[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5847]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING DAVE GENOVA

 Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, last year we lost a 
great man and leader whom I knew well, Dave Genova. On March 28, 2010, 
Dave passed away at the age of 67.
  From my days as an educator and guide in the Outward Bound Program, I 
knew Dave to be a remarkably talented and committed individual with a 
gift for leadership.
  Dave spent 32 years with Outward Bound, a program that uses the 
outdoors as a classroom to inspire service to others and to coach 
leadership skills, oftentimes to underprivileged youth. Having taught 
some 2,000 students, he had an incredible enthusiasm for bringing 
people together to overcome challenges in ways they never thought 
possible.
  Throughout his tenure in the North Carolina Outward Bound, Dave 
played an invaluable role as an educator, but he was also an innovator. 
In 1999, he started the Unity Project, which is designed to break down 
barriers of social and economic inequality. His efforts have enabled 
nearly 1,000 young leaders to become agents of social change in their 
local schools and communities, and the program continues to educate and 
train future leaders today.
  Dave once said of the Outward Bound School, ``Compassion is the well-
spring from which we derive our relevance.'' These words should serve 
as a guiding compass for us all. Dave taught from a place of 
understanding, and he sought to ensure every one of his students came 
away with a greater appreciation for others and the knowledge that, in 
his words, ``We're all in this together.'' He used the great outdoors 
to build a sense of community among adventurers, but more important, he 
taught them how to carry on his work to build bridges between people. 
Neighborhoods, cities, and States have been touched by Dave's work, and 
we can all be grateful for his contribution.
  A longtime outdoorsman myself, I appreciate and admire Dave's passion 
for our wild lands and the lessons they can teach us. Always a bold 
leader, scaling the toughest of life's mountains, Dave's extraordinary 
character exemplifies an ideal to which we all should strive. He is 
missed by many, but his memory continues to guide me and all his 
students.

                          ____________________