Did you have the boat before you had the job offer?

Yeah. I left Jackson. I was in grad school for a year, and then I built the boat. I took it out on Lake Cayuga and no one knew what it was. We had a little trolling motor, and it would get us across the lake. I took it down the Susquehanna. We probably have 10,000 miles on it at this point.

For a while, I was writing dates and locations and mileage and recording the hatches, but that's gone.

With all those miles spent on the river in the boat, can you describe one example of inspiration, clarity, or an ah-ha moment you had that impacted your work?

I think you can boil it down to just what's necessary. Whenever you're floating on the river, you're really looking to pack light. You just want to bring what you need. It's not quite backpacking where you have to count every ounce, but you want everything you bring to be very specific to what you're doing. So, that's the deep fryer for the turkey, but it's also the down jacket that's going to be all you wear for 20 days. You want one raincoat that's going to hold up and that you don't have to think about. You just have that go-to piece.

When I'm on the river, I'm always trying to think what is that perfect piece for the day. If it's a hot July day, it's the sun shirt. In the fall it’s something flannel, or in April it's the Hometown Down Jacket. That mindset of really distilling what you need down to the essence is something I pick up when I'm out on the water.

It’s really just thinking how to simplify, there's such elegance in the simple solution. And nature, really nature does that better than people ever will. It’s a very elegant, simple solution to life.