedule. So I work, you know, starting in early September and until early June. And then I can guide weekends.

[00:03:29] I can guide summers and I get to fish more too. Yes. Nice, too. Right. Yeah. You know, when you're guiding for a living, sometimes it means tough to carve out fishing that isn't in whether no one else wants to fish it. Right.

[00:03:45] If you're really trying to make some money. So did that. And one of the passions that I'd had moving from a ways back was that Wyoming has so many interesting jobs in outdoor industries and not all of them require college educations. No, I went college.

[00:04:03] I think it's valuable, but it's not for everybody. And there's really neat passion industry jobs where I always felt like I was blessed to be able to guide, lucky to be able to make that work.

[00:04:15] I thought, you know, we need to have people that, you know, I came into it when I was 25. You know, when you start like talking to kids about these kinds of recreational and passion based jobs when they're younger.

[00:04:31] So they see them as careers or as kind of alternatives to careers or supplements to careers. And it was kind of things. And so one of the things I was passionate about was how do we get more young people involved in fly fishing and outdoor industries,

[00:04:49] whether it's being a guide, whether it's doing shuttles or making lunches or working at a lodge? I mean there's so many jobs attached to the industry. You know, taxidermy and I mean you look around Wyoming and Casper and there's outdoor industry jobs everywhere.

[00:05:05] Retail jobs and so what I did was I worked with the state of Wyoming and we started a camp where we bring in youth with disabilities that

[00:05:17] The state has kind of said, well they might need some extra help making sure they make a good transition from high school into career, right? They need, may meet some extra support finding where they need to be. Right.

[00:05:28] And so working with you and then other people I know in the outdoor industry is that, well can we do like a camp where we bring these kids in?

[00:05:37] We let them hang out with a guide, guided fly fishing which for a lot of people is really remarkable experience right? I mean it's for me. That's a unique experience.

[00:05:49] And so we do that and then we do these workshops where you, you know, your gracious enough to do mock interviews for me and give them feedback on all of here's how you interview.

[00:05:59] And we have fly tying and then we go to retail stores another retail store around town with Dr. and Belle kind of jobs are here. What's the career base like what's it look like five years down the road 10 years down the road?

[00:06:11] And how do you make a career in the outdoor industry? And it's been really well received. I think it's important for a few things. I mean, it's kind of rambling on. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, you're telling yourself. But far away.

[00:06:25] I think it's important for a few things. One is that if our rivers are going to be cared about and if our natural resources are going to be cared about, we need the younger generation to care about them. For sure. I'm not an old person.

[00:06:35] So hopefully got a long time left on this earth. But I think that if you care about catching trout, you care about hunting animals, you care about going hiking and at first teen area. You care about any of that kind of outdoor recreation stuff.

[00:06:52] We have to have younger people that are passionate about it too. Well, otherwise at some point the carers dies off, right? No one cares about it anymore. Additionally, outdoor recreation seems to be just growing, right?

[00:07:05] I mean, as an industry in states that like Wyoming and Montana and the West and really all over it, it's an important industry for states. We think of Wyoming here what two years ago we surpassed.

[00:07:20] How do our recreation became the number two industry in the state behind minerals? Right. Right. But that was a huge hurdle to surpass farming and ranching and as state like Wyoming. And obviously Montana is going through the same Utah is doing it right Colorado obviously.

[00:07:34] Yeah, the same boat. And we have something special here that people want to come be a part of. And so we need people in the industry that are passionate about and care about it. So yeah, I think, so now that's what I do in a year.

[00:07:45] I work for the school district for nine months. I work with gifted and talented students as a counselor. And then weekends when I can't I guide. And then I guide summers. And then I host camps. A little bit too.

[00:08:00] And so kind of three different jobs I always joke. But to me they're all fun jobs. Yeah, I really enjoy all them. They provide nice balance in life. Sure. So the the gifted talented program. How do you?

[00:08:15] Is it a testing based thing where kids qualify for that or how does it is? It is. Yeah. So gifted and talented. It's not like. In a lot of things, it's like a definitive yes or no. But gifted and talented is a kind of an educational term, right?

[00:08:32] So it's not universal. So if you went to even another school district they may say, well, this is what we defined gifted and talented as. But in our district, I work in yeah, it's a testing thing.

[00:08:46] And so what we do is we look at kids and I do the testing for that too and other identification for the district. And so we look and. We say, well, what we're interested in is not so much maybe how much you know, but what's your reasoning ability?

[00:09:02] So when you think of intelligence, they're different components of it. So sometimes we're looking at how fast can he solve problems? How well can you solve problems? You have to hold immediate attention or how strong is your long term recall of information?

[00:09:17] Or how strong is your crystallized kind of intelligence and things that you've developed through culture, language. And so what we really look at is more of the reasoning piece and strong on the non-verbal piece,

[00:09:31] where it's more based on like how well can you solve new problems to you? How well can you look at a problem that you've never seen before? And reason you're way through it by figuring it out. Yeah.

[00:09:43] So how many roughly how many students are in the program or you know, participate in the program? Yeah, so it's a small program. I mean, I'd say right now we're somewhere around 65, 70 kids that participate and then there's probably

[00:09:56] that number that are identified that maintain enrollment in a typical general education. Yeah. So the kids in the program all attend one specific school or do you have them spread out in? No, that's right. Yeah. So they in the program they're all in one school.

[00:10:13] So we have all gifted and talented kids and then close classroom. So it's a self-contained classroom with teachers that are especially certified and give the education. And so they're all gifted kids pretty much all day, right?

[00:10:27] So they're all around kids that are in that very high intellectual ability for the entirety of their day. We do that from first grade through fifth grade and then middle school for a few years they have the

[00:10:42] option of taking a few classes that are gifted and talented but not all of them. Yeah. And then those kids moving on to high school, then are they the ability to take college courses quicker? Yeah.

[00:10:54] So I mean, I think what you'll find in high school and this is a reason there's not a big need for it is that when you get to high school you have advanced placement classes or you

[00:11:02] have international back glory at classes or you have both these things start taking college classes, you take advanced placement classes. And so there isn't as much of a need so it's a more broad based open to a lot of kids that would benefit from that type of thing.

[00:11:15] Yeah. And so when you move on to the camp structure, you don't necessarily dealing with gifted talents at kids but no kids. Yeah. So we say what they kind of know the federal government says is youth with disabilities and that can be a lot of things.

[00:11:31] I mean that can be something like a learning disability that's going to maybe impact the way that you take in information and learn things. And so you would be benefited and society would be benefited by you having support finding

[00:11:48] good placement and accommodations so that you find a job where your independent working and paying taxes, right? I mean that's what we kind of want. Sure. I think is the value of work.

[00:12:01] You know, you know, because that's all you do is work but but I think that there's value and work from social aspects and meaning to life. And you know, I mean I hate to see my parents wherever right but there's a good feeling of

[00:12:16] a good day's work, right? Yeah. I don't think it's going to be accomplished something. Yeah. Whether you're guiding counseling, digging ditch, it doesn't matter. There's a good sense that you used your day productively. Yeah. I think that's a good work placement.

[00:12:30] Some people don't get that feeling and that's kind of part of what the camp is for is to find people that it matches them to a place where they're going to feel like at the end of the day they accomplish something.

[00:12:39] They have social life there, they have meaning there, they have some value there, right? Yeah. So through the camp we obviously play a small component in that but you know, someone on the retail side, a little bit on the guiding side but they get some other exposure.

[00:12:54] I guess if let's start with our aspect of it and that we, you know, we do some work interviews, they spend some time in the retail store kind of job shadow follow around retail associates on the floor sort of thing. Yep.

[00:13:10] And then you guys spend some time at our lodge so they get some exposure there. I assume I really haven't participated in that aton but I assume we're with Lori. Yep from a cook's chef standpoint. A cook and then checking in guy or checking in clients, right?

[00:13:27] There's still like there's a, she asked kind of a blended job where she's running retail but also like large management where she's cleaning, cooking, kind of attending to guests needs. Her husband has maintenance right?

[00:13:41] I mean so when you're out in the country at a lot, you kind of got to be a jack of all trades in some ways, right? And so we have that component too where we, it's not just like, oh, this is going to be your

[00:13:52] job where you just cook eggs every morning but Lori's job is much more complex than that. And much more time intensive than just cooking three meals a day. She's setting menus and shopping and cleaning and yeah, definitely a Swiss army knife. She is.

[00:14:06] Pick it up ice for people's cocktails and yeah, we're running people in an attempt. I mean, yeah, she does everything. I mean, yep. Yep. And then is other, other job opportunity exposure? I know you guys have spent some time with taxidermists. Yep.

[00:14:22] So the light guy, if I remember right. Yeah, so we do, we do a few things which we've done Marina as we've done taxidermy. We've done actually like more like just strictly recreation. So they, the fun town. What's that? Oh yeah. In town. I put golf.

[00:14:41] I'm trying to remember. Yeah. And so you know this is a great opportunity too for them to see if there's other trends of recreation. So we've done gone and been like, there's careers here too right?

[00:14:51] So she said, yeah, if she talked to them about like, here's kind of what you need to have a career in a place like this. Like talking about people that need to be able to fix arcade games and do also some kind of retail and food things.

[00:15:05] We've done different types of retail too. So we've done more hunting based things where trying to match youth with their interests, right? So everyone's going to love fishing or everyone's going to love fly fishing, but maybe they're super passionate about hunting rifles. Or they're really passionate about backpacking.

[00:15:26] Yeah, so we try to expose them to a variety of things around that makes sense for Wyoming. I mean, I think I love fly fishing. I think you know if you're listening to this, you probably like fly fishing, right? Right.

[00:15:41] There's a ton of ways to enjoy Wyoming and we try to expose as many as we can through Casper. Yeah, so we've done bike shops and ski shops and had them look at like what is a person that were some bike repair do?

[00:15:57] And what's the market like for jobs in that area too? And so those are all parts of Casper's economy too that we don't think about maybe quite as much, but they're still bike shops and a lot of mountain biking. And road biking that goes on around here.

[00:16:11] Yeah, good. It's a hunting component obviously. Good luck trying to find a hotel room September 20. Exactly. Casper the antelope hunting. There's hunters everywhere. Well, exactly. You think of Casper as a town of what? I mean, high 50,000 people.

[00:16:25] And we have, you know, at least three retail stores that cater primarily in my mind to a lot of hunting. I mean, a couple of more spins and you have waggers and you have Rocky Mountain Discount as at least three. Yeah, and a Wyoming gun company.

[00:16:40] And so I think gun ownership hunting, recreational shooting is a hard-a-wile in culture too. So we try to expose them to what kind of jobs might be there too. Yeah. He's understanding with bow hunting.

[00:16:51] So we've had that meet with bow texts and talked to them about like what it's like to get into being a bow tack and what the job is. Yeah. The, I think the fastest growing like business industry within the state of Wyoming,

[00:17:04] it's they've done a fabulous job at recruiting big time gun manufacturers, right? Between whether be in Magpul and Kel Tack and I think Kel Tack with it go to Rock Springs recently. Yeah. Kaffaroo just moved to Everton right hunting pack companies.

[00:17:19] So well, I mean, I mean, I guess when you think of states that you'd want to live in and hunt in. And if that's kind of what your industry's Wyoming is a hell of a place to be. Yeah. Lots of public land, really pretty favorable draws for residents.

[00:17:37] So we live here right if there is a more here too, right? You could have a shot on winners. You can't even celebrate this snow and in the cold and. And so yeah, I mean, I think that's a huge piece of one.

[00:17:51] I'm going to see economy too that we want to expose them to. So it's not just purely. You have to do fly fishing and that's the industry. There's a ton of recreational opportunity in Wyoming.

[00:18:00] Yeah, if you know, if any of the listeners like if if they have children that they think might be, you know, good for a program like that, how do they go about, you know, seeking out or support for that? Yeah, support for. Yeah.

[00:18:14] So it's interesting how this works. What the federal government does is they through a match based program of funding to every state they say. For what they call vocational rehabilitation. I say, well, for every 20 when this is rough.

[00:18:30] So someone maybe an expert in the field, but they say roughly I'm going to say 25. Since that the state invests the federal government says we'll give you 75 cents. I think it's closer to like 78 cents and 22 cents or you know, less than I checked.

[00:18:44] But it's a great investment for each state either way because what's happening is. If the state is administering a program then to help people find independence and employment rather than be on disability programs.

[00:18:59] And I think the whole philosophy of it makes a lot of sense is that people's quality of life is vastly improved by working, right? Rather than being on disability now if I could be retired right now and I can fish wherever.

[00:19:11] I wanted to have my be a different story but that's not my life, right? So my life is vastly improved socially. And psychologically, by working. And so it's a great investment for each state.

[00:19:27] One of the focuses that's been out for I would say the last 10 to 15 years has been well, if we wait for people to be 18 and then we watch them go through a series of failures and employment because they have a disability.

[00:19:42] Then we've lost a lot of time of investment right? So the federal government has said, well we should invest maybe a little sooner. And so they've made a real concern to get into high schools and say these are the kids that we identify and believe would benefit.

[00:19:57] So if you have a child or a family member or anyone that you think may have some type of disability that would impact their employment or their access to education

[00:20:10] or their ability to successfully graduate a normal path through employment, these are great programs that can help you with all sorts of things. But one, even just the identification of that, right?

[00:20:23] So recognizing sometimes it gets missed in educational settings and so having them come in and say well we'll pay for an expert to diagnose and figure out what kind of accommodations might mean necessary,

[00:20:34] what kind of training we might need, what kind of support we can provide to make sure that you're successful. So you'd go find your local Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Every state has one, they're all over the place in Wyoming.

[00:20:50] They serve really every major community and if you're in a smaller community they don't I mean I casey-alming as someone that goes there and travels there to work with high school kids, right? And that's how big KC is but I assume it's a couple hundred.

[00:21:05] A couple hundred, a couple hundred right? So I don't think there's a four-way stop in the community in the community. Yeah, so it's it's a small place.

[00:21:12] So Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and and then they can connect you with services that can be beneficial for you as you move forward. I'm trying to find access to education and employment that's beneficial for you. Cool. Yeah.

[00:21:29] So our kids allowed to be in the program back to back years or is it just a kind of one and no. So your camp specifically is it more one time and then they can come back.

[00:21:41] Yeah, I mean I think it's funny when we first started it we went through the first one and it you know the first time you do anything you're going to learn a lot from it, right? Sure.

[00:21:51] And we got to the end of it and they were all like Rob can we stay longer? You know, which was great to hear.

[00:21:58] I was like, yeah, we we've succeeded because beyond I think all the educational pieces of like exposure to varieties of employment is the social aspect of we stay at the lodge for these sometimes so we have overnight components where we.

[00:22:16] We're going to have unstructured time some my unstructured time right, but it's going to be we're not sitting around watching TV. We're going to go play card games room play darts of the weather's nice.

[00:22:29] We'll go out and do what we call yard Olympics right and you know, we'll get to make new relationships and friendships which really if you're going to be successful in life that's a huge component of it right like you have to be able to communicate with people.

[00:22:43] I would argue that was probably the biggest benefit of college for me was connections and relationships right where would you be without him? Yeah. I mean, without your social skills where are you? Yeah.

[00:22:56] And I think that the vast majority of the accessibility blisters tell the kids at work with us even if you work in a lighthouse. You get to have to interact with someone that's bringing the material right? Well, yeah, 100%. But like there's not jobs out there anymore.

[00:23:10] The world has become more flat right and the requirements of. Socialization and getting along with people and group and teamwork are so important. So that's another component of what we do too is it's not just let's expose you to these things and then drop you off.

[00:23:28] It's let's hope we make some meaningful relationships with people. Yeah, we have some friends we can move forward to move forward out of this way. And so yeah, it's a it's a bigger bigger basically. I think a bunch of people.

[00:23:44] That's one of the more common questions I get from just random people all the time is like, how do you even get your foot in the door or learn about.

[00:23:53] How do you be a large manager? How do you become a fishing guide right like the weird hurdles of like people don't understand, you know, if you want to go. In engineering these. There's there's a ladder that you take to get there right there's a defined path.

[00:24:09] When you get into some of these auxiliary jobs, it's like how do you go about.

[00:24:14] You know, whatever it is being a backcountry ski guide or you know, a fishing guide or yeah, how do those components really work is is always kind of puzzling and and I think often people don't realize like.

[00:24:27] In theory the fishing industry is much like the ski industry or any of these other hospitality industries that.

[00:24:34] There takes a lot of people to operate it effectively right when you get into lodging and cleaning and sourcing, you know, food and materials and providing the quality experience is a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, I would agree and I think people.

[00:24:52] I think people look outside from you know, outside into the fishing industry and the gosh got fishing guides and probably head guide right but it's it's a complex industry beyond what people really. I think appreciate some things yeah. Well cool thanks for joining us so much appreciate it.

[00:25:09] Places people can find you know you're not a giant social media guy. Yeah, if you were to post that be Instagram or word of people track you down. I hate to say this. I know longer do social media and so I'm with you.

[00:25:26] Yeah, I I and I'll probably get back on at some point but I don't do social media so if you want to track me down. You can Google my name and probably find my phone number. But I prefer you not do that, but.

[00:25:41] Call the ugly bug call the ugly bug and they can pass a message on. I just don't I have two small kids. I have a dog. I have three jobs.

[00:25:49] I just I lost time for that part of my life for a while and now I'll get back into it. My kids are getting a little older more independent so I'll get back into it. But for now, you know, call me everybody to get old me.

[00:26:04] I like it. I like it. Thanks for all. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the ugly bug podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode please consider subscribing and leaving your review on apple podcast.

[00:26:14] And if you have questions or feedback reach out to us via email at info at uglybugpodcast.com or leave a comment on our social networks.