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Mom’s Influence… I wrote these in the last week before she passed away as we reflected, looked through photos, and told stories.

I love you, Mom. Erin

Mom’s influence #1 MATH COURAGE: My mom loved math. She majored in math in college in the early 1960s, and did so proudly, the only woman in her class. Because of this, I did not listen to anyone who tried to tell me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do math. It did not matter what messages I got from TV or magazines. If she could do math, then I could do math. I did struggle in a math through elementary and middle school, but I never gave up because I knew I could do it.

ROLE MODELS MATTER. That is one of the reasons I started Inspiring Girls Expeditions - to provide real-life role models for girls in science and mountaineering. Girls get to observe the world and be curious right alongside real scientists. And they learn that we are just people too, people who laugh, who make mistakes, and who love to learn.

My mom was one of the biggest supporters of Girls on Ice in the early days, loaning us their car, hosting instructors and girls in their home at critical times, as well as donating funds. Knowing I had her support helped through the many challenges of finding the right funding sources, partners, and volunteers to keep it going.

Mom's Influence #2 TENACITY: My mom entered the workforce in the late 60s with sharp math intelligence. Yet she was belittled, disparaged, and disrespected along the way. She left an interview with IBM in tears when the interviewer asked her “You are a woman, what makes you think you can do this job?” She worked and studied to be an actuary – the math behind financial risk – with Milliman&Robertson and aced several of the required exams, yet received little, if any, positive feedback during the process. When my parents moved to LA, she continued in actuarial field, but was asked to bring coffee more often than given challenging projects to work on.

She didn't give up, instead she switched to computer programming (punchcards!) at Hughes Aircraft. In the 60s and 70s, computer programming was the one place where women with strong math and analytical skills were being respected (sort of). She gracefully modified her career as she had kids and we moved around the country. Eventually she combined her math, finance, and analytical skills with her people skills to work in residential real estate, helping match families with homes.

Hearing her stories taught me to find ways around barriers and challenges. She showed me that there are many paths to reach similar goals, each obstacle can be used as an opportunity to learn something new, combine skills in different ways, rethink the objective, or alter the path, NOT to turn around.

Tenacity helped me get Girls on Ice started 23 years and keep it going, despite many challenges along the way. And in the process of overcoming obstacles it became a better program, because it forced us to seek new ideas and new partners.

On each of our Inspiring Girls Expeditions, we encounter challenges every day: storms that change our plans, crevasses that we must decide to gently step over or go around, and of course science experiments that don’t go as planned. We show the girls that these are an opportunity to learn something new, to go someplace not yet explored, or even just to appreciate the beauty of the constantly changing landscape around us.

Mom’s Influence #3 THE JOUNEY MATTERS MORE THAN THE DESTINATION: We moved around the US throughout my childhood, returning to Seattle every summer if not for a year or two. Rather than resent moving around, I grew to enjoy the sense of adventure of exploring a new place, as well was enjoying the journey to get there. My memories of traveling by car or train across the country are some of my favorites.

We’d stop in small towns and big cities, visit National Parks, or just stare at the sky while driving through big thunderstorms in the wide-open landscape of the American West. I spent my 16th birthday white water rafting the snake river in Wyoming.

While my dad was part of the journey for most of these, the train rides across the country were either just with my mom or with one of her friends and several more kids. My mom and I continued our train adventures to Europe when my dad taught a summer program in Italy: jumping on a packed train in sizzling hot Rome only to shiver through the night in the Alps without heat and not enough clothes!

Our goal with Inspiring Girls Expeditions is not to climb to the "summit" of the mountain or paddle to the head of the fjord, it is to explore and experience the landscape, to learn and ask questions. We don’t follow the trail just to get to a destination, every step offers new curiosities: a marmot den, suncup patterns in the snow, or orca whales swimming by.

We want the girls to learn that, in all aspects of life, the journey is about so much more than reaching a destination, it is the space for learning and growing. The process of science is where curiosity and creativity blend together and where we have the most fun: the end of one experiment is really just the beginning of a new one

Mom's Influence #4 CREATIVITY

Yes she was a math major, but my mom was also incredibly artistic and creative. She showed me from an early age that you don’t have to choose between art and science – they can be interwoven to express more and learn more. Both my parents were makers, they worked as a team with me. The first competition I won was a kite-flying contest at age 6; my dad helped me make the kite and then my mom helped me paint it decoratively.

The mix of art, science, and humanities in our house continued – even if we didn’t think of it that way back then - when I made a kaleidoscope and homemade recycled paper for science fair projects, then for a history fair project in middle school I presented on the Big Bang, the history of the universe.

We had closets full of art and craft supplies and always new ideas around the house. My mom made clothes, painted wood boxes, Halloween costumes, and much more. There are no photos of these, so my memory is a bit faded of those early years.

After I left for college, my parents started traveling more. My mom especially loved meeting, learning about, and supporting local artists wherever they were. Their house is now full of artwork that comes with stories of meeting artists and learning about landscapes and communities.

At home, her creativity came out in her garden. Just last year she grew all the flowers (mostly dahlias) and coached friends and grandchildren in making the flower arrangements for the celebration of my marriage to Jonathan on the beach at Blake Island.

We have purposely integrated art and science into Inspiring Girls Expeditions curriculum to break down that separation that many kids learn in school. Our instructor teams often include professional artists as well as scientists. We teach that artists and scientists observe the landscape, ask questions, and explore ideas similarly, despite differences in results. I love seeing the wide-eyed amazement when the girls on our expeditions realize that they don’t have to “choose” between art and science.

Mom’s Influence #5 SENSE OF ADVENTURE: I know I already talked about our travels when I was a kid, driving across the country more times than I can remember. But my mom’s sense of adventure started much earlier with opportunities to explore different landscapes and communities across the Pacific Northwest when she was a kid.

On her father’s side, she is the granddaughter of Scandinavian immigrants to Seattle in the late 1800s who then moved to Madras, Oregon. On her mother’s side, her grandfather was a dentist in Three Forks, Montana and then later Miles City, and her grandmother was a pianist who played for silent movies and vaudeville acts in Missoula whenever she got the chance.

By the time my mom was a kid in the 50s, we had extended family that spanned the urban and rural Pacific Northwest. And while my mom grew up in Seattle (except for her earliest years during which they lived In Miles City while her dad was in the war), every summer she would visit that extended family and get to know these communities and explore these different landscapes.

Going to new places, trying new things was part of the family culture. That continued when I was a kid and my Montana great grandparents lived on a cherry orchard on Flathead Lake and my brother, cousin, and I were given the freedom to explore, swim in the lake, and pick cherries, of course.

Stepping out of our comfort zone to explore a new place with open eye and open minds is a core element of Inspiring Girls Expeditions. Entering our growth zone takes courage because it can be an intimidating place, but with a team of supportive friends and mentors, it is a powerful place to be. The growth zone is where we learn new skills, generate new creative ideas, and feel a sense of accomplishment in the process.

In bringing girls together from across the US and Canada, bridging urban and rural, north and south, east and west cultures, we empower them to respect each landscape, especially its indigenous history, and to continue exploring when they leave us. We want them to go home wanting to explore their own home landscape and the many possible futures for their lives.

Mom’s Influence #6 MENTORING AND MORE: I’m not quite sure what to title this one, because it mixes together several concepts – mentoring, cross-cultural understanding, and more about the value of stepping out of your comfort zone. We’ll see where this goes.

My mom encouraged me to join the international club at my high school. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure why, because I did not think I was good at learning languages and I was shy, two reasons that the idea of this club very much pushed me out of my comfort zone. I’m not even sure why I agreed to try it, but I am ever thankful she suggested it and that I did it.

We had a few exchange students in our school that our club would rally around and make sure they felt supported and like they belonged. But the most powerful thing we did as a club was the INTRAnational exchange over spring break. Yes, we did a club exchange between our suburban Houston high school and Marlborough, Massachusetts (home of Smartfood Popcorn, for those who remember that snackfood that hit the shelves in the late 80s).

I stayed with a teenager in her house, shadowed her days at school, as saw the world from her eyes for a week in Marlborough, Mass. That brief experience taught me so much about the mix of cultures we have right in our own country. I truly believe that INTRAnational exchange programs would help connect communities across the country as much as INTERnational exchange programs help us globally.

My senior year in high school we hosted an exchange student from Austria. Again, my mom really wanted to host and by then I had been in the international club long enough that I was excited by the idea too. Susi and I were seniors together, and with her help I did learn to see world from different perspectives, and learned a lot about myself along the way.

My mom didn’t stop with that experience, though – she encouraged me to consider spending a year abroad as an exchange student before going to college. We didn’t call it a “gap” year back then, but that’s what it was. I was hesitant at first, because I was very excited to go to college, but I couldn’t think of a reason not to at least apply. So I did.

When I was accepted to go to Belgium, to attend school in Flemish (?!?!?), it sounded bizarre to me. But it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It not only pushed me out of my comfort zone, but expanded my comfort zone so that since then, I more easily find courage and curiosity to explore many corners of the world.

I wouldn’t have done that without my mom gently encouraging me. We often learn most from those hard and awkward times that we fear, but knowing someone is there to support and help you along the way makes it easier. That was her mentoring.

But even after I went off to college – for many years after – my mom continued to volunteer to support the exchange students who came to the Houston area. She would help match them with families, and then help them when things got difficult, often taking in students who were temporarily without host families because of conflict or just mismatched.

She loved learning about their cultures and helping them as they struggled to get their feet on the ground living so far away from their own homes. She was patient and supportive, even when they misbehaved. Many grew to trust her and stayed in touch with her for decades afterwards.

As teenagers transition to adulthood, stepping out of the comfort of their home community and living in a new place and in a new culture is an intimidating and intense experience. Having a compassionate mentor be there for you during this transition is powerful.

For the same reasons, my mom loved meeting, learning from, and supporting the girls on Girls on Ice expeditions in Washington. I have tried to follow her model of accepting teens where they are, with all of the challenges of the transition to adulthood, and helping mentor them through that transition.

Inspiring Girls Expeditions are only 2 weeks, but they have an outsized impact in providing that mentoring and support that is so needed as youth prepare to leave home. Girls come together from all across North America to learn and grow together and leave with the courage to explore the world. We

Mom’s Influence #7 THE POWER OF A TEAM OF WOMEN: My mom had an incredible group of girlfriends growing up, staying close friends from elementary school through college. Together they created strength to get over their fears – whether exploring their neighborhood or getting on a train to cross the entire country to go to college. After college, they spread across the country, but still staying in touch.

They found that strength as a team again when they were 53 years old. In 1996, they regrouped in Washington State with the goal to climb Mount Baker, inviting their daughters and a few friends to join them. None of them had climbing experience, but they knew that by working together as a team they could find the courage to try. They found two women mountain guides to help lead.

I was invited to join the team and share in their teamwork. There were 11 of us, laughing, telling stories, and cheering each other on. This was my first experience doing something this physically and mentally challenging with a team of women, and it had a huge impact on me.

My mom was not very confident she could do reach the summit and set her goals instead on stopping at Sherman Crater, which is about 1000ft below the actual summit and a safe place for people to wait while the rest of their team goes on to the summit. That last 1000ft is often the most technically challenging and the steepest, toughest part of the climb.

The crater is one of the most interesting sites on the mountain. Steaming fumaroles melt holes through the thick perennial snowpack (is there a glacier hiding under that snow and firn? Perhaps, but because the snow melts from the underside, the firn may never get compacted fully into ice). And dramatic towers of rock are slowly weakening and crumbling from being chemically altered from the steam.

When we arrived at the crater rim, we took a break before continuing to the summer. My mom and her friends were still laughting and reminiscing about their childhood. The weather was looking good, and everyone was feeling strong. We all got up, packed our backpacks, and tied into the ropes and started walking – my mom included.

She was having so much fun and feeling supported by the team, she decided to try continuing to the summit. When we got to the top, looking down on the steaming crater below us, she was so proud of herself for letting go of the thought that she “can’t” do it and giving herself the chance to try.

This expedition with my mom was the first time I really saw the power of a team of women accomplishing a shared goal. At the time, I was 25 and working as an engineer, so this experience was a sharp contrast to my years as one of just a few women in my engineering classes and in my engineering job.

Seeing women planning and leading this expedition gave me the confidence to try leading my own expeditions, and just a few years later, after I left engineering and started graduate school in glaciology, I started Girls on Ice with the help of many friends and colleagues. 22 years later, we are still going strong as Inspiring Girls Expeditions. Thanks to everyone who has help along the way! http://inspiringgirls.org/donate-winter-2022

This is the last post in this series, but not the last story. In reflecting on the influence of my mom, I am also reflecting on the influence of my dad, especially, and other family and friends – from my great grandfather, who gave his life to save others during the largest avalanche disaster in US history, to my cousin Katherine, who taught me how to be me.