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ABOUT VERDUN
Verdun utilizes a multi-faceted challenge course, community partnerships, and natural resources in our area to provide custom experiences that connect people to each other and their community. Verdun promotes individual and collective growth through programs designed to meet the specific needs of our clients and our community as a whole.
Today’s home and workplace might be highly connected through high-tech, but people are more isolated than ever. Recently a survey by health insurer Cigna found a 13% increase in feelings of loneliness and isolation among adults since 2018*.
A lack of face-to-face interaction and decrease in tactical problem solving, one could argue, have created a fractured community that is challenged to both communicate and collaborate. This causes workplace stress and disruption from workers who’ve lost the sense of how to work together for a common goal, and leads to depression and anxiety for kids whose social interactions are limited to smartphones and video games.
Verdun Adventure Bound helps people of all ages reconnect as teams and individuals through customized, experiential courses that range from pole-based challenges to hiking and rafting adventures. Time in nature is not just a valuable experience, it’s a primal need.
Verdun Adventure Bound’s programs and experiences provide young people with a nature-based disconnect from technology. By overcoming real-life, tactical challenges and relying on their own ingenuity, young people come away from a Verdun adventure with a positive sense of accomplishment that can be life-changing. For companies and organizations experiencing bottlenecks and low morale, Verdun’s programs bring teams into a fresh environment to reconnect as colleagues and realize their personal strengths and shared humanity.
Overall, Verdun Adventure Bound aims to empower individuals by teaching the skills for personal, professional, and team success.
VISION & MISSION
VISION
To strengthen the community in which we exist by empowering individuals, communities, and organizations to discover their unrealized potential and fostering impactful collaboration.
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MISSION
To realize our vision, Verdun utilizes a multi-faceted challenge course, community partnerships, and natural resources in our area to provide custom experiences that connect people to each other and their community. Verdun promotes individual and collective growth through programs designed to meet the specific needs of our clients and our community as a whole.
Verdun Adventure Bound, in order to realize this vision, holds the organization and the Board of Directors, and the staff accountable to 5 guiding principles
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Commitment: Verdun will maintain a growth mindset seeking to continually improve in all that we are and all that we offer
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Stewardship: We commit to consistently recognize our role within the world around us. We commit to being excellent stewards of the resources provided to us by donors, organizations, and clients and recognize the responsibility we carry.
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Equity: Verdun Adventure Bound is open and accessible to all without exception.
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Humility: We pledge to always put others before self in word and action as individuals and as an organization
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Safety: Physical and emotional well-being is foremost and resolute in all that we do.
MEET THE TEAM
OUR FOUNDER
Dr. David Snyder (Doc)
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Kendal Blaser
Kendal is a physical therapist and owner of Blaser Therapy, a private physical therapy office. She has been practicing since 1985 and opened her own office in Warrenton in 1996. A native to Baltimore, Maryland, Kendal graduated from Frostburg State University with a BS in Philosophy and later from Old Dominion University with a BS in Physical Therapy.
Kendal has been active in community service and youth development for over twenty years, specifically youth development when she began assisting with her son’s recreational sports teams and later when she was one of the founding members of the Fauquier County Youth Lacrosse League. During her involvement with the league, she acted as Women’s Commissioner and Coach of the girl’s team.
Kendal has traveled with Dr. Snyder on medical mission trips to China and Haiti. Kendal has been actively involved with Verdun Adventure Bound both as a board member and volunteer for over 10 years. She also serves on the Fauquier Free Clinic Board and is very active in both organizations’ fundraising events.
Mrs. Blaser has been married since 1986 to Tom Blaser and is the proud mother of their two sons, Sam and Tyler.
Honore Hastings
Honore graduated from the University of Maryland with a General Studies/Physical Education Degree. She taught kindergarten through eighth grade in Montgomery County, Maryland public and parochial schools for approximately eight years.
Honore changed career paths when she was asked to manage a for-profit corporation in Chevy Chase, and was instrumental in the conversion of that business to a 501(C) (3) nonprofit organization. In 2005, Honore and her husband, Rick, moved to a horse farm in Marshall. While running her own successful equine business, Honore continued her work in the non-profit field ]and in May of 2013, she was asked to join the Verdun Adventure Bound team as the executive director. After proudly developing Verdun for seven years, Honore retired and currently resides with her husband, dog and two cats in Ocean View, Delaware. Honore remains connected to Verdun, serving as a board of directors’ member.
Honore is the proud mother of two grown children: Eric is an Air Force Lt. Colonel and is currently serving at the Pentagon; Erin is a professional equestrian and is based out of Northern Virginia.
Jeff Hollis
Jeff is a certified public accountant and has managed medical practices since 1990. He is currently the CEO of Blue Ridge Orthopedic and Spine Center, Warrenton, Virginia. Jeff has served on Verdun’s board since 1997 and has served as the secretary and now the position of Treasurer. Jeff is excited about the growth at Verdun. He has witnessed the evolution of the organization it is today, and is proud to be a part of it.
Mike King
Have worked as a letter carrier "aka: MailmanMike" for the USPS for over 20 + years. A 2001 AT thru-hiker. I have enjoyed many of the circuit hikes in SNP with my wife Monica. 2019 Everest Base Camp Hike. A true love for the outdoors, and I love what Verdun is doing. As we have become overstimulated and non-communicative, I feel you can find your answers in the great outdoors. Verdun gives you an opportunity to communicate with others and for mental exploration. I'm very happy to be apart and hope to enjoy the space as I once did working with Doc Snyder and his bees. I would encourage any and all to come out and visit or check out the offerings and give it a shot. Life is short so try something different and get outside with friends and family. Verdun is an amazing space!
Erin Kozanecki
Erin has worked in state and local government for over 20 years, with a master’s degree in Public Administration with a focus on government and nonprofit management. She became the Deputy County Administrator for Fauquier County, Virginia in June 2020, and has worked for Fauquier County since July 2010. Erin has served on various boards and committees in her current and previous roles with the County including the Chair of the Fauquier County Social Services Board and Chair of the Birmingham Green Board of Directors. She also serves on the Board of the Warrenton Middle School PTO.
Erin lives in Warrenton with her son, Liam and their two dogs Reese and Kilroy.
Dr. David Snyder (Doc)
Doc grew up in a military household as the son of a Navy Admiral. His father’s service required the family to regularly move from one military base to another. Doc changed schools several times, but always attended parochial schools. He graduated from Georgetown University Graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. His interests in medicine lead him to the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he graduated in 1967.
Doc enlisted in the U.S. Navy for four years where he served as a physician in Trauma Surgery and Ortho-Trauma Surgery in Vietnam and at the Bremerton Naval Hospital as an E.R. Physician & Orthopedic Surgery. He completed his Orthopedic Surgery Residency, M.C.V. Richmond in 1975.
Doc is the co-founder of the Blue Ridge Orthopedic Association in Warrenton in 1978 and remained there until his retirement in 2011. He has served as the Virginia Hospice Association President and to this day, Doc continues to serve as an Orthopedic Surgeon for the Medical Missionaries, Thomassique, Haiti.