Yoon is a long-time journalist who has experienced editing in both print and web. He is the founder of the media startup Blogs for Brands, an e-commerce agency with an award-winning design team that manages blogs, social media, email, and ads for brands. He created the Outdoor Media Summit because he saw that the potential for outdoor bloggers to make money is significantly growing, and decided to create the Outdoor Media Summit to share best practices.
Taylor manages the Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge public relations program and works with travel writers and influencers to promote Virginia’s Blue Ridge as a must visit metro-mountain destination. Prior to her career in tourism, Taylor helped lead the marketing and development efforts to launch Roanoke’s first coworking space known as CoLab. She enjoys serving on the Governor’s Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority Board for Roanoke County’s Explore Park and is a founding member of Experience YP, an organization focused on attracting and retaining the talent of young professionals in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
I love to create visually unique content for brands through email marketing, graphic design, photography, web design and so much more!
A creative designer and programmer native to the beautiful landscape of Northwest Arkansas, I love to learn anything new and intriguing. With a graphic and web design degree and self-taught front-end developer, I love to tackle new challenges whenever possible that will set me apart and help brands become who they are truly meant to be. You can find me behind multiple computer screens during the day and knitting and noodling behind my Grestch guitar by night. 😎
Cameron got sucked into the adventure, travel and expedition world due to his involvement in Boy Scouts and growing up in Europe as the son of an American F-15 fighter pilot. He started blogging in 1999 and eventually launched his own website to document his adventures. He’s now a freelance adventure travel and expedition writer, photographer and filmmaker and is the Managing Editor for Boulder based Elevation Outdoors Magazine. His freelance clients include National Geographic, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gear Junkie, Outside, Backpacker, Wired, Australian Geographic, Mountainzone.com and others.
After four summers as a fly-fishing guide in Alaska and Montana, Phil Monahan spent two years working as an editor at Outdoor Life and a decade as editor-in-chief of American Angler. Since 2010, he has written and edited the Orvis Fly Fishing blog, and he is now the Managing Editor of Digital Content for Orvis. He continues to write feature articles for the traditional sporting press, as well. Phil holds a B.A. in English from Columbia University, an M.A. in Literature from the University of New Hampshire, and completed all but the dissertation for a PhD in English from Rutgers University.
Aaron Black-Schmidt has always been drawn to experiencing the outdoors, from backpacking with his parents as a child to working the firelines as a wildland firefighter. It was the desire to capture the beauty of these special places and the people that travel them that led him to photography. Aaron graduated with honors from Brooks Institute with a degree in Visual Journalism and is an Eddie Adams alumni from Barnstorm XXV. Currently working as the Photo Editor for Canoe&Kayak, Kayak Fish and SUP Magazine, Aaron focuses his personal work towards documenting adventure sports, outdoor lifestyle and natural history.
Becky Pokora is the voice behind sightDOING®, a travel blog encouraging readers to seek out interactive experiences and connect to destinations on a deeper level. In addition to blogging, she consults for small businesses in the tourism industry on how to harness content marketing and Pinterest to drive traffic and sales organically. When she’s not traveling, Becky loves cooking, hiking, and playing fetch with her dog.
Mary Walsh is a writer and photographer based in Southern California and Salt Lake City, Utah (season depending). She is the Senior Editor of SNOWBOARDER Magazine, a contributor for biglife Magazine and has written and/or shot photos for a variety of action sports, outdoor, and resort publications as well as collaborated with snow and skate brands. In her free time, she is the co-founder of Beyond the Boundaries, a women’s snowboard camp and tour operation that focuses on community inclusion through spending time in the mountains.
Alex grew up in a town with a population of 179 people and spent his childhood in wanderlust for the greater world that had only been accessible through books, movies and tv shows (and later dial-up Internet). Today, Alex spends his free time visiting those places. As the social media editor for Gear Patrol, he’s never in a shortage of gear to take on those trips.
Kraig Becker has been a writer and editor in the outdoor space for more than 15 years, contributing to such outlets as The Adventure Blog, Business Insider, Popular Mechanics, Digital Trends, Gear Junkie, Gear Institute, Outside, Nat Geo, and numerous others. He is the author of five books, has run a successful podcast, and is a tech nerd of the highest order.
