Bridging the Gap: SAV Sankaran on Identity, Inclusion, and the Outdoors

From his humble beginnings with a weekend job at Orvis, sav Sankarin has gone on to play a pivotal role in the company's corporate landscape. His experiences navigating the outdoor industry as a person of color have informed his unique approach to fostering belonging. In this episode, I caught up with SAV at the Outdoor Economy Conference in Cherokee, north Carolina, where he was a panelist speaking on breaking barriers, investing in DEI to transform the outdoor industry. We walk through SAV's personal journey in the outdoors and he reflects on how his passion for fly fishing helped him unlock his identity and helped to give him a sense of community as a young person growing up in Pennsylvania's Central Appalachia. Sav discusses the importance of fostering a sense of belonging for the underrepresented in the outdoors and he draws on his personal journey to help contextualize an equitable and inclusive workplace. Sav and I talk about our shared belief in treating people like human beings, with dignity and kindness, and he urges us not to get caught up in the trappings of misunderstanding and over politicization Based on decades of firsthand experiences. The outdoors creates spaces where people from all walks of life, beliefs and backgrounds can come together to experience nature's beauty together. It's truly special when that carries over and translates into the workplace too. Join me as we unpack all of this and so much more. I really think you're going to enjoy this episode. You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local. Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel a spirit of adventure. We encourage you to wander far, but explore local. Let's go. Well, I am excited to have SAV Sankaran with me today. He is the founding member of Orvis's Justice, equity, diversity and Inclusion Committee. He's a board member of Minority Outdoor Alliance and he leads Orvis's DII efforts, helping the company to make the outdoors and the outdoor industry more inclusive. Sav holds a diversity and inclusion certificate from the beautiful Cornell University. Sav. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much, mike. So in the workplace in today's world, we hear a lot about DEI and we're going to kind of talk about that a little bit and we'll kind of make a disclaimer at the very start of this. We're going to focus sort of on your pathway through DEI into where you are today. So, even though you work for Orvis, that's your professional position. It's not necessarily going to be all about what Orvis's DEI is, and so we think it's really important to kind of unpack what this is. What is DEI? And we're going to do that a little bit. But then we're going to kind of focus on your journey and we're going to unpack that a little bit. So, as we kind of get started, let's just talk a little bit about maybe just a snippet about your role within Orvis, and then we'll start to kind of get into some of the other stuff.

Yeah, absolutely so. As you mentioned, my position title is technically Inclusion and Engagement Business Partner, which is a mouthful I know barely fits on my business card, but essentially my role is encompasses a lot of different things. You mentioned DEI, or Diversity, equity and Inclusion. For anyone who's not familiar with the terminology, that's certainly part of what I do making sure that, not just externally but internally, we're kind of living up to that creed of being a really equitable, inclusive workplace, and that can take a lot of different forms. You know, I think one of the things that's probably important to recognize right off the bat is a lot of these terms DEI and so on have been kind of overly politicized in recent years, which kind of can put up barriers for people, but really what they are at its core is just that it's they're making sure that we are being as inclusive of everyone, that we are creating equitable connections with each other. You know, I think a lot about that, whether it's how our associates connect to each other, to the brand, how our customers connect to the brand. You know there's a lot of different aspects of that, so that's certainly part of it. Another aspect of what I do is associate engagement, which is again kind of a blanket term that encompasses a lot of different things. Again, it's kind of thinking about how Orvis associates feel about being an Orvis associate essentially. So that encompasses everything that is sort of under the what it's like to work at Orvis, what it's like to exist in the Orvis ecosystem. You know, thinking really holistically about all the different aspects of our business. You know Orvis for anyone who might not be familiar is a 160 plus year old family owned business based in southern Vermont, but we have 70 plus retail stores around the country. We also, you know, have a big wholesale business where we sell directly to independently owned retailers like fly shops. You know we manufacture best fly rods in the business, lots of touch to the upland hunting space as well, and then lots of stuff with men's and women's apparel. Our dog products are legendary, you know. So we have our hands in a lot of different things in that sense and so, similarly, the ecosystems in which that happens are different. So our retail stores are different from our home office, from our hybrid employees that are spread out all over the country as many companies are. Now you know I'm a perfect example. You know I work for our corporate office, which is technically headquartered in southern Vermont but I live right here in Western North Carolina have for 16 years. I know we'll talk more about my journey through Orvis, but you know I'm a perfect example of someone who experiences the workplace in a different way. So part of my job is just thinking about stuff like that too. So it's really cool. It's a cool position because it gives me a really broad view of all the different aspects of our business and allows me to provide that inclusive lens to all the different functions of our business as well. So it's yeah, it's a really fun, exciting way to engage with with. You know my work and you know, kind of going back to your original question about DEI and how it kind of affects the business, you know, as you mentioned, we have a, we have an internal work group, our justice, equity, diversity and inclusion work group, which is cross functional. We have members on that group from all different aspects of Orbus's business and that's intentional. So the you know all of those voices are included in the conversation and that, I think, is as much you know an aspect of DEI as anything as it relates to the workforce and the workplace. That is, you know, just being really intentional about who's involved in the conversation, that in and of itself they might not have called that DEI before you know, but that's the thing is. All of this stuff is stuff that's very endemic to how we interact with each other as human beings. We're just naming it, you know, we're being intentional and thoughtful about it and that's what it is. It's. You know, I think if, if you try to impose any kind of political ideology on top of it, it loses its efficacy. You know, I think what we're really trying to do is just make sure that our industry and you know, and our company and our workplaces are are all just as inclusive and equitable as they can be.

Sav amazing breakdown, and thank you so much for kind of sharing the framework of what DEI looks like in the workplace. Yeah, there's so many questions in there that I have for you, and so, before I get there, though, I'm wondering if we can share maybe a little bit about your story, your sort of pathway through this, and and because I think it's really going to add sort of some color, commentary and some meat to what we're talking about and some some really kind of make this practical for our listeners, yeah, sure.

So I'll start by saying that I never imagined myself in a career in this field. Necessarily, I stumbled into it sideways a little bit. My journey to being a DEI practitioner and to applying those you know thought processes to everything that I just described again was a little bit of an accident, a happy accident, if you want to call it that. So I'm a first generation American born into an immigrant family. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny Mountains more central Appalachia than than Southern Appalachia now and found myself involved in the outdoors as kind of a pathway to identity. One of the things that happens I think this is a common story for a lot of first generation immigrants is that you find yourself in a bit of a purgatory because you are kind of far enough removed from your family's culture, wherever they may be from, but you're also sort of othered from the majority culture that you exist in, and so you're sort of in this weird liminal space in between, and so identity crisis is sort of like a birthright and people address it in a lot of different ways. For me, as I said, I grew up in Appalachia. Being of Appalachia, being Appalachian American, is something that's very central to my identity. You know I grew up in the mountains and so my pathway to experiencing that in a lot of ways was to get involved in the outdoors. You know, when I was growing up, a lot of my friends were fishermen, hunters, you know, mountain bikers, etc. And so, although I didn't have like a mentor within my own family, so much of this is kind of generational for a lot of people. One of the reasons why I do what I do is to create other equitable pathways to the outdoors when people don't necessarily have that access. But so I didn't. I didn't have anyone in my family that was involved in the outdoors really, but I had lots of friends that were, and you know I was very lucky at a young age really dear friend of mine, his dad was an avid outdoorsman and invited me along essentially and when we talk about creating access to these outdoor spaces it can be that simple, it's as simple as inviting somebody along. But that was my experience. So that's how I initially got involved. You know, I'm an avid fly fisherman have been since I was young and an avid upland hunter and have gotten into a lot of other things along the way. But that was kind of my initial experience was getting involved somewhat to bridge that gap, if you will, between sort of feeling othered and being a part of this culture that I was growing up in. Now, I didn't have the vocabulary to you know to express that at that point as a teenager, you know but I just knew that I wanted to fit in and you know, and that I wanted to do something that allowed me to enjoy the things that I had around me. And it's interesting the journey that happens and again, this is just my own personal experience, I don't want me to speak for anyone else but the transition that happens as you get older and you realize that some of these things that you do to quote, unquote, fit in or to it's actually to kind of push the things that other you to arm's length to some extent, whereas as you get older and you start to realize that and contextualize it and start to sort of understand what your identity is and how the things that maybe you pushed away as a youth are sort of the things who make, that, make you who you are, you start to recontextualize everything else too. So it wasn't until much later in life that I kind of connected to the kind of outward traditions that my culture has had for thousands of years and kind of learned to grow into the pride of that and all of that kind of stuff. But, as I said, the entry point for me was this is a way for me to speak the same language, if you will figuratively with the people that are around me. So that was kind of my entry point and so had been involved in fly fishing and wing shooting for a number of years, kind of hung out at a lot of fly shops in college and all that kind of thing, but again, never really intended to make the outdoor industry, and certainly this aspect of the outdoor industry, my career. So my other big passion is American Roots music. Have been a professional bluegrass musician for many, many years. Was doing that out of college, did that full time, was traveling, touring around the country and internationally as well, playing music, and so that was kind of a similar journey in a way. Actually, now that I'm talking about it, to kind of defining identity. Getting involved in bluegrass music was again what was kind of me planning the flag of my Appalachian identity in some ways. So these two things sort of existed in parallel. But anyhow, that was my career. I was traveling full time. I was playing music. That's actually what brought me to Western North Carolina in the first place. There is a huge, certainly center for that music here, and so after I got out of college, that was what brought me here. I had some friends within the music community here. I always joke. I moved to Asheville for six months 16 years ago. That was kind of the intention. I was like, oh, I'll go down there and check it out. I can always come home again if it doesn't work out. But just fell in love with the area and have grown both of those careers over that span of time. But that's kind of how I ended up here. And how I kind of ended up moving back towards the outdoor industry and to this work was I had some free time where I wasn't traveling. As I said, was always an avid outdoorsman and wanted to get involved in the industry again, had a couple of days free a week and so started just working at our local Orvis retail store in Asheville started super part-time, like working 20 hours a week, and never had any intention of doing anything more than that. As I said, I was just excited to have the opportunity to talk about something that I was passionate about and help other people get on the water and, if I happen, to make a couple extra bucks and get a good gear discount. That's all I was in it for.

To be perfectly frank, yeah, exactly.

But really quickly fell in love with the corporate culture at Orvis. Orvis is, as I mentioned, a family-owned company, which it sounds like a cliche in the business world to say that it feels like family, but it really does. The reality of even within, kind of a microcosm of the culture that is one local retail store, the brand attracts like-minded individuals because of its values, because of Orvis has always been, in my mind, really authentic in walking the walk as well as talking the talk. There's a great legacy of Orvis's support of conservation and sustainability efforts. There's a program called 5% for Nature where 5% of our pre-tax proceeds are donated to conservation and sustainability efforts every year, and the list goes on. But ultimately it was just a group of really passionate people who were passionate about the same things that I was. They were passionate about fly fishing, they were passionate about wing shooting, they were passionate about conservation, about providing really personable customer service. Everything at Orvis from the beginning, I realized was very relationship-based. We're very intentional about the relationships that we build with our customers and with each other, and so that really attracted me to the company and so I very quickly went from oh, this is just kind of a weekend job to worked my way through the hierarchy at the store there and went to working full-time and then went into leadership within the store and then, as I spent more time at the company, started to get involved in corporate projects and stuff as well, did a number of different things training and other things within the retail division at Orvis and then, a number of years ago, when issues of inclusivity and stuff started to come to the forefront, started to get involved in that stuff internally as well and again, not having come from that background of kind of formal DEI, you know, my background was, as I said, in music and in other humanities, history and that kind of thing. That was what I studied in school and so not having that kind of initial education in DEI. But what I brought to the table was my lived experiences navigating a frankly, largely white industry, a largely white past time as a person of color and all the other intersectional identities that we talk about. As I mentioned, I'm a South Asian American, I grew up as an immigrant, all of that kind of things. So all of that lived experience was what I brought to the table and having been involved in the industry for so long at that point in a variety of different capacities. As I said, I hung out around fly shops a ton when I was younger. I've done everything from instruction, guiding, working in shops, all that kind of stuff. So I think that was the initial viewpoint. As I started to get involved in the industry in that aspect of the industry rather, and in the work internally at Orvis I just found myself really passionate about it. Doing for others helped me contextualize my own journey too. So trying to be thoughtful both internally and externally about how we address those issues within the outdoor industry and then kind of within the ecosystem at large was one of the ways that helped recontextualize my own process of the things that I had experienced throughout the years navigating my way through making a career in the industry and all of that. So that just kind of lit the fire, so to speak, and then went on to pursue further education in kind of the tenants of DEI, with the support of Orvis as well. One of the things that I'm here at the Outdoor Economy Conference talking about is how brands invest in DEI, and one of the things that I think gets overlooked is sort of just both emotional capital and physical capital that gets invested in people. So I'm a perfect example of that. The company invested in me both, as I said, with emotional capital and physical capital, time, energy, all of those things to help me develop those skills, and so went on to pursue the certificate program that you mentioned at the top through Cornell University and had the opportunity to really learn from the ground level up to really expand my knowledge of diversity, equity and inclusion and engagement and all of the things that I mentioned at the top that I work on. So, concurrently, there was a lot of work going on internally as well and, yeah, so that kind of is a very quick overview of kind of how I ended up here. I transitioned out of my work in the retail division at Orvis and took this role on just at the beginning of this year actually, but the process of my role being created within the company and the process of me getting to that point was ongoing for the past several years.

Yeah, sounds like it. Sounds like it was a great build up, and the thing that you're doing now, when you're investing your time and your equity into, is exactly what you're passionate about and it's a direct link to your past. And I'd love to kind of camp out there for a minute too, because I think thank you for that walkthrough. What I like to do is kind of go back to Central PA. I like to go back into what age? I don't know that I asked that or we talked about the age, when you just recognize that I don't have a lot in common with the kids that are around me, but I want to be with them. What was that age?

roughly, Well, so I was born and raised there. My parents immigrated to the United States in the late 60s, early 70s, lived in several different places before settling in Central Pennsylvania, but they had settled there before I was born. I think that you come to that realization pretty early in life, I think. As far as how it relates to getting involved in the outdoors, I was probably middle school age kind of eight, nine, 10 years old is around the time that I started to. That was the first time that I had a fly rod in my hands and that kind of thing. Again, I don't think I really had the understanding of what that really meant until I got older. But that realization of, hey, this is something that all my friends are doing, I want to do it too which is certainly not unique to my experience. Every kid feels that in some way. But again, I think it was only later in life that I kind of understood that it was a I've said in a couple different conversations over the years that use the term chivaleth it was a password essentially for me to kind of unlock that identity, and so it was probably around that time that I started to understand that a little bit more about myself.

I would say yeah, well, the age you're talking about that time frame middle school is definitely one of the most impressionable and, as you're talking, I came from a military background and so my story's a little bit different, but the part of fitting in and being included is not different. It just took on, it was manifested differently, and so in some ways I can relate a little bit of what it's like. I mean, you have your friends, and then there's the things that they go do and the things that I wasn't doing, and so I'm wondering, when you go back to that time in your life, if you can remember what it actually felt like once you started to do the activities that they were involved with, not only for your own edification and enjoyment of them, but just then also kind of going deeper into those relationships with those people that were already friends. But now we have this kindred spirit through the outdoors.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I can absolutely remember what it feels like because I still feel it all the time. That sense of community is what drives me to create these equitable pathways to the outdoors for other people. It's really what has allowed me the fuel, if you will, to do what I do. So it's absolutely very present in my life still, and I think it's interesting because the ways in which I have experienced it have changed over the years. So what I mean by that is what you're talking about. In my early life, what I was feeling was a sense of belonging right, and that certainly can't be overlooked. But I think as I have gotten older and gotten into doing this as a career and creating those spaces for other people like me who are underrepresented in the outdoors or under invested in in the outdoors, I think I've found that same feeling in a different way. So, in other words, that is a creation of community that is super powerful in a way that even finding that belonging in the first place didn't have. So I think it can't be overstated kind of the importance of those affinity spaces being created, as well as how those spaces interact with the ecosystem at large, if that makes sense.

It does it does, so I wonder if we can say a little bit more about that then. So we talked about the belonging piece and now we're talking about the creation of community. Let's talk about what that actually looks like in the workplace, as you're beginning to implement some of the DEI ethos into Orbus.

Yeah, sure. So I'll just speak kind of in a more general sense. Certainly, there are aspects of this that have tangible pieces that that tie into everyday work and that can be anything from creating these kind of affinity spaces. A lot of companies have what they call ERGs or employee resource groups. That might be spaces within which people that share a common identity or something like that might engage, and that's certainly one aspect of it. You know, the Justice, equity, diversity and Inclusion Committee that I mentioned, that I was one of the founding members of not the founder of, but one of the founding members of that you mentioned at the top of the podcast is one kind of version of that, if you will, within Orbus, but that's kind of one way in which that happens. But you know, I think this kind of maybe what is even more important is some of the aspects that go into how people show up at work. You know, are you creating spaces within which people feel that they can present as their complete selves, whatever that means? You know, I think there is another misconception that this work is specifically focused on, maybe racial diversity or, you know, gender equity. All of that certainly is part of it, but this is really talking about. We talk a lot about in our field, about intersectionality. So you don't exist in a vacuum. You, your identity, exists at the intersection of all of the different things that make you who you are, and that can be some of the things that I already mentioned. You know race, culture, language, etc. Gender expression. But it can also mean your upbringing, it can be, you know, cultural markers. You know, the list just goes on and on. I couldn't ever name all of them, but the idea that we try to create a space in which people feel the term that we use in the field is psychological safety. So, in other words, do people feel safe presenting as their whole selves and can they contribute to the workplace in a way without fear of negative connotations or, you know, negative repercussions to them? Speaking up and so making sure that everyone has, you know, a voice in the conversation is definitely a big part of what I do and what we think about, and you know, again, want to make it very clear that my job is to help lead that work, but certainly not doing it alone. This is something that, to work really well, should be inculcated into the culture of everything you do within an organization. That's the ultimate goal. Every single company, organization, business, whatever, is in a different part of that journey, just as every individual is on a different place in their own personal journey, and so that's something that you know can be challenging, but yeah, as I said, that's kind of the ultimate goal is to make sure that this is something that is really endemic to everything you do as a workplace.

Before we started it might have been before we started recording we talked about. You talked about how this really distills down not to say that other ways of describing this are unimportant, but you kind of distilled this down to treating people like kind human beings, with compassion.

Right, yeah, exactly, you know, I think that that is that's really at the core of a lot of the work that I do. And again, I think one of the ways that you can break down some of the barriers that people put up when they sort of hear these buzzwords of DEI or doing, you know, unconscious, bias, training or any of the stuff that's sort of involved in the kind of nuts and bolts of it, is to be able to translate it in those terms. You know, at Orvis, one of the things that I talk a lot about when people ask me about my role and how it affects you know, what we do at the company I think I may have mentioned this at the top too is that for over 160 years, the core mission of Orvis has always been about creating experiences for people in the outdoors. We have a great legacy of creating accessibility to the outdoors in a variety of different ways, you know, starting from the Perkins family, who are the owners of the company starting with, you know, lee Perkins, who was the first generation of that family to own the company creating our fly fishing schools, to our long-running fly fishing and wing shooting 101 programs, which are free. That's a program that we do at all of our retail stores. Many of our independent dealers have taken on the program as well. So it is a breaks down those barriers to entry to the sport. It allows you to come and, in a really safe manner, learn the basics of fly fishing in you know, two and a half hours. Essentially, you have all different aspects of the sport explained in a way that is non-threatening, that doesn't cost any money. So all of these things are part of our legacy of creating accessibility within the industry and within the sport, and so it's really very natural for us to say this is just a modern iteration of that. We're making sure that the largest, most broad group of people is included in you know the ecosystem, into you know the sport and the industry that we feel so passionately about, and one of the things that is kind of so central to everything we do at Orvis is this idea of if you are going to use the resource, it's your responsibility to protect it as well and make sure, ensure that it's there for future generations. Well, part of that sustainability work, if you will, is human sustainability, and so for the ecosystem as a whole to be sustainable, we want to make sure that the largest, most broad group of people is involved in that conversation.

You know, I don't know that I've actually heard this put this way and framed the way that you have. I appreciate you first of all stopping by. Yeah, it's been a blast, but I appreciate the humanness that you bring to this concept because you're right. If we, as with anything in life, is we over politicize things, it loses its luster. Walls go up and what I love about what you've said and what you're describing is that these are really core concepts of just how we function as human beings. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, and I love that, and I love the fact that you also have a journey and a pathway to the outdoors that gives you that context, going all the way back to growing up in Appalachia, and it's really clear. Everybody that I have spoken to about you knows that, through and through, you are. What you see is what you get, and it's real and it's authentic and it's real. So, yeah, but listen, I know you have other things to do, but thanks so much for just stopping in. I hope this isn't the last conversation that you and I get to have.

Absolutely. I'd love to keep it going at some point. Yeah, no, it's been. It's been wonderful. Thanks so much for for giving me the opportunity and you know I'm always happy to engage with any of your listeners as well. If they have, you know further questions about what I do or what Orvis does, you know more than more than happy to to engage with them as well.

And what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

So you can certainly shoot me an email, which is my last name Sankaran S-A-N-K-A-R-A-N-S. So my last name, first initial at Orviscom, perfect, and yeah, just more than happy to. And if you happen to be in Western North Carolina, I'm pretty used to pick out of a crowd, so you know, come up and say hello. Would love to meet anyone who's a listener of the podcast as well. Thanks, so much, Sam Thank you.

If you're a regular listener of the podcast, then you know how much I'd love hearing other people's stories and, of course, the outdoors. It's what motivates me to do this podcast, and SAF story is no different. What an amazing testimony to how, when our personal life experiences and our passions intersect with the world's needs, really cool things can happen. Who would have guessed that a part-time job would one day lead to a corporate role encompassing so many passions, lived experiences and ethos for humanity? Well done, saf, well done. I'd like to give a special shout out to Made by Mountains, who made this episode possible. This episode is part of our 10 part Made by Mountains series, where we'll dive deeper into the lives of people who call these mountains home and how these mountains have made dreamers and doers, tinkerers and builders, and industry leaders and pioneers. Made by Mountains established a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar outdoor equity fund to empower community led initiatives that address identified barriers to outdoor recreation access and opportunity and also helps close these gaps in Western North Carolina. This fund provides micro grants to nonprofits for profits, community groups and sole providers located in Western North Carolina who are focused on advancing equity and inclusion and outdoor recreation access and opportunity in the outdoor economy. The very first grantees of the outdoor equity fund were announced just a couple of months ago. If you'd like to find out more about that, be sure to check out the link in our show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please consider leaving us a review. It truly does help us reach more people. Know if someone who also might enjoy the podcast, be sure to share this episode with them too. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and keep those episode suggestions coming. You can email them to me at mic at exploration localcom. That's going to do it for this episode Until we meet again. I encourage you to wander far, but explore local.