Hi everyone. You might not be familiar with the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge founded in

Summer 2018 by Teresa Baker or the recently announced CEO Outdoor Equity Pledge by Canberra Outdoors and announced by Executive Director

D. Ambuck. If this sounds confusing, that's because it is. I talked to both Danielle

Williams and Theresa Baker to get more clarity around the two pledges.

Danielle is featured in episode 98 and she is the founder of Melan and Base Camp and one of the founding members of Diversify Outdoors,

which is a coalition of grassroots diversity, equity, and inclusion,

or DEI groups.

Theresa Baker is a long time advocate for diversifying outdoor spaces and she is as I said

the founder of the outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge. I want to clarify in sharing their thoughts that I'm not an investigative

journalists. I'm like a lot of you listening, eager to learn and open to

change. I talked with both Danielle and Theresa before Camber announced the evolution of

their gender equity pledge and I spoke with them after as well.

I also want to know that Theresa's connection isn't the best because she took time out of her busy day,

drove to the side of the road to talk to me, which I really, really appreciate.

Okay, to kick things off, Danielle shares a bit of background.

So, Theresa approached, she approached me last year and you know she already had the idea of the

pledge in mine she kind of explained that she had already talked to

Deanne the executive director of Canberra Outdoors and at the time they were not

interested because the end felt that it was something that her members were not

ready for right and that's a sentiment I've heard before right I've heard it from

different people in the industry that while it's

one thing to talk about gender equity and people are all for that, a lot of people

...