““Thousands of nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful, not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” - John Muir
We Are Ready.
Jake King, CEO, Founding Partner
Jake has spent thousands of hours in the wilderness, learning and growing in group and solitary settings. He has led hundreds of youth and adult day and overnight trips, teaching wilderness survival and leadership skills, and is passionate about passing this knowledge on. A father of four, Jake has made it a point to be prepared and to know his family will have every opportunity to thrive in any emergency.
Jake has spent the last twenty years in social services, working with at-risk youth, recovering addicts, the homeless, and inner-city adults and youth. He and his partners created Thrive Outdoors to increase knowledge of the natural world, help instill confidence and positive self-worth in all its students, teach survival in extreme circumstances, and help guide people to a better understanding of stress reduction and real leadership.
Specialties:
Cold weather survival, Knots, Map & Compass, Fire Building, Team Building, Leadership Skills, Youth Curriculum.
Former Army Airborne Ranger
Former local Police Officer
Former Police Explorers Leader
Former Security Director for inner-city high school
Former Skills Clinic Coordinator for Eastern Mountain Sports
Former Youth Counselor for a local youth detention center
Former Fitness Director and Personal Trainer for area YMCAs
Melanie Haney, Partner, CAO
Melanie has always loved travel and adventure, gleaning insight and inspiration from communities of people around the world. She specifically grew to love and respect nature as a child, camping across the country with her family. She believes in learning through every experience, the ordinary and the extraordinary, in classrooms and the wilderness. As a creative lens within Thrive, Melanie is passionate about seeing small moments as well as big scenic vistas. She loves being alongside the groups as a guide and then sharing words and images that capture the inspirational transformations she witnesses.
As a writer, she has received several literary awards, and her fiction has been published in national magazines and a wide variety of literary journals.
She received Eastern Nazarene College’s Emerging Leader Award in 2022.
She also ran a successful photography business for over a decade and has four children whom she homeschooled for almost as long.
