Mark Dibble
YMCA Of The Pines, CEO
Mark started at Camp Cory in 1988 as a camper and left in 2010 as the Director. In the intervening years he held most, but not all jobs at camp. Except for a five or six year hiatus in his thirties, Mark has continually worked in the camping. He currently serves as the CEO of the YMCA of the Pines, an association in South Jersey that recently acquired the YMCA of Gloucester County and contains, among other things, Camp Ockanickon for Boys, Camp Matollionequay for Girls, and Lake Stockwell Day Camp.
Many of the ideas for $2k Summer occurred during Mark’s tenure as Director at Camp Cory. To the extent that he deserves any credit for their creation (and he’s not sure he does) it’s that he hired creative people and pushed for programs that were novel and that improved both week to week and summer to summer. To do this day, his lives by this philosophy. He hires people who do their jobs better than he ever could and he supports and pushes them.
Pat Foster
YMCA Camp Cory, Executive Director
Pat has been working at Camp Cory for more than ten years, however he has been going to camp since he was 10. He has an extensive background working with kids, holding a variety of different roles during his time at camp and being a former Special Education Teacher. Pat holds a Master's Degree in Special Education from Lesley University, in addition to his Bachelor's from Nazareth College. He has presented on camp programs and inclusion at the Northeast YMCA Camping Conference and various ACA events. He and his wife, Nicole, live in Fairport, NY with their children Brooklyn and Teddy.
During his time in this role, Pat has dramatically expanded the programming to accommodate overnight and day camp in the same schedule. This has involved working with simultaneous elective and group scheduling, which resulted in accommodating more campers in both programs. In addition to this, Pat has worked hard to incorporate a more inclusive model for camp for LGBTIQA+ youth and staff. Pat has always had a passion for training staff, and has used this to develop leaders who champion the inclusive nature of what camp represents. This has resulted in better programs and happy campers.
Dave Ghidiu
Finger Lakes Community College, Assistant Professor
Dave began his career at YMCA Camp Cory as a dishwasher in the summer of 1994. His dishroom partner - Nick - and him created games for all the various tasks they were given. It wasn't long before the gamification escaped from the dishroom and Dave and Nick were tapped to elevate programs at camp. The next year, Dave returned as a Junior Counselor and won the Gary Diehl Leadership Award. After spending three more years as a Senior Counselor, Dave took on the Leadership Director role.
During this role, Dave started working with the Program Directors to create novel camp experiences for the campers. His first game, The Earth Day Game, was well-received and inspired other all-camp games with robust rule set and game mechanics.
Dave continued to work at Camp Cory (and other camps) through 2015 in one capacity or another. In 2014, Dave was hired as a professor of Computer Science at a college in the Finger Lakes region of New York. He currently teaches game design, cybersecurity, and programming. Dave has been consulting with summer camps for the past several years and specializes in program elevation and game design.
He credits his success as an educator to the formative years he spent working at Camp Cory.
Aaron Proietti
Today's Innovator, CEO
Aaron Proietti first attended summer camp at YMCA Camp Cory in the early 1980s. He returned to Camp Cory each summer through 1998, working as a dishwasher, counselor, waterfront director, and program director. In one particularly rainy week during his time as program director, Aaron designed a surprise evening program. Each cabin was sent invitations to come dressed up in specific costumes to dinner, but other than which costume they were assigned, they were unaware of what was to unfold. When counselor Andrea did not show up to dinner, we waited for 30 minutes before her campers reported her missing, thus launching the entire camp into a two-hour murder mystery evening program while the rain poured down outside. Aaron considers the design and execution of this experience as the pinnacle of his program design experience.
Aaron is thrilled to read Bo Shoemaker's bio here, in which he refers to the game Goblins, Trolls, and Slugboy. The design of this all-camp game was another highlight of Aaron's program director experience. Creative games such as these allowed campers and counselors, alike, to suspend everything they know about the real world, and to co-create a new world - in this instance where Goblins haunted the fields, Trolls manned the bridges, and where Slugboy ruled the land.
Nothing defined Aaron's work as a program director more than his commitment to high-quality, unpredictable, themed staff shows. On Sundays during the 1990s at Camp Cory, all campers would report to the boathouse in the evening to see a hastily assembled show put on by select staff members. These improvisational shows were often written just as a simple one-page scene summary, which made suggestions as to what might happen on stage. The rest was up to the creativity and imagination of the cast. For sure, many shows bombed, but many more produced memorable, peak moments for the campers and staff. Common elements included staff members dressed up as recognizable characters, front-of-stage sideshows allowing for set changes behind the curtain, lip-synched dance scenes, and an unexpected twist to wrap up the show.
Today, Aaron speaks and writes on the topic of innovation. Through his business, Today's Innovator, he consults with widely-varying organizations, including summer camps.
Bo Shoemaker
Genesee County, Assistant District Attorney
Bo Shoemaker began his summer camp career as a camper in the sailing village of Camp Cory in the summer of 1996. He was a counselor-in-training in 2000, and from there became a counselor, waterfront coordinator, village head, leadership director, program director, and senior program director. “The most interesting thing in the world, I think, is to make a thrilling, intricate all-camp ‘epic game,’” he said one Friday afternoon. The cold January sun beamed in through his office windows as he became wistful, his eyes gleaming with the memory of dozens of all-camp games of the past.
“Even as a camper,” he continued, “I loved those games. When I was 14 or 15 years old, as a Maijgren camper, we tried so hard at the big all-camp games. And we usually won!” There was one game, in particular, that Bo remembered: “It was the slug boy! I don’t remember all the details of the game, but I remember we ran around camp, were super competitive, and ended up in the central area of the camp where we finally met a counselor who played Slugboy himself. Our prize for winning the game was a little felt slug; one of my greater regrets is that I did not more forcefully advocate for myself to be the camper who got to keep it.”
His tenure as Program Director was not without some measure of controversy. Bo, and to a degree, his co-Program Director, Aaron Weaver, tended to make games that tilted slightly more violent. One counselor was a bit aghast at a skit in which an alien cowboy, “Galaxar Frisco,” was about to be hanged, only to be saved at the last minute when his accomplice shot the rope with a laser carbine. Another staff member was irked at the violent nature of Big Game Hunters, while some were even hesitant about the perennial favorite, “Doughboys.”
“It’s all in good fun,” says Bo. He relates that “The Call of Cthulhu,” for example, has been slightly censored for the purposes of this book. But he has a small bit of advice for would-be GameRunners: “If it’s fun, go ahead and do it! Let’s say fifty players enjoy actually shooting the cultist in the back of the head, rather than giving him swimmer’s ear, as the 2DS game provides for. And let’s say one or two players get upset. I’d take that trade off any day of the week!”
As for other things that make a great game, Bo paraphrases his former co-worker Aaron: “With documents, go for interesting and authentic-looking fonts; with music to play over the P.A. system during the game, make sure it all fits the theme and builds a sense of adventure. Costumes. Props. Accents. Vocabulary to teach cast members authentic World War I soldier slang. ‘It takes a lot of work to make the games a little better, but it’s worth it!’”
Bo is an attorney in Rochester, New York.
Aaron Weaver
Strong Hospital, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Aaron Weaver was a camper and staff member at YMCA Camp Cory for years. He is currently a medical doctor in the emergency department at Strong Hospital in Rochester, New York. His thriving moments as a program director were when he was meticulously creating immersive, memorable experiences for campers.
Aaron specializes in immersive experiences and storytelling. His programs are easily identifiable by the wry humor, whimsical illustrations, and painstaking attention to detail. He once manufactured 100 stuffed penguins by hand (cut, sewn, and stuffed) for Rescue the Penguins. Aaron is also responsible for hand-stitching four full-size bear costumes for the Great Bear Hunt.
Aaron loves spending time with his wife, kiddos, and doggo.