John Dockendorf

He was born in December 1959. The first few years of Dockendorf's life were spent near Baltimore, Maryland. In the long run, he would have a bigger impact somewhere else. When he was a child in the Middle Atlantic states, he thought education was very important. After a very hard education at a friend's school, he packed up his skis and went to the University of Vermont.

 

First, Dockendorf made a good impression when he was in college for his first two years. He spent the end of the 1970s going through a lot of different university classes quickly, and he graduated from the University of Vermont in 1981 with the best grades. Dockendorf was looking for jobs and roles in recreation and park management, and like many people, he went down different paths and ended up as an assistant for a lot of different professors. Dockendorf went on to get a Master of Management, Hospitality from Cornell University and its School of Hotel Administration in 1992; by the next decade he had earned a PhD in that field. The same thing happened again: Dockendorf was at the top of his class again, and he was also the John E.H. Sherry Scholarship and the head of the student body at Cornell in his field's school.

 

You get a little personal when you build an institution that lasts for almost 30 years under your direction. Those are things that happen to John Dockendorf, as well. Under his direction, Adventure Treks Inc. was one of the most well-known outdoor programs for teenagers for 28 years. Attendees of Dockendorf's program and project have come from all over the United States and more than 25 countries around the world. As a group, we want everyone to have growth-oriented experiences and take part in wilderness adventures in the best wild natural areas of the western United States and Canada.

 

The Adventure Treks program was a big deal. It could have easily hired 70 teachers, as well as a full-time team and part-time help. The program was flexible and versatile, even when 2020 and COVID shut down. It was even able to work with restrictions. This was because the program already had a good reputation for being safe that had been around for almost 30 years. In 2021, Dockendorf stopped working at Adventure treks. He passed on the tradition of good outdoor education to his ten-year director, Dave McGlashan.

 

When John and his wife Jane reopened Camp Pinnacle in 2011, they added Adventure Treks to their business. Founded in 1928, Pinnacle was a summer camp with a long history. It closed in 2010, but it was a well-known summer camp. The Dockendorf family and Steve Baskin, the owner of Camp Champions in Texas, completely renovated Camp Pinnacle over the course of ten years. They restored Camp Pinnacle's history and reputation as one of North Carolina's favorite summer camps. In the past, Pinnacle used to fill its camper list for the summer a year early. People who ran Camp Pinnacle for the Dockendorf family, Fayssoux and J G Moss, took over after the summer of 2021.

 

Dockendorf first made a name for himself in Western North Carolina when he was on the Flat Rock Park Development Committee, which turned a 62-acre golf course into a great community park. When the playground committee was set up, Dockendorf also led it. Now, the playground in Flat Rock, North Carolina, is the best in the state. If you want to learn more about Mountain Community School, Dockendorf has been a board member there, as well. Then, Dockendorf helped start the French Broad River Academy in Asheville, which is where the school is now.

 

John Dockendorf's community service grew and stayed as active as Dockendorf's commitment to Adventure Treks, which grew even more. In 2015, Dockendorf added to his role as a civic leader by becoming a member of the Flat Rock Village Council. Transportation representative: Dockendorf was on the French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization and its Prioritization Committee as a representative for Flat Rock. He was also on the Henderson County transportation advisory committee for Henderson County. Dockendorf played a lot of different roles for his constituents. All of them, each in their own way, made up the bigger contribution he made. By 2019, Dockendorf had made a lot of commitments, so he started to cut back on things a little as he neared early retirement.

 

Dockendorf's family has also been a big part of his motivation to succeed. When the couple married in 1999, they had four children: Charlie, Ave Rees, Ella, and Audrey. They have raised and been parents to them all. The kids, who are now 15 to 21, are starting their own lives, but John and Jane have built a world of education, training, and efforts to make sure their kids have a good path. The last few years haven't been easy, either. The COVID pandemic was bad for everyone in society and every part of the country. As everyone else, Dockendorf's organization and operations were affected just as much as everyone else, even more so because it ran on adventure socialization as its main service. In fact, what John Dockendorf has known for a long time is that being persistent and flexible pay off in the long run. It's why John Dockendorf has been able to do the same things on a community level again and again.