Famed 19th century self-promoter Phineas T. Barnum often opined that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And while that philosophy certainly worked well for the American circus owner, we here at The National Center for Outdoor and Adventure Education (NCOAE) have discovered that a little promotion for a genuinely good cause can go even further.

We scored some valuable press coverage recently, and we weren’t a bit shy about our self-promoting efforts. The result was a seven-minute video-enhanced piece of journalism titled Beyond the Classroom, beautifully produced by EducationNC, an independent source of news, data, and analysis about education for the people of North Carolina. EdNC’s content encourages the public’s participation and leadership on behalf of school children in this state.

With kids’ education top of mind, we reached out to EdNC, suggesting the news organization might want to send a reporter or two to investigate our Education Without Walls program. Education Without Walls is NCOAE’s not-for-profit subsidiary. It is a wilderness-based outdoor education program for teenagers, many of whom — through no fault of their own — live at or below the federal poverty level.

Following a number of phone conversations between our administrators

…

Meg Young joined the staff team here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education late last year as office manager and was swiftly promoted to director of admissions. She works closely with our students to ensure their registration and enrollment process goes as smoothly as possible — something she believes sets them up to succeed throughout our courses and trainings.

Meg attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) for two separate degrees. She received her first degree in 2010, which was a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science. Four years later Meg went back to get her Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) with a concentration in Nonprofit Management, which she received in 2016.

We recently sat down with Meg for an interview focusing on her path to NCOAE and a variety of other topics we’d thought you — the readers of the NCOAE Blog — would appreciate. Here’s what she had to say:

NCOAE: Where did you grow up and what did the 7-year-old and 11-year-old Meg want to be when they grew up?

Meg: I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. I’m not sure if I was quite 7 years old, but there is written evidence that my first career aspirations were to be a