More Than Just A Summer Job
How Working at Summer Camp Sets You Up For Success
Working at camp is a challenging and rewarding job that both requires and teaches real skills – but don’t just take our word for it! We asked some notable Falling Creek alumni to describe how being a counselor made them the people they are today. Find out why they consider a job/internship at camp to be an invaluable experience, and one that sets young people up for future success, no matter what career they pursue.
An Investment in Your Future
John Chidsey is the former chief executive of Burger King, who in 2019 became the CEO of Subway. He’s leading the restaurant chain with the most locations in the United States, and second most locations in the world–and he’s also a former Falling Creek Camp counselor who credits his success as a leader to his experience at camp. “Working at Falling Creek was a great adventure for me. Not only was it fun, but it taught me a lot of life lessons that I continue to use today,” said Chidsey. “I believe it made me the leader I am today.”
Chidsey worked at Falling Creek in 1980, and his ties to camp run deep. “My brother Haynes was a camper and a counselor for 12 to 15 years. It’s part of our family,” Chidsey said. He describes working at camp as both an incredible responsibility and opportunity. “I think working as a summer camp counselor is one of the best experiences you can have. It’s one of the most unique positions to teach you a lot of life skills. You can develop teamwork, responsibility, leadership, and empathy.”
Chidsey knows a lot about what it takes to be a successful businessman, but he doesn’t necessarily recommend pursuing a desk job or office internship alone. The camp counselor experience builds you into a well-rounded individual and hones your leadership skills. Chidsey said, “Spending a year or two doing something like this teaches you things you would never learn in the corporate world, and those life skills I would argue are as important as anything you would learn in a corporate internship–you really need both to be a successful person.”
Chidsey knows a lot about what it takes to be a successful businessman, but he doesn’t necessarily recommend pursuing a desk job or office internship alone. The camp counselor experience builds you into a well-rounded individual and hones your leadership skills. Chidsey said, “Spending a year or two doing something like this teaches you things you would never learn in the corporate world, and those life skills I would argue are as important as anything you would learn in a corporate internship–you really need both to be a successful person.”
Transferable Skills
Staff members at Falling Creek contribute to making ours a community with purpose, united by a shared code of values and common goals. Throughout the summer, they hone skills such as critical thinking, initiative, resilience, responsibility, integrity, accountability, and adaptability. As Chidsey said, “All these skills play a piece in your life no matter what you do down the road. I would tell any parent that this is a fantastic job opportunity for their child. You can go off and do corporate things later in life, but you will get things out of this that you wouldn’t get anywhere else.”
Listing a camp counselor position on a resume means much more than listing a fun seasonal job. Your camp experience proves you have a good work ethic; communication, counseling, and leadership skills; patience and empathy; and collaboration and teamwork skills. This is something that successful people like John Chidsey look for when putting together their teams. “Actually, when I hire people, I look at whether they were a counselor or not, and that’s a definite plus in my mind if they’ve been in that role before,” said Chidsey.
Camp Director Yates Pharr echoes this sentiment. “Even when I back up to what I did in my previous life as a commercial real estate developer, I looked for people that had been at camp before,” Yates said. “I would look for these management and teaching skills in an individual because I knew that they would be somebody who could start a project and see it all the way through. You could count on them to be part of the team, and they would keep their attitude positive.”
Networking Benefits
“In addition to all the life skills that we’ve talked about,” Chidsey said, “I think another benefit of working at camp is the network. You become a family once you join Falling Creek as a camper or as a counselor. I know that network has proved invaluable to people over the years and has helped many land their first jobs.”
The networking benefits of the camp community are something former counselor Hayden Vick saw first-hand as he pursued his teaching career.
Vick was a counselor at Falling Creek in 2016 and 2017. After his time working at camp, Vick became interested in focusing his talents on teaching. “When I was looking for jobs, I was still in touch with some camp folks in Richmond, and they said, ‘You need to check out our school.’ They put in good words for me, and then I interviewed and got the job. The networking at Falling Creek is unbelievable.” Today, Vick is the lead second grade teacher and head JV basketball coach at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Virginia.
Even if you’re not yet sure what kind of career path you want to pursue, Falling Creek can still help you develop tools for a successful future. “When you leave Falling Creek, you may not know what you want to do with your life, but you know what type of person you want to be,” Vick said. “I got to that realization because I saw how being a creative, positive-thinking, empathetic, sensitive, compassionate person had an impact on younger people. I saw how positive personality traits impacted them, and that told me that’s the kind of person I wanted to be.”
Once you are part of the Falling Creek community, you also gain access to the rich network of professionals and resources that make up camp’s alumni.
Camp As A Microcosm
John Burton is another notable alumnus from the camp community, who went on to be president of the Nantahala Outdoor Center (1975-1991). He owned and operated the Nantahala Village Resort (1990-2005), before returning as CFO and VP of the Nantahala Outdoor Center in 2008. He now heads up his own executive coaching and team consultation, John Burton Coaching. Aside from his business experience, John is also a high-level paddler and outdoorsman, representing the USA in the 1972 Olympics in whitewater canoe slalom, and later coaching the U.S. team.
“Summer camp is a microcosm of how to be successful in the world, because it is such a powerful teaching environment,” Burton said. “It takes young people and challenges them to be good decision makers, to be good communicators, to be good teammates, to be good leaders, to be humble while being confident. It’s a mixture of skills that every organization is going to value.”
Burton was a camper and staff member at nearby camps Mondamin and Pinnacle before joining the Falling Creek team in 2022, and he said his experience at camps taught him many important life lessons and skills. (Fun fact: One of John Burton’s first counselors at Camp Mondamin was Yates Pharr’s father Henry in 1961!) Burton now operates as a seasonal advisor for the Falling Creek staff, furthering the mission of camp by acting as a leadership resource for counselors and helping to promote their success each summer.
Chidsey added that the camp environment is uniquely suited for promoting life skills. “One of the best things about being a counselor is you’re totally immersed,” he said. “You’re around these kids and have this responsibility constantly, and so you’re constantly honing these skills. You get a real chance to practice a lot of these life skills with a repetition you wouldn’t get in an ordinary corporate job.”
And…It’s Fun!
Some of our counselors’ fondest memories are of the camaraderie they had with fellow staff members at Falling Creek. It’s a job where you’re not just learning a lot, you’re having a lot of fun too! Chidsey said, “I enjoyed all the campers and some of those relationships still exist today. Most of all, it was the fun we created as a group of counselors together for three months in the summer, in a unique setting where you can bond better than anywhere else.”
At Falling Creek you’ll get to meet campers and counselors from all over the country and the world, with a wide variety of interests, hobbies, and talents. “Learning how to navigate all those different kinds of personalities and still ensure you have great teamwork is an incredibly valuable skill–and it’s a heck of a lot of fun,” said Chidsey. “When you can combine fun and learning at the same time, it’s hard to think of a better summer job.”
Join us this summer to be part of something bigger. We’ll work with you to provide internship credit for your degree if needed, and the professional experience you’ll gain at Falling Creek is something that will set you up for success over the course of the rest of your life. As Yates Pharr said, “We believe this is more than a job, it’s an investment in your future.”