EXECUTIVES: Operation Outdoors

The sun was just peeking above the tops of the juniper trees when 17 men and women plunged into an icy duck pond near Utah’s Fremont River Canyon for a prebreakfast dip. Soon after, the group set out on a 1,200-ft. descent to the canyon floor. That evening they dined on freeze-dried chili and M&M candies, then rested up for the next day’s rappel down an 80-ft. cliff.

The campers looked like any group of seasoned hikers enjoying the outdoors, but they actually were previously officebound executives experiencing perhaps their most unusual assignment. At the suggestion of their companies, the businessmen and women were participating in an executive-enrichment program developed and operated by Colorado’s Outward Bound school.

Now in its sixth year, the O.B. program offers ten-day wilderness orientation courses and three-day raft trips to executives and middle managers anxious to gain greater confidence and emotional security by mastering physical challenges. As Charles C. Gates Jr., president of the Denver-based Gates Rubber Co., explains the idea: “The brain doesn’t work well if the body is dead. People need physical as well as mental challenges throughout their lives.” Outward Bound President Joseph

Nold, 45, adds: “There is a tremendous isolation factor with top corporate people. We eliminate the phoniness of the chain of command and allow them to share a raw experience with their peers.”

Loaded down with 40-lb. backpacks, the executive hikers log about five to ten miles each day. During rest periods, O.B. leaders give lessons in first aid and wilderness survival. Each evening the group staggers into a makeshift campsite, then wearily prepares a dinner of chicken stew, Turkey Good N’ Hearty or another freeze-dried delicacy.

In the middle of the trip, each participant is sent off into the woods by himself for a 24-hour reflection period. Suggests O.B. Staffer George McLeon, 47: “Ask yourself what are five things you want to do before you die? And what are you doing to accomplish these goals?”

Despite the hardships, each year some 600 executives sign up for O.B.’s raft trips and another 60 for the more grueling ten-day hikes. In many cases the tab, ranging from $200 to $400 per person, is picked up by the company. Eastman Kodak, IBM, Gates Rubber, Adolph Coors Co., a beer producer, and Martin-Marietta regularly pay the way for their management personnel. William Coors, president of Adolph Coors, has himself scaled canyons and run rapids on ten O.B. trips. Robert H. Allen, president of Gulf Resources & Chemical Corp., has braved two.

Renewed Energy. Many companies have adopted the O.B. program to meet highly specific corporate needs. When a feud developed between members of the research and production staffs at Johns-Manville, the insulating-and building-materials maker, President Richard Goodwin sent representatives from the two departments on a weeklong raft trip. Forced to act as a team on the river, the group quickly ended the rift. The trip is now an annual event. At the Gates Rubber plant in Denver, lower and middle managers who are being groomed for promotion are sent out into the wilderness to prepare them for greater responsibility.

Coors uses the O.B. courses to screen inner-city blacks, uneducated Indians, ex-convicts fresh from prison and other “unemployable” groups. It regularly sends them on the program, accompanied by Coors executives. If they complete it, which some 70% do, they are then employed by Coors.

Overall some 97% of the 700 participants in the O.B. courses have completed their sojourn in the woods. Though O.B. has no statistics on long-term responses, most campers return to the office with renewed energy and confidence. Many regale co-workers with euphoric descriptions of their adventure, apparently blanking out the blistered heels, bloody knees and aching legs. The strict prohibitions against tobacco, drugs and alcohol ruffle some. Griped one executive: “It would have been terrific, if only I had brought along my beer.”