Dropzone Culture

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This favorite adage of CEOs, consultants, and Forbes readers means that no matter how many Stanford MBAs helped write your business plan, a toxic or mistrusting work culture will sabotage it, while a vibrant and loyal one will stick with you through any mess or market downturn.

But what’s that got to do with skydiving?

In our world, it’s community that culture eats for breakfast. Whether your dropzone wants to attract the best camps and organizers or flies a humble 182, the strength, cohesion, and supportive atmosphere among your jumpers will make or break the community you wish to build. 

We all expect the dropzone to be a welcoming place where we can put the rest of the world on hold and just be our weird and wonderful selves…because we feel safe to. But if our dropzone culture feels hostile, we’ll drive an extra hour to find a more welcoming one, or pick up another expensive hobby in which to sink our paychecks.

So how do you take dropzone safety to the next level? What does it take to create a healthy and resilient culture that attracts a community of skydivers of all stripes and sizes and earns a reputation for being an awesome place to jump? Our May 26 FB Live panel features three of the most recognizable veterans of dropzone operations and marketing to dig into the how and why:

Dan BC – Skydive Perris, CA DZ manager and world champion skydiver

Melanie Curtis – Business executive coach and skydiving coach; previously marketing and event director at Skydive Elsinore

Larry Liebler – Skydiving instructor and general manager at Skydive Orange

Moderated by:
Trevor Torreele – Representative for Peregrine Manufacturing

Contest Description

The “A” in CAMP Unity stands for action. This FB Live would be all talk if we didn’t follow up with actionable steps you and your dropzone can take to build a safe, resilient, and welcoming culture. So for this panel, we’re announcing a contest in partnership with Peregrine to help us write a Next Level Safety Code for dropzones.

The world’s most popular companies place a priority on building great places to work by investing in employee happiness and writing down their culture codes and core principles. We’d love to see dropzones take a page from company playbooks and commit to excellence in service of their skydiver communities. 

We want to hear from you! What culture code would you like to see at your dropzone? What core principles do you wish your dropzone aspired to, or already embodies? The best submission, either written, recorded, or in video format, will win $300 toward a Peregrine container!

Rules:

1) To enter into a competition, you must be present at the FB Live.

2) At the FB Live, please contribute to the conversation by commenting on the discussion or asking a question.

The most engaging and thoughtful comments will invite more response and stand a better chance of winning! Oh, and saying “hi” in the comments is polite and very welcome, but give us something more substantive for the competition.

3) After the FB Live, please send us your thoughts (no more than 500 words please – or, even better, a video!) on the following topic:

***What culture code would you like to see at your dropzone? What core principles should we aspire to embody on the dropzone?***

Please be advised that we will share some or all of the submissions on our website and social media. If you prefer your submission to remain anonymous or would not like us to not share your name, we still welcome your thoughts but your submission will not qualify for the competition.

We STRONGLY encourage video submissions. You can message us on FB or email us at team (at) camp-unity (dot) org. Woot!

4) Send in your submission by Wednesday, 6/9 at 11:59 pm.