Summit opened its doors in August of 1996 and it is now entering its 21st year of operation. Dr. Will White, co-Founder of Summit Achievement, has been with there since the start and will say it has been the greatest learning experience of his life. He has been asked to reflect on the lessons he's learned over the 20 years of operation of the program. They are as follows:
- Treat everyone in an open, honest and transparent manner.
- Focus on hiring quality staff and take care of them. Good people make good decisions. Hire people smarter than you and get out of their way.
- Keep small and don’t get caught up in the cycles of the field. It is easy to lose perspective when things are going well. Any organization can go from mission to mayhem in a blink of an eye.
- When tragedy happens, take care of all in the community. Focus first and foremost on those who have been directly impacted by a tragedy. Have a vigorous review process of any incident.
- Don’t believe everything you think. Have people from outside of your organization regularly give you feedback. Listen to the feedback and make changes.
- Have an "open door" policy with everyone, from competitors to critics. Embrace them all.
- Focus on quality of programming and look at outcome data to reshape what you do. Don’t let marketing trump the data.
- Don’t make promises you cannot keep.
- Apologize when you make mistakes and learn from them, even if you realize that you made a mistake years later.
- Honor the past while planning for the future.
"Please keep in mind I learned these lessons by making lots of mistakes," said Dr. Will White, co-founder of Summit Achievement.
Summit Achievement is, and always has been, guided by positive reinforcement and the power of choice. Our outcome-focused program employs effective therapeutic and educational principals. Through the process of engaging therapy, classroom academics and exciting wilderness expeditions, students experience the therapeutic benefits of outdoor adventure-based activities while learning to manage the demands of a more traditional environment. As an intentionally small, owner-operated program, we serve adolescent boys and girls, ages 13-20, from around the world.