Conversations with Steve Kaverman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Kaverman.

Hi Steve, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Weeks out of high school I started working as a tour guide on Mackinac Island, a unique and very popular tourist destination in my home state of Michigan and spent three summers on the island. Months after undergraduate school, I moved to Boulder in 1980 to seek work in my field, which, sadly, had nothing to do with tourism. Even after working in the summer of ’83 as a guide at another resort on Lake Michigan and settling into Colorado for life that fall, I wasn’t drawn back into tourism until 1999. A volunteer role as a Journey Guide at the new Ocean Journey aquarium reignited my interest in being a guide.

That fall, I attended the International Guide Academy, a state-certified vocational school, where, in separate courses, I was trained as an International Tour Manager and Tour Guide. Shortly after completing both programs, it was my good fortune to land a job as a Tour Manager with the American Orient Express Railway Co., (AOE). Their trains were deluxe cruise ships on rails, on routes spanning the U.S., Canada and Mexico’s famous Copper Canyon. Over the next eight years, I held contract and employee roles as a tour manager and in operations. My work with the AOE and its successor Grand Luxe Rail Journeys was truly the experience of a lifetime. For a time, my job description, if I’d had one, would have been unique in the world.

After the train ceased operating during the recession of 2008, there were a couple short detours that, while making some interesting contributions to my life story, really led nowhere. It wasn’t long before I ended up back in the role of a tour manager, contracting my services to several domestic tour operators.

Thanks to the unusual combination of experience in tourism and spending a lot of time on trains, I was recruited in 2011 as General Manager for the Royal Gorge Route Railroad, one of Colorado’s best-known scenic and historic trains. That position lasted just over two years, but the move to Cañon City was well-timed, professionally speaking. Cañon City is the gateway for the Royal Gorge Region. My prominent role in tourism there led to my appointment on the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO) Board of Directors, and five years as Chairman of the Fremont County Tourism Council (FCTC), the region’s official destination marketing organization (DMO). Both volunteer positions expanded my involvement and visibility in tourism. Working as a driver/guide with Colorado Jeep Tours doing off-road, 4×4 Jeep tours was also a great experience that fit in well with my continuing work as an international tour manager and tourism development consultant.

In 2014 I founded a sole proprietorship christened Tourism Champion. Champions are recognized as among the best at what they do, and I strived for that reputation. Champions are also advocates, and that was a title I wore proudly in my role on the CTO, with the FCTC, as a chamber of commerce board member, interpretive guide, and member of professional trade associations where I continue to play a role.

In the years since becoming involved in the tourism industry, I have had the pleasure of traveling by every conveyance imaginable, including private trains, private rail cars on scheduled Amtrak trains, luxury ocean liners, excursion vessels, horse drawn carriages, deluxe touring vans, motorcoaches and chartered jets. My journeys have spanned North America, reaching seven Canadian Provinces, five states in Mexico, Costa Rica, and all but two or three U.S. states.

I have helped fulfill and enrich experiences of a lifetime for hundreds if not thousands of people, of all ages, from over a dozen nations. I have often repeated the words, “the world is a book, and those who don’t travel read only one page,” that are attributed to St. Augustine, and have shared Mark Twain’s famous words about the power of travel to broaden perspectives. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime”.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have alluded to some of the ‘speed bumps’, to use an apt analogy, that have occurred along the way in the previous question, but overall, I have been very fortunate. I often remark to people that our life’s path can turn on a dime and were it not for my choice to apply for the volunteer role of a Journey Guide at Ocean Journey Aquarium, I might have continued the ordained path my career had taken, which was also not without its serendipities.

Being self-employed, as I have been for much of my tourism career, has also presented some challenges and has not been without its obstacles. Fortunately, with the encouragement of my wife, and the support of her long, stable corporate career with leading telecommunication companies, it has been possible for me to pursue work that my social style, aptitudes and natural ‘wiring’ are best suited for.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
In the preceding questions I wrote little about my work and career path before becoming involved in tourism, but it is worth mentioning because it was, in many respects, good training for the work I have now done for most of my life.

My undergraduate degree was in criminal justice, and my ambition was to become a law enforcement officer. I achieved that goal but worked as a police officer for less than two years. Leveraging my degree and police training, I successfully shifted into a career managing corporate security, safety and loss prevention programs. That relatively limited role eventually expanded to a much wider set of responsibilities in corporate services and property management. Managing corporate service contracts including those for janitorial, landscaping, HVAC maintenance, security, food services, lease management, space planning, and eventually multi-million-dollar property redevelopment projects was good training for the role of a tour director.

I pride myself on my organizational ability and my strengths have enabled me to effective at establishing and strengthening relationships with the businesses the tour operators I work for, or contract with, must rely on for dining, transportation, lodging, local guides, destination activities, and all the pieces that must fall in place in order to conduct an enjoyable, successful, multi-day tour for a couple, or a group of 45!

My Top 5 Clifton Strengths are: Woo, Communication, Arranger, Learner, and Input — all of which, as has turned out, are well matched to my professional roles and responsibilities.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Above all, my wife. She was working for USWest (now Century Link), when Ocean Journey Aquarium opened in 1999, and USWest was a corporate sponsor. That connection, and her encouragement prompted me to become a Journey Guide there. Soon after taking that role I learned about the International Guide Academy (timing IS everything), and she encouraged me to enroll.

Frank Slater, the Academy’s owner, was an inspiration and an industry champion. Upon graduating, I was lucky beyond measure to meet Kathy Eastman, who in the fall of 1999, was the Vice President of Tour Operations for the American Orient Express Railway. She allowed me to join a rail journey from Washington DC to Los Angeles while I was still working for a subsidiary of Whole Foods and offered me my first job as a Tour Manager. Her belief in me and in my fit for the role, and her support and encouragement set the tone for pretty much everything that followed.

After years as an ‘ordinary tour guide’, I had become pretty good at the job, but it was training and certification as an Interpretive Guide, through the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) in Fort Collins, that really sharpened my skill and taught me techniques that set me part from my contemporaries.

Just recently, I participated in a joint, collaborative study tour conducted by the International Association of Tour Directors & Guides (IATDG) and NAI, intended to bring the two organizations closer, merge the skills of tour directors with those of interpretive guides, and give the members of both associations a better understanding of their respective places in the tourism industry. Von Harden, the visionary founder of IATDG, and Karen Yates, who recently retired as IATDG’s Community Manager have welcomed my involvement in their efforts to improve the stature and professionalism of tour directors and have invited me to speak at several of the association’s conferences over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tourismchampion.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TourismChampion
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaverman/
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4879eO7346s