Ben Swank
Residential Assistant / Program Staff
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and went to The Principia School for 13 years before feeling a pull towards wide open spaces in the western United States. While attending the University of Redlands I designed a degree in social economics and explored my love for the outdoors as a trip leader for the university’s outdoor club. The Sierra Nevada mountains and Joshua Tree National Park quickly became my favorite wilderness areas to spend free time.
After graduating, I worked in Bend, Oregon as a wilderness guide for New Vision Wilderness Therapy. This opportunity to work with teens and young men struggling with addiction, trauma, depression, and anxiety expanded my compassion, patience, acceptance, and discipline – and the growth I saw in clients and myself pushed me to explore mental health care in my next position. In Charlottesville, VA, I worked at a crisis stabilization unit with a greater range of people that needed short term support from counselors and social workers.
A strong desire to work with teens outdoors once again has brought me to The Link School as a residential and program assistant. I hope that through daily commitment to critical thinking, service to others, stewardship of the wilderness, we can each find our “spiritual link which establishes man forever to the divine”.
