A New Chapter: Announcing the Next Camp Director
I feel so fortunate to work with such a talented, creative, bright, and mission-driven Director Team. I am constantly amazed at how much I learn from them on a daily basis, especially in the realm of technology (including a little bit about the power of AI), program, Gen Z, and most importantly, the importance of building a strong and welcoming community. As many of you know, Grant and I became directors and owners in 1998 and never looked back. After 40 years in the camping industry, Grant eased into retirement in 2019, and I have been moving in that direction for the past two years. In our roles, we have embraced and lived by the mission and values of Gwynn Valley that Miss Mary Gwynn created 90 years ago. Moving into the next chapter, we are excited to announce that Ezekiel Cochrane, who has worked with us in a director role since 2021, will be moving into the role of co-director with me.
In 2021, Ezekiel accepted the position of Director of Older Programs, having spent the previous summers as the Mountainside Logistician and the Riverside Head Counselor respectively. Older Programs thrived under his leadership. Ezekiel transitioned to Associate Director in 2024, helping to oversee all areas of camp, and diving into supporting our Main Camp Program where he spent many summers, serving as a cabin counselor and leading the Mill Program area. He brings years of experience, a love of experiential education, but most importantly, a love for the power of the camp experience for campers and staff.
The story that made this possible!
By Ezekiel Cochrane
I wish that I could say I always knew camp was where I wanted to be. The truth is, camp and I have had somewhat of a complicated relationship over these past 27 years.
My first memories of Gwynn Valley come from the summer after I turned five. My mother was working as a nurse while my older brother and sister attended overnight camp, and I was still too young to join them. So instead, I lived with her in the Health Hut and spent my days across the road doing Day Camp.
I was so homesick!
Each morning, my mother (alongside a rotating cast of endlessly patient Day Camp counselors) attempted the delicate operation of peeling me off her leg. Tears were shed. Negotiations were played out. All very high stakes at the time. None of it worked particularly well.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t come back to Gwynn Valley the following summer. Nor the one after that. It wasn’t until I was eleven that I turned to my parents and said, “This is it. This is the summer. I’m ready for camp!” What followed were three summers on Mountainside and Riverside that quietly, and profoundly, altered the course of my life.
At camp, I discovered something I had been longing for without ever having the language to ask for: a community that accepted me fully and, at the same time, believed I was capable of hard and meaningful things. It was a place where being yourself was celebrated! A place where growth wasn’t measured through achievement, but through experience and connection building.
Over the past fifteen years, camp has allowed me to wear many hats: Kitchen Sanitation, Cabin Counselor, Mill Program Leader, Mountainside Logistician, Riverside Head Counselor, Assistant Director of Older Programs, and (most recently) Associate Director. Each role offered a different vantage point into the living, breathing tradition that is camp.
Looking back, it might be tempting to frame my path here as inevitable. But at the time, it rarely felt that way. There were oh so many competing voices! Practical ones, well-meaning ones, and (maybe the most frustrating) internal ones. All of them suggesting that a career in camp might not be sensible or sustainable. In spite of those voices, I always ended up back at camp each summer.
During my time at UNC Chapel Hill, I arranged summer classes around camp and crossed my fingers that Maggie and Andy might squeeze me in for one more partial season! After graduating with a degree in astrophysics, I spent time working seasonal jobs in Washington, Denver, and spent a year working at a YMCA camp in New Zealand, yet always kept my summers curiously unclaimed, as if I already knew where I belonged during that time.
Eventually, I stopped negotiating with that pull. I came to recognize experiential education not simply as a convenient job, albeit one that I enjoyed immensely. Instead, I came to see it as my own personal ministry. Work that felt deeply aligned with who I am and how I hope to move through the world. When Anne and Grant invited me to join the year-round team, it felt less like a career decision and more like a homecoming.
And now, I find myself at another juncture in this long conversation between camp and me. To say this feels significant would be an understatement. I feel no shortage of excitement! The kind that accompanies any meaningful step forward. I also feel a healthy dose of trepidation, born from a deep awareness of Gwynn Valley’s history, its people, and the responsibility of stewarding something that has meant so much to so many.
It is not lost on me that this journey began with a small boy clinging to his mother’s leg, unsure of what camp was or whether he belonged here. The distance between that moment and this one feels vast and profoundly humbling. If my story at Gwynn Valley illustrates anything, it is the transformative power of a place that meets people where they are and patiently invites them into who they might become.
As we step into this next chapter, my hope is simple. That Gwynn Valley will continue to be that kind of place; for today’s campers, for those who will arrive years from now, and for the many of you reading this whose lives remain intertwined with these mountains, these cabins, these fields, and this community.
Thank you for being part of the story that made this moment possible. I am deeply grateful to get to continue doing this work with all of you.
