The Collaborative Dynamic Between Empower Adventures and Empower Leadership
Adventure can be defined as an unusual and exciting or daring experience and what an adventure it has been since we opened our first Empower Adventure Park in April of 2009. Empower Leadership Sports & Adventure Center (Middletown, CT), founded by Joe DeRing, was the first adventure facility of its kind in Connecticut – featuring a half-mile long Zip Line Canopy Tour experience designed for families, friends, and individuals.
Our unique, exciting, and empowering adventure experiences coupled with our commitment to providing our community with positive, family-friendly adventure fun inspired an “Empower Expansion” of sorts – adding transformative leadership development and team building offerings to our operation in Connecticut while opening subsequent adventure parks in Northern Virginia (Empower Adventures Middleburg in 2014), in Oldsmar, Florida (Empower Adventures Tampa Bay), and in Central Connecticut (Empower Adventures Connecticut in 2019).
Our mission is to empower individuals, groups, and teams through adventure – inspiring individuals to step out of their comfort zone in a safe and uplifting adventure environment. Our 5-star experiences at the Empower Adventure Parks have provided moments of triumph, boosts in self-confidence, and a stronger sense of connection for over 160,000 participants since first strapping on our harnesses in 2009.
Empower Expansion
As our Adventure Park operations flourished in Connecticut, Virginia, and Florida, we recognized a growing need and demand for more experiential adventure programming for groups and teams, most notably at our Middletown, CT facility. This increased demand led to a shift in our business model at Empower Leadership Sports & Adventure Center – moving from a focus on recreation-leisure adventures towards a model more focused on group programming, skill building workshops, and large community events.
The success of our group programming at our Middletown, CT facility plus our passion for leadership, adventure, and helping others inspired a new dream and a new empowering adventure. In December of 2019, Empower Leadership Sports & Adventure Center closed its doors; moving our recreational adventures to a new location, the Empower Adventure Park at Nomads (South Windsor, CT) and forming Empower Leadership – a branch of Empower focused exclusively on leadership development and team building.
The mission of Empower Leadership is to inspire leadership in one million people by the year 2030. Achieving our mission requires a specialized “Empower Brand” focused on developing content, programs, training workshops, and events that can be delivered both in-person at one of our adventure parks or virtually. Dan Jaskot, who originally served as the Operations Manager at Empower Leadership Sports & Adventure Center, and his 20 years of experience in facilitating experiential adventure programs now serves as the President and General Manager of Empower Leadership. Dan works exclusively on the development of leadership content and services while working collaboratively with the Operations Managers at the Empower Adventure Parks to deliver such services – all in an effort to realize our goal of inspiring and empowering one million individuals to become leaders.
Lead, Adventure, Inspire, and Empower
Each Empower Adventure Park features unique, exciting, and uplifting adventure experiences for individuals and groups. Empower Adventures and Empower Leadership has the perfect adventure for you – whether it be thrilling ziplining and aerial adventure experiences, stand-up paddle boarding adventures, rappelling and survival skill building activities, or professionally-facilitated team building and leadership development programs and workshops.
I invite you to visit our Adventure Park websites for more information about our recreation-leisure adventure experiences for individuals, family and friend groups, and other social gatherings at Empower Adventures Middleburg, Empower Adventures Tampa Bay, and Empower Adventures Connecticut. To learn more about our in-person and online leadership development and team building services, please visit www.LeadwithEmpower.com.
Visit and adventure at an Empower Adventure Park or take part in an experience with Empower Leadership and you will find a team who is passionate about adventure and helping to foster both individual and group development, while striving to provide exceptional 5-star experiences in the treetops, on the ground, or online. We will be with you every step of the way as you discover the courage to step out of your comfort zone, realize your full potential, and achieve that which may at first seem impossible!