A sigmoid colectomy took nine inches of Scott Shepherd's intestine and nearly a year of his mobility. For twelve months, he was a member of the disability community he'd never thought much about before.
This week's guest has spent her career building access into that community for others. Susie Schroer manages the Youth Empowerment Stewards initiative — YES — placing young adults with disabilities into AmeriCorps conservation careers with the National Park Service. Before that, she built adaptive whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and snowshoeing programs in Utah, engineering each one around the specific person in front of her.
In 2020, Susie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She's open about it — and about the sentence that anchors this conversation: the disability community is the only community any of us can join at any moment.
In this episode:
— Growing up in a log cabin in rural Missouri and learning to read the woods from her father — What AmeriCorps actually is, and how Susie found it while researching the Peace Corps — Building adaptive outdoor recreation programs — whitewater rafting, rock climbing, snowshoeing — engineered around the individual, not a checklist — The pairing model: matching able-bodied and special education students as field trip buddies, and what both groups learned — The YES Initiative — creating hiring pipelines for young adults with disabilities into National Park Service careers — Living with MS since 2020, and how it changed (and didn't change) her relationship to her work — Person-first vs. identity-first language, and why the distinction matters — What universal design looks like at the smallest possible scale — including a current, urgent opening for a YES position at the Niobrara National Scenic River in Nebraska
ABOUT SUSIE SCHROER Program Coordinator, Stewards Individual Placements / Conservation Legacy, managing the YES Initiative. Former Adaptive Recreation Manager, Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation. B.A. in Journalism and Psychology, Drury University. 🌲 stewardslegacy.org/yes
ABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.net
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