‘Chez’ Chesak is an award-winning adventure travel writer and 20+ year veteran of the outdoor and travel industries. He is also Executive Director of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. 

As a writer, his words and images have appeared in the L.A. Times, Good Housekeeping, Rachel Ray Everyday, Family Fun, Fatherly, Family Travel (Aus.), Yahoo Travel, Family Vacation Critic, Everett Potter’s Travel Report, WorldFootprints.com, CincinnatiRefined.com and GreenMatters.com. He also does periodic travel segments for the morning show of his local FOX affiliate and on American Forces Radio.

Thank you for putting together so many of those excellent articles over the years. From the abandoned subway to Amtrak, you’ve done marvelous work. We are a better publication because of people like you.

– Phil Armstrong, former editor of Cincinnati Refined

Prior to his current position, as a business consultant he forged corporate partnerships, fomented business development, and helped brands with public relations, planning and launching new initiatives and organizational leadership. Consulting since 2015, he worked with such brands as Adventure.com, Austin Adventures and other tour operators, the Family Travel Association, TourRadar.com and others.

Lifetime highlights (to date) include:

• Spent nine years helping guide the Adventure Travel Trade Association to its current position as a  galvanizing force for the adventure travel industry, then did similar work for three years for the Family Travel Association 
• With the U.S. Army National Guard, he deployed in 2005 to Iraq for a year with a line unit as a machine gunner 
• Worked for a year at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (where he occasionally worked in Justice’s chambers – and even shot hoops with a Justice one night)
• Jobs then included stints at outdoor associations like American Hiking Society (where he managed the National Trails Day program) and the venerable, 100+ year-old The American Alpine Club
• Graduated with a B.A. in English and International Politics from Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT.) and earned four varsity letters in football
• Spent the summer of 1993 driving solo in a VW around the U.S.
• Has enjoyed ‘blowing the minds’ of his young daughters with family adventures to Costa Rica, Normandy, China and Panama – not to mention great drive trips to North Carolina, central Massachusetts, Louisiana and more

Chez is an avid skier, biker, backpacker, and writer, having published fictional works in several literary quarterlies, non-fiction in national publications and travel stories in magazines and websites. He currently lives with his wife Sally and two teen daughters in the American heartland.