Rethinking Trainer Development: The Journey to Creating the Trainer Pathway

The Spark: Mentoring call that changed everything

Kristina and Micah met for a coaching call in late 2024, at a moment when Kristina was navigating government furlough, deep burnout, and the unsettling question of what might come next. With her future in the federal sector uncertain, she found herself dreaming again—specifically about what she could contribute to the challenge course industry that had shaped so much of her professional life. Micah asked the hard questions that many mentors do about what seemed most interesting to potentially pursue or build out. As a week passed many ideas arose but one longing from Kristina's early career kept resurfacing: meaningful development for trainers.

Although Kristina had taught in classrooms, facilitated for more than fifteen years, trained others as needed, and even spent time as a vendor-employed trainer, she had always felt most authentic—and most useful—when she was supporting the instructional side of the work. Her only formal training experience had been through a vendor, and even that resembled an apprenticeship more than a structured developmental progression. So on a later call, she floated an idea: what if they created something specifically for training trainers? That simple question sparked something in both Micah and Kristina, and the exploration began.

Changing Industry Landscape

Zooming out from our personal journey, the broader industry has been changing too. The training of trainers had traditionally happened only after someone was hired by a vendor organization. New trainers would move through that company’s progression—learning curriculum, observing seasoned instructors, co‑training, receiving feedback, being observed themselves, and eventually leading courses independently.  Every vendor had its own rhythm and expectations, and the progression varied in timeline.

Over the last five to ten years, however, the Aerial Adventure industry—including ropes and challenge courses, ziplines, zip tours, and adventure parks—has seen a noticeable shift. More organizations are asking the questions about use of vendors and how best to utilize their internal staff and possibly relying on in‑house trainers, often staff with more experience teaching those with less, therefore decreasing reliance on 3rd party organizations to support their staff training. The reasons are many: training costs, staff turnover, scheduling constraints, and organizational models that encourage internal skill development. Some vendors have even shifted their own models or added offerings to help support these organizational changes through partnering with the organization to review their in-house training curriculum, validation processes, etc and work with the staff to support quality instruction. 

With this shift, instructional quality can vary significantly. Many in‑house trainers are doing their best with what they have but simply don’t know what they don’t know, and may not have the foundational pieces needed for a solid training program. This evolving landscape is part of what inspired us to explore a different approach. We believe everyone should have the opportunity to develop their training and instructional skills, regardless of who they work for, and to discover whether training is truly a path they want to pursue in their professional journey. 

Why Developmental Pathway Matters

In reflecting on this industry shift, Kristina and Micah began exploring what an ideal support system for both organizations and trainers could look like, whether those trainers were intentionally hired into the role or unexpectedly thrust into it. We knew we couldn’t build a program based solely on our own opinions, so we grounded our work in existing standards and guidance from ACCT International. We focused on operational requirements outlined in ACCT 03‑2019 (Chapter 2), reviewed the Qualified Professional (QP) criteria developed by ACCT working groups, and drew from instructional methods commonly used in experiential education.

From the beginning, we agreed the course shouldn’t be rigid. Instead, it needed to flow, adapt, and build on the experience each participant brought with them for each training offering. And because we were creating something new, accreditation wasn’t the goal, adaptability was. The end product needed to be able to evolve alongside the needs of the industry itself.

Pathway Progression

As we began shaping the Trainer Pathway, one of our core goals was to help participants understand where they were in their own development and where they were headed. We wanted the course to offer shared learning while also giving each person a clear sense of their place along a broader progression. To do that, we looked to industries that have long embraced structured growth models—professional trades such as plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry. These fields use well‑defined stages like Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master, each representing years of practice, feedback, failing forward, and mentorship.

The more we studied these models, the more we saw alignment with the blend of technical and interpersonal skills required in our industry. Micah conducted a deep dive into trade‑based frameworks and drafted the first version of our mentor‑guided self‑assessment tool. As the tool evolved, we paired ACCT operational standards with the Apprentice–Journeyman–Master progression and identified what learning, understanding, and ability looked like at each stage. We then mapped these across the three Operational Systems outlined in ACCT International Standards—Facilitated, Guided, and Self‑Guided—to create a pathway that trainers could use to locate themselves developmentally, reflect on their growth, and envision their next steps.

When Standards Met Reality: Assessment Adjustment

As we tested the assessment on ourselves and coached each other through it, we quickly realized it wasn’t quite right. The ACCT 03‑2019 Standard separates operational systems into clear categories, but in practice we found far more grey than black‑and‑white. Very few courses operate as purely Facilitated, Guided, or Self‑Guided; most blend elements of all three depending on their design, staffing, and participant needs.

Take a two‑tier course, for example. The lower level might run as either a dynamic belay or a static lanyard system depending on the group, while the upper level uses static lanyards with a zipline dismount. In that single program, you already see both Facilitated and Guided elements. If that same course incorporated smart‑lanyard technology, a Self‑Guided component would appear as well.

Ziplines added even more complexity. Depending on how they’re integrated, they can fall into any of the three operational systems. A traditional facilitated course might use a gravity zip where a facilitator unclips the participant at the end, while other courses use cable angle and speed to move participants platform‑to‑platform. Some self‑guided parks even use mid‑course ziplines to transition between sections. In short, ziplines didn’t fit neatly into the categories as written, at least not yet.

During our first offering of Trainers Pathway in March 2026, we brought together a 50/50ish mix of vendor employed trainers and in‑house trainers. We wanted to put this brainchild to the test and gather feedback. We’ll dive deeper into reflections from that first offering in our next blog post, but a few insights surfaced that are important to share here.

As we reviewed both the Core Competencies and the Facilitated Operating System section, we noticed significant overlap, skills and expectations that should apply across all operating systems, not just one. In our developmental pathway, we want all practitioners to have access to this foundational insight. For example, assessing and implementing appropriate life‑safety systems is essential for every practitioner, yet the standard only addresses it within facilitated use. This was just one of many examples that prompted discussions among ourselves and with our first cohort about which skills truly belonged to multiple operating systems once you removed the section headers. This led us to expand our Core Competency section to include concepts that span all operating systems.

These were just a few of the discussions we had as we compared the skills and criteria in our developmental pathway to the operational systems where they most often showed up. The more we explored, the clearer it became that our assessment needed to reflect the real, blended nature of course operations rather than the rigid structure of the standard. This realization has shaped the next iteration of the Trainer Pathway.

Evolving the Tool: Designing for Real Courses and Real Trainers 

During our March 2026 offering, one discussion in particular reshaped the final “level” of expertise of our developmental pathway. We had originally used the term Master, following the structure of traditional skilled trades, but participants quickly pointed out their discomfort, both the cultural baggage of the term and the unrealistic implication that anyone could achieve complete mastery across all skills. What we were really describing in our assessment and pathway progression wasn’t perfection, we want even our mentors to be continuously learning and striving and possibly supporting our industry taking on new technology and concepts. This upper “level” was more about the ability to guide, support, and develop others. Through the training and discussion the group gravitated toward Mentor as a more accurate and inclusive reflection of that role, and we liked it too.

We also recognized that, because our industry operates across three primary operating systems, most trainers naturally reach mentor‑level ability in one system before they do in the others. Very few practitioners are mentors in all three, and that’s not a flaw, it’s a reflection of the diversity of course designs and professional pathways baked into the industry. The developmental model needed to honor that reality. Our assessment allows trainers to identify where they are within core, each system, and then celebrate areas where they’ve reached mentor‑level proficiency, while identifying where they may want to grow next. The next step for someone who has reached Mentor in a operating system may decide to progress from journeyman to mentor in another system or choosing to focus their energy on developing future practitioners within the system where they already excel, it’s choice while also continuing self development. 

This shift in language helped us align the pathway with its core values: growth, guidance, and shared learning rather than hierarchy or absolutes.

What’s Next

This first phase of development, while complete, has made one thing become clear: building the Trainer Pathway is as iterative and growth‑oriented as the pathway itself. Each conversation, each iteration, and each moment of honest reflection has shaped a developmental program and tool that better reflects the reality of our industry and the people who serve it. The adjustments we made (grounded in standards, shaped by real practice, and refined through thoughtful dialogue) have strengthened the foundation of the course. In our next post, we’ll look back at the first offering with what surprised us, what challenged us, and how those insights are shaping the October course. The pathway continues, and we’re grateful to be walking it together.