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We are comprised of life-loving, adventure enthusiasts who want to cultivate meaningful relationships with ourselves, others, and the natural world.
Our Team
Founder
Mr. Greg Morrissey
Greg Morrissey (M.A.), a 2024 Top 50 Trailblazing Educator (The Educators Room), is an educator, explorer, and the founder of Mountain Goat Movement, an organization dedicated to fostering adventure, leadership, and resilience in young people. He has taught for over 10 years and served as a head lacrosse coach, all while designing and leading human-powered expeditions for high school and college students in the greater NYC area. His transformative trips—ranging from backcountry treks and climbing expeditions to surf and ski adventures—have impacted thousands of students, both domestically and internationally.
A passionate advocate for outdoor accessibility, Greg has raised over $200,000 to provide financially restricted students with opportunities to engage in meaningful outdoor experiences. His work has been recognized at prestigious institutions, including The Explorers Club and the American Alpine Club’s annual dinner. He has also spoken at numerous high schools, colleges, and conferences, even as an opening speaker for Al Gore.
Greg serves in advisory roles with the Next Generation of Explorers, The Explorers Club, the Scientific and Exploration Society, and the American Alpine Club. He is also an Arc’teryx NY ambassador and a contributing writer for KAVU.
His personal explorations include bike-packing from Canada to Mexico, surfing the world’s longest wave, wild camping across Ireland, and undertaking numerous mountain climbs and traverses.
Storytellers and Creators
JOHN BARNHARDT
Mr. John Barnhardt is an Emmy-Winning cinematographer and co-creator of ABC’s adventure series, Born To Explore, which has ignited the eyes of 83 million viewers. John has shot for some of the biggest names in exploration including Richard Wiese, Buzz Aldrin, and Dr. Laurie Marker. His journey with explorers has taken him to some of the most far-reaching places on the planet – from filming polar bears in the Arctic to living with local African tribes in Tanzania. He has also filmed for major outdoor companies and events like Outdoor Retailer. John has filmed on 6 continents and all 50 states. John is a dedicated member of the Explorers Club. He was a Film and Television Professor at Trident Technical College in South Carolina for 12 years and is currently working with Colorado State University on a documentary about Temple Grandin.
Strategic Advisors
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Grady Breen
Grady Breen is a seasoned social studies teacher at South Carroll High School in Sykesville, Maryland. His content specialties are World History and Psychology. Outside of the classroom, Grady also serves as the Varsity Boys Lacrosse Head Coach and Junior Varsity Football Coach. Born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, Grady is an avid hiker and skier. He has served as a responsible, enthusiastic guide for several trips with Mountain Goat Movement to places like the Catskills, Kilimanjaro, and more.
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Bhima Gaddy
Bhima Gaddy is an educator and outdoorsman who loves empowering young people to expand their horizons in the classroom and out in the world. For the last decade, he's been skillfully leading groups of students from Wyoming to Costa Rica and beyond as they climb, ski, boulder, surf, and learn the personal and global skills it takes to be citizens of the world.In recent years, he's also added Broadway stagehand to his resume in addition to his board member and in-the-field group leader work with Mountain Goat Movement. He's excited about the continued adventures and opportunities these roles will bring his way.
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Deron Triff
Deron Triff served on TED’s executive team from 2011-2016, where he helped guide the organization through a period of remarkable expansion. At TED, Deron persuaded Chris Anderson, TED’s owner and curator, to see partnerships as “ecosystem-building.” This means that each new initiative reinforces the core business while, at the same time, opening entirely new markets and verticals. The ecosystem-building effort Deron led for over six years pushed the talks past 1 Billion views/year, significantly diversified revenue, and created wholly-owned TED assets of enduring value. In 2017, Deron co-founded the media company WaitWhat, which has a portfolio of premium content that elevates human potential. It's best known for the award-winning Top 1% podcasts Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman and Meditative Story. Our Masters of Scale Summit in 2022 put the company on the global map.
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Lisa Shipley
Lisa brings a lifetime of love for nature to her role as CEO of Live Wildly. With 25 years of experience in conservation, she spent nearly two decades at The Nature Conservancy. Most recently, she led the Last Wild Places program at the National Geographic Society and implemented its Campaign for Nature. This is where Lisa learned of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Campaign and was inspired by the potential to protect such a large-scale landscape. She joined the effort and helped lead the Campaign to pass the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act.
Professional Athletes
Javier Spiegel
Javier Spiegel is a professional skier and videographer. Born and raised in Chile, Javier now lives in Killington, VT. When he is not throwing double-back flips in Woodward Park, he can be found doing what he loves most: teaching the next generation to become strong skiers and mountain lovers. As a videographer, Javier is a certified FAA Drone Pilot, and he even produced a commercial for the Superbowl in 2018.
Impact and Partnerships Advisors
Jenny Lafaurie
Jenny Lafaurie is a Colombia-born Social Impact Strategist passionate about empowering underserved communities through high-impact community engagement programs and taking organizations to the next level by forging sustainable strategic partnerships across sectors. Jenny brings her rich cross-cultural and cross-sector experience to the Mountain Goat Movement team.
Interns
Jeremy Kamber
As an intern at Mountain Goat Movement, Jeremy uses his technical know-how to help manage our website. This includes displaying and updating events and trips, managing content on our blog, and tracking trip and event attendance. Outside of Mountain Goat Movement, he shows his passion and drive for entrepreneurship. Jeremy can be found working on two projects of his: writing posts for his blog on studying and student productivity, EdEfficiency, and writing code for Habitur, a social habit tracking app that allows its users to build habits with friends, and the wider community.
Operations Manager
Ryan Byington
Ryan is a current student at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, studying Data Analytics and Information Systems at the Sellinger School of Business. For Mountain Goat, Ryan helps design and update the website, as well as assisting Greg with daily operational tasks. Ryan has an extensive outdoor background with Mountain Goat Movement, traveling all around the world, including Mt. Kilimanjaro, Costa Rica, and the Catskills and Adirondack Mountains. Through all of these trips, Ryan has become a leader and problem solver, navigating through tough situations that arise as a result of being in the outdoors.