Yellowstone Interact connects people who CARE SO MUCH ABOUT WHAT THEY DO…with people eager to learn!
Colleen Rossier, PhD Ecologist & Trip Consultant
Colleen is a graduate of UVA, and holds a PhD in ecology from UCAL Davis, having work extensively with the indigenous people of northern California along with the USDA to increase our understanding of forest understory, timber activities and fire. She also holds a masters degree in traditional Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and is a certified yoga instructor and massage therapist as well. She has worked for the USDA in Washington DC and helped write the first USDA agency guidelines for Certified Organics. She has also worked on federal fire crews to gain a holistic understanding of fire-ecology and forestry management.
Wilderness is a myth; Indigenous peoples had been burning and cultivating forests for 10,000 years with a pre-Columbus population numbering as high as 100 million peoples. What we call “wild” is really an anachronistic framework illustrating gaps in management and culture. The great news is there is still so much to learn!
Beau Blessing, co-founder, is a river guide on the scenic, rapid and free-flowing Gallatin River, which originates inside Yellowstone National Park and travels 111 miles before joining the Missouri River. In the winter, he is a ski teacher at Big Sky Resort in Big Sky, Montana where he had been putting down roots for the past six years while also teaching in Garmisch, Germany. A graduate of the University of Florida majoring in Decision and Information Sciences and a former teaching assistant in Operations Management during his master’s studies, Beau is also a member of Mensa, the organization for super sharp folks, and loves understanding complex systems and sharing those insights.
I get asked a few times each season after we put in downriver, if we keep floating will we end up back at the shop? In part, people get disoriented on vacation. But some really space out and think we might be in a lazy river, or an M.C. Esher painting. We laugh about it but if there is one thing I want to instill in my guests is an understanding of watersheds. It’s a template that applies about anywhere in the world, that precipitation will commit to one outcome, and influences everything else along the way.
-Beau Blessing, River Guide, Ski Instructor & Traveler
In 2011, after two days of interviewing with a global accounting firm in Atlanta Georgia,
Beau traded graduate school for India, where he bought a Royal Enfield motorcycle for $300 and rode it nearly the length of the sub-continent, from the Himalayas to Bangalore. He has also ridden a $400 bicycle from Banff Canada to Florida via Las Vegas, following the Rockies, crossing desert and finally, ripping rural pavement of the southeast back to Florida. In 2017, he rode that same bicycle from Scotland to Croatia, camping across England, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Slovenia, where he at last sold the bike for 60 Euro and flew home.
