Day Fire Podcast

This week Clint and Dawson sit down with Laura Marsh. Laura is a field ornithologist and conservation biologist. She is the founder of Nova Conservation, an organization dedicated to connecting adventurers to conservation biology by providing unique, research-focused, ethical ecotours. She has worked as a biologist at various institutions, including the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. Laura also volunteers at Chattanooga Audubon Society and other conservation societies when she's not chasing birds in the field or her two young boys around the house.

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This week Clint and Dawson sat down with Kurt Smith. Kurt Smith grew up in Lake Tahoe and first faced off with Yosemite’s big walls and rock climbs in 1980. 41 years and thousands of routes later, his accomplishments include three years of competing on the National and World Cup circuit, with wins at the Nationals, twelfth place at the World Cup in 1992, plus a top-20 ranking. He has spent 4 decades opening up new routes in Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Clear Creek Canyon, Rifle, El Potrero Chico, Mexico and other popular climbing areas, with a mission to create “the best lines regardless of the grade.” With over 500 First Ascents under his belt he is not slowing down in his quest for new lines.

But the apogee of his involvement with climbing may be his affiliation and work with the Access Fund (www.accessfund.org) over the years, and his Kickin’ Access Tours. Rock & Ice Magazine named the Kickin Access Tour number 7 of the "Top 10 Most Important Climbing Events of 2001." Kurt spent 6 years crisscrossing the country to throw these climber access events, raising over $100,000 and signing up over 3000 members for the Access Fund. Due to Kurt's huge success in his fundraising efforts for the AF, he was elected to the AF's Board of Directors in 2001, on which he served a 3-year term.

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This week Dawson and Clint talked with Marc Hunt. If you have ever enjoyed a day of kayaking, canoeing, or rafting on the Ocoee, then you have Marc to thank! Marc was the co-founder of Sunburst Adventures - the first outfitter to operate on the Ocoee. His journey includes passion - business - court rooms - politics - and yes, a lot of paddling! It's easy to take the memories made and the adventures experienced for granted, but the Ocoee as we know it today is not the Ocoee Marc experienced in the 70's. It took building a business, learning how to market that business, and an epic battle with TVA! He has paddled many rivers in the U.S, plus Central and South America and Nepal. Marc has sat on a number of non-profit boards and served as an advisor for initiatives that are designed to give back and protect the outdoors that we all love so much. His wife, Cat Potts, and his son, Colin Hunt, are both accomplished paddlers as well. They live in Asheville, Nc and even though Marc has paddled rivers around the world - he still says nothing is quiet like being on the Ocoee! PLUS - who names the rapids?

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This week Clint and Dawson sat down with Brad DeVaney Head of Product Development at Litespeed Bicycles. Brad's life on the bike began at 5 and at eight years old he went from top regional BMX racer to national level talent, traveling the country on a national circuit as a factory team rider for Schwinn. As DeVaney grew, so too did his love of riding; if there was a start line and finish line, DeVaney was in. He raced for a road team in the mid ’80s that provided the team with used Team 7-Eleven bikes—providing DeVaney his first experience riding a titanium bike. In the late ‘80s, he discovered a penchant for triathlon, and mountain bike racing.

While working in shops, doing wheel builds and even his own custom frame painting job on the side while in college in the late 1980s, DeVaney would occasionally build show bikes for Litespeed in Chattanooga. The work led to a part-time gig, and with a mind full of concepts and ideas, he challenged the company—during an era of pretty staid round-tubed designs— on how to change the shape of titanium tubes in the interest of improved performance. It wasn’t long before Litespeed offered him a full-time job on the design team.

It wasn’t long before Litespeed—and DeVaney—became in-demand with in-the-know pros. DeVaney was the man in charge creating many of the rebadged Litespeed bikes that riders like Lance Armstrong were riding under different auspices. Once passing muster of the pros (and DeVaney), many of his progressive designs made their way into production and came to define the point of differentiation between Litespeed and any other titanium bike manufacturers.

“I was creating benchmarks, and always wanted to do something remarkable with titanium,” DeVaney says of his job. ”And I still do.”

This week Dawson and Clint talk with the youngest calendar-year Triple Crowners - Sammy Potter and Jackson Parell – both 21 years old! It all started on January 1st of this year and concluded on October 22nd and in those 10 months; their journey took them over 8,000 miles of trails and culminated in the completion of the Appalachian Trail, The Pacific Crest Trail, and The Continental Divide Trail. We covered a lot of ground and shared a lot of stories in our conversation: logistics, gear, motivation, personalities, animal encounters, challenges, and much more!

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This week Clint and Dawson sit down with Joe Pulliam. Joe, is best known as co-founder and long-time CEO of Dagger, Joe began canoeing in the late 1960’s, and started building and paddling kayaks in 1973. He entered the outdoor industry full-time in 1982 as director of marketing and sales of Perception. In 1988, with three others he founded Dagger, which became one of the most successful paddlesports businesses in history. Joe led a successful sale of Dagger in 1998, then worked for Watermark Sports, the acquiring company for seven years, as executive vice president, and was deeply involved in several acquisitions made by Watermark. From 2005 until 2017, he was an independent consultant, focused primarily on the outdoor industry, with the final 8 years of that span focused entirely on Jackson Kayak. Joe also co-founded The Whitewater Company, a rafting outfitter on the Pigeon River in Tennessee.

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Enjoy this selection of stories from Day Fire guests!

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This week Clint and Dawson sit down with Ali Whittier. We had such a good time during her recording, Ali has an infectious personality and gets so excited talking about cycling, racing, family, friends and life.

Ali was born and raised in Iowa. She grew up a dancer (traveling to Europe for a tour at age 8) and still loves to dance to this day. She was also a team sport person through school. She married her husband, Spencer, in 2012 and the pair moved to Chattanooga in 2014. That same year she joined the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee corporate communications team and still works on that team today in public affairs, managing the company’s social media presence, employee ambassador program and its WellTuned wellness content site. After meeting her future husband in 2010, she got her first road bike. Ali soon competed in a couple sprint triathlons and then focused solely on racing bikes.

In 2012, Ali began her bike racing career in cyclocross on the Hub Endurance Cycling Team, also taking a leadership role on the team helping to put on races and practices each year as well as design the team’s kits. She and Spencer traveled to UCI races across the country as well as races around the southeast – that included approximately 20 races between September and December. They raced CX nats in Asheville in 2016 where Spencer won his division and became National Champion. Later that year, Ali won the Tennessee State Mountain Bike Championships in a rainy, muddy race that mirrored her favorite cyclocross conditions. Ali then learned the ropes of road racing, joining the Scenic City Velo women’s race team. It was then she began working with Coach Steve Carpenter who still coaches her today as an endurance gravel and mountain bike racer.

Ali and her Motor Mile Racing teammate, Stephen Lebovitz, will compete as a coed duo in Breck Epic in August 2022. She trains with a group of Chattanooga female cyclists who also race and have mentored her throughout her cycling career.

This week Clint and Dawson talk with Jessica Howell-Edwards. Jessica is the Program Director for Wild Cumberland. They are dedicated to protecting the wilderness, native species, and the ecology of Cumberland Island. The complex history of Cumberland Island requires public oversight and stewardship; their purpose is to help educate the public and hold decision-makers accountable. Wild Cumberland supporters work together to ensure the long-term stewardship and preservation of Cumberland Island and its natural ecosystem.

Jessica is a lifelong Georgia resident and mom of four who currently resides in DeKalb County. She offers more than two decades of journalism, marketing, and activism experience – and most importantly, a passion for protecting the native ecology of Cumberland Island.

Jessica writes: "Wilderness experience can transform you, and I firmly believe that those who seek that experience will find it. More than 25 years ago, I was fortunate to have my first wilderness experience on Cumberland Island; because of that, I am committed to ensuring my children and future grandchildren have the same opportunity. I have always been completely captivated by (and drawn to) the Georgia coast: an underappreciated tapestry of rivers, streams, swamps, estuaries, and islands. In that constant state of flux, teeming with life, is where I feel most at peace."

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This week Clint and Dawson sat down with Will Skelton. Will is an author, a conservationist, a champion for our public lands and has a lifetime of adventure and travel. Will has always loved travel of any kind and has traveled extensively throughout the world, including visiting all 50 states, including several times for most of them, and all the Canadian provinces, and has visited over 70 countries in all continents except Antarctica. His favorite countries world-wide are New Zealand, Canada, and Peru and his favorite US states are Utah, New Mexico, and California.