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Like so many Rising Stars this year, Callie Murphy—assistant general manager of the Adventure Center of Asheville (ACA)—found the first steps on her path to this career in the outdoors as a child.

“I grew up on a farm in Georgia,” she says. “After school was all about playing in the fields and at the creek. It was an incredible way to grow up and built a need in me to be part of the outdoors.”

When she headed to college, “I saw the outdoor education [major]and was like, ‘I can actually get a degree in this?’” Callie ended up securing a degree in Ecology and then topped it off with a master’s in environmental education—which she secured while working at ACA.

“I kept my toes in the aerial park world while finishing my masters, and I loved Asheville, so I moved here, found this year-round position and here I am: settled down but still out in the wild,” says Callie.

That drive continues in her current role. “She is always willing to step up to any task put before her and has both the respect and friendship of her team,” says a nominator. “She is a strong advocate for the team, but also maintains a solid balance of team and business.”

What’s your secret to success?

Surrounding myself with good people. My family and my husband, of course, but also a really good staff. I would never be any kind of success without those people around me.

The pandemic was very eye-opening for this industry in this aspect. Hiring and keeping people on long enough so they could settle into the world and be productive enough to be really helpful to you long-term was tough. You have to find people who will actually stay with you. That’s truly the secret to success, I think.

What’s the biggest challenge you see this industry facing now?

Policy and procedure, at this point, is a grueling love/hate dynamic for the entire field. But the bigger the field grows, the more we need to dot our i’s and cross our t’s. It’s frustrating, but I do believe once we get systems in place, it will be easier.

What do you want to do in the future?

I want to combine environmental education with the adventure side. You know: While you are zipping through the trees, why don’t we talk about those trees? Make the connection. While I know those are two different fields, I hope to find a place where we do both in tandem.

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There are tons of options when it comes to exploring Asheville with kids, so we chose activities first that we knew our kids would love knowing that we could come back frequently and explore it all over time. Our first stop was at The Adventure Center of Asheville, located only five minutes from downtown. This adventure park’s offerings felt like the sky was the limit, and we started with KidZip, a children’s zip lining park.

ARDEN, N.C.(WLOS) — 

Our Persons of the Week launched a fundraiser that is especially close to home. Jeff and Sheena Greiner, in honor of son O’Reilly, started Zipping for Autism in 2012 to raise money for various autism-related causes that are a lifeline to families here in the mountains.

“It’s always the first Sunday in June. His birthday is June 4,” Sheena explained.

O’Reilly turns 16 this year. Together, they’ve made helping others with autism a birthday tradition.

An Amazing Day with the Adventure Center of Asheville

A couple of weeks ago, I took a girls’ trip to Asheville, North Carolina. I had been to Asheville before in a brief one-day visit to the Biltmore Estate. But, I knew there was a lot more to Asheville and so this time, I set out to find different, fun activities to do. Since ziplining is something I love to do, I looked into doing this with the Adventure Center of Asheville. They asked if we would also be interested in checking out their new adventure park which sounded very intriguing so we agreed.