checking in from western NC

Hi all, here's brief pertinent info about my past, present, and future:
I started a non-profit Search and Rescue team in early 2006 after running a rock climbing guide service for a year. I have a degree in Spanish and have lived in six countries and traveled through nearly two dozen countries. I grew up with firearms and no how to handle them well and safely. I have been a wilderness emergency medical technician since 2008. I have also had hundreds of hours of backcountry search and rescue training, high and low angle rescue, swift water rescue training and cert, wildland firefighter cert, will be an EMT-B in NC and nationally by end of May 2013. I have participated in several FTXs with the Army and have day and night time land nav training.

I have worked as a mountaineering guide in Mexico and Ecuador. I taught in Korea and worked as a big wall climbing instructor there. I also worked as a backcountry guide and medic in Alaska for three years. I have crossed the US coast to coast by bicycle and train and hope to at some point on foot.

Besides this experience, i have built homes, installed and replaced residential HVAC, was the work site coordinator for Habitat for Humanity while in undergrad, ran a small gas station/service shop as a junior in high school and grew up helping with diesel engine mechanical work. Thus I have at least a working mechanical and construction knowledge and would love to learn more.

I also have extensive backcountry experience in deserts of the southwestern US, South America, and Mexico. I am an avid open water and down river kayaker and canoeist.
I am currently a master's student in western NC and will finish an MA in May. I will likely be relocating thereafter to TX or FL for a Ph.D. program. I hope to also complete a paramedic course within the next couple years. All that said, I hope to become a certified HAM radio operator soon and be able to afford a decent base station radio for comms.

I am looking forward to networking with fellow WoA and respective state groups.

Semper Liber. Stay safe.