Hometown Hero Outdoors
Welcome to the Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast, where we’re more than just a show—we’re a mission. As a non-profit dedicated to enhancing mental health through life-changing outdoor adventures for military service members, veterans, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel, we bring you stories of resilience, healing, and community.
🌲 Why Listen?
- Over 5,000 heroes have experienced the healing power of the outdoors with us—through activities like hunting, fishing, camping, snowmobiling, and more.
- 85% of participants report reduced stress, increased camaraderie, and a renewed sense of purpose after our adventures.
- We share inspiring stories of mental health advocacy and people overcoming the toughest challenges, highlighting the profound impact of reconnecting with nature.
Whether you’re here for thrilling outdoor adventures, meaningful conversations about mental health, or to hear from real people who’ve used the outdoors to heal and grow, this podcast has something for everyone.
🎧 Subscribe now and join us on this journey of healing, resilience, and the transformative power of the great outdoors!
Hometown Hero Outdoors
Season 3 Kickoff Episode
Join us as we kick off Season 3 of the Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast with an exciting blend of personal stories, impactful interviews, and a heartfelt mission to connect our military service members, veterans, and first responders with the great outdoors. Listen in as co-hosts Chris Tetrault and Phil Ewert talk about the upcoming guests for Season 3.
This season promises an array of captivating guests who are making significant impacts in their communities, such as Scott Gieselhardt, a retired firefighter who has overcome personal struggles to inspire others. We'll introduce Firefighter Fenton, well-known for his witty social media presence, and a Captain from the TV show Wicked Tuna. We invite you to tune in every other week for inspiring stories, and for more information, visit our website at hometownherooutdoors.org.
Produced by Phil Ewert Productions
Theme Music: Hero's Journey
Joel Loopez Tunepocket.com
Licensed by: Phil Ewert Productions
hometownherooutdoors.org
In the land of 10,000 lakes, a remarkable movement was born. Welcome to Hometown Hero Outdoors. We are dedicated to honoring our military service members, veterans and first responders by providing them with unforgettable outdoor recreational opportunities. We believe those who have served and sacrificed so much for our country and communities deserve a chance to reclaim their spirit and find healing in the great outdoors. This is Hometown Hero Outdoors. Welcome to the Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast.
Speaker 2:Here is your host, chris Tatro. Hello everyone, welcome back. This is our official kickoff to the Hometown Hero Outdoors podcast season three. That's right, this is our third season already. Kind of hard to believe, but I have our podcast producer here, who is Phil Ewert. Phil and I go way back. I actually began to work for the Federal Reserve Law Enforcement Department and Phil was my first line supervisor and we've been friends ever since. What is that Phil? 2008, 2000 something? Yeah, I think it was eight, because it was right after I got back from Iraq. I got hired about six months afterwards and then you became my boss. But, phil, why don't you say hi to everyone? Tell them who you are, what you do for HHO and what your personal life looks like?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely so. A few of you have seen me on the podcast before. I've filled in for Chris now and then when he's been out. But for those who haven't seen, my name is Phil Leeuwert. I am the podcast producer. I do the voiceover for HHO and a lot of behind the scenes stuff that has to do with media. I don't take the video, but I do some of the editing, a lot of the audio, scissor wheels, those sort of things. You'll see me pop up now and then and maybe fill in for Chris, Maybe not this season. This season's been going swimmingly, but as needed I jump in.
Speaker 2:And I throw you wild ideas here and there. You do, and then you probably roll your eyes real hard, which I can't hear, thank God, and then you help me out. So I appreciate that that's right. Yeah, it makes good team and it's pretty cool too, just because of how things come full circle. You know, when we began working with each other at the Federal Reserve, you know you told me about your history with your degree in broadcasting and how you've always been very integrated into the broadcasting world and wanted to do more with it. But now you're more engaged with your voiceover work and things you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have a side business as well, called Philly Word Productions, where I do professional voiceover and media production, and that includes everything from e-learning for companies, audio books, commercials, all the above, and so I'm very thankful that I can give some of that talent to HHO in that role.
Speaker 2:And we certainly appreciate it because we need the help and you know, I think that one of the things that helps set aside Hometown Hero Tours from other organizations. I think that we have a very good media relations or media group that we work with between rogue productions and yourself, and we're able to capture those experiences that people have when they're out in the outdoors and then also on the podcast, and we're very appreciative of having rogue productions, dale and yourself here to help us and you guys work together occasionally. And tomorrow you know, I know you can't make it, but we have another meeting with another media group coming up here who's going to help do some PSAs for us in the near future, so excited for that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, it's been fun working with Dale and obviously you guys have had that opportunity with the Mattson documentary, which was phenomenal, and we have some other future events coming up, you know, with some other veterans that are going to also be filmed, and so we have some great opportunities in the future to provide content that our viewers and listeners will get to hear and see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So let's do a little backing up here. We're going to talk about the podcast, the season here, but also who. Hho is Hometown Hero Outdoors. You know we've got three seasons in Self-admittedly, our first season's a little rough, but you know what? We're all novices trying to figure it out and still feel like novices, but I think we've gotten better. So the organization though you know we facilitate outdoor recreation for military service members, veterans and first responders. First responders include our law enforcement officers, our firefighters, ems, emergency medical services, and we bring them into the outdoors.
Speaker 2:Nothing is reserved just to one thing that we do in the outdoors. Our bread and butter does revolve around hunting and fishing, but there are many, many other things that we do. We've done things like hot air balloon rides. We've done snowmobiling, we've done dog sledding trips. There was just a air balloon rides. We've done snowmobiling, we've done dog sledding trips. There was just a gator hunt that occurred down in Florida. Our vice president, sean, did that. We had a east coast trip with the Wicked Tuna.
Speaker 2:Captains took out some members of HHO. There was an elk hunt that just concluded out in Colorado. So there's a wide variety of different things we do. It's just not refined to hunting and fishing, and I remember that we've had people do some kayaking, canoeing trips, the boundary waters, so if it's outdoors, horseback riding, yep, yep, and it's kind of cool because a lot of these things and topics that I just brought up are people that we engage with, um, in these activities in the outdoors. We have some of them that come on the podcast and do discuss not only their ventures but also how they're helping others as well. Pretty exciting, absolutely, and I think we've now eclipsed 5,000 people that we've taken to the outdoors since we started in 2017. And that's a big number.
Speaker 1:It is a big number and this, I believe, is our 50th podcast, that's incredible.
Speaker 2:That's's incredible, that's pretty incredible. But that means we have stuff to talk about and that's good. But hopefully we're making a different difference in the world, making a dent and reducing that stigma. Revolving around mental health, the theme of the podcast and everything that we're doing, it's a little bit different this year. Over the past years it was very specific to a lot of post-trip or adventures that we would get recaps on, and not that those weren't important they still are and we still do that but we're kind of changing the dynamic to the podcast a little bit. This year the nature of the podcast is more regarding around people who have served in any of those military or first responder careers, have had mental health hurdles, and talk about their adventures, adventures through that and how they engage in the outdoors. So that thing really hasn't left. But we really focus on a broader group of people and just not confined to the trips that we do this year. I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. And when you look, start looking at the list of the names of people that are going to be on the podcast this year, it it's pretty star-studded.
Speaker 2:I mean Brett Reeves with MeatEater, you know he's a law enforcement officer did 30-plus years and he has Country Life, a podcast that he engages in with MeatEater. I mean that's pretty cool, that's big time.
Speaker 1:We have a young musician who's on the podcast this year, who's playing steel guitar for a rather famous guy named Cody Johnson, and this young man's name is Harrison Yount and he's got a story to tell as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the relation with that too is, you know he talks about his musical journey but also his love for the outdoors and his passion for our military and first responders, and he actually went through the police academy while he was doing his music career, trying to engage and level that up. So he has a piece of that pie too to talk about. You know his experiences and why he has a passion for what we do as an organization. So it's pretty cool. It is very cool. Well, who else we got here? So we know we talked about Clint Romache. You know Clint came to our gala this last year in March in Minnesota.
Speaker 1:He's a Medal of Honor recipient. Excuse me.
Speaker 2:And he's a fantastic human, easy to talk to, just humble to be around him, and he's humble to be here and be able to share his experiences and give back to the community and support nonprofits. But that's a two-part podcast and we have something else in the works with Clint and we're still trying to finalize that but we haven't got that quite far but it's coming in time. But other individuals that we have we have Scott Gieselhardt. He's a retired firefighter who had a huge mental health journey. He was addicted to methamphetamine, attempted to commit suicide on one occasion and ended up finding sobriety and coming back from that and sharing his experiences with others for mental health purposes. We have Abijah on the backside with Sally Mixon we did equine therapy. She's on the podcast this year, but the list goes on. Lots and lots of good people making impacts in the community, trying to help others.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we do interject a little humor. We have a firefighter, Fenton, who's going to be on our podcast too, For those who haven't heard of him. He does a lot of funny stuff on, I believe. What is it? Tiktok, Instagram and? Pretty much any social media, yeah, a yeah, a little little behind the scenes of firefighting and a lot of comedy, and so he's another guest we have this year yep, he relates a lot of things that he experiences on the job and turns it into humor.
Speaker 2:You know, and no, we don't get out of this life alive, right? So you might as well laugh at things that you experience. You know, you see these memes or videos that people put out there for satire and you're like, yep, I get it, it's pretty funny. But he's a good guy, you know, and he also represents fire department coffee, which is a huge fire coffee department that this national, and uh, he's a good company. That's a good company that he supports and uh, helps other first responders and whatnot too. But man, who else we got on trying to think here?
Speaker 1:yeah, we got the wicked tuna. Uh, we got uh because they helped us out with one of our trips. We're going to be talking to at least one of their captains hopefully a couple of theirs upcoming this season yep, yep, and you know.
Speaker 2:So when we shoot to do these podcasts too, we have no idea how long they're going to take. Usually we at least aim for at least 30 minutes and over time the last couple seasons. When you start these podcasts with different individuals, you don't know how people are going to react when they talk on these podcasts and you don't know if we're going to talk about everything in under 20 minutes or less or if it's going to take hours. So most of these average about 45 minutes to an hour. Today's podcast is not going to talk about everything in under 20 minutes or less, or if it's going to take hours. So most of these average about 45 minutes to an hour. Today's podcast is not going to last that long. We just want to kind of give you all a glimpse into what this next season looks like and talk about the organization and the different things that are happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and let's take a look back though Season two. There's some amazing interviews that we did in season two. There's some amazing interviews that we did in season two of our podcast. So for those who are new to our podcast, I encourage you to go back and listen. A guy named Pete Ripmaster on and that was a two-part series as well, where Pete ran the Iditarod 1000 race on foot I mean a thousand miles. He wrote a book about it. It's, it's great, but uh, he also talks about a lot of mental health things and what he dealt with on the trail. We talked to a retired Navy guy who's right now dealing with cancer and his struggles in mental health and dealing with that and his journey, and you know there's a lot of other things that we talked about. We had what was the the rod the young men that were making the fishing rods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Gold standard outdoors Joe.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that was. That's a great episode where they talk about custom building fishing rods.
Speaker 2:Yes, speaking of Joe, we actually did a Mille Lacs fishing trip with Joe this past summer here in Minnesota. We got five law enforcement officers together. Some were medically retired, got their kids to go with and went to Mille Lacs. We did a day of fishing on Mille Lacs and it was amazing Really good fish Huge smallmouth, bass, walleye but Mille Lacs is a world-class fishery all around. But at the end the next day Joe took out some fishing rod blanks and we all built fishing rods with the kids and they'll take them home. So they're pretty excited about that way, cool yeah yeah, well, for our listeners.
Speaker 2:we're super excited about this. You can follow all of our podcasts on any of the major platforms. We have it on apple, spotify uh, there's no longer a google podcast platform but on any major platforms. And then also, we are going to be releasing these every other week, so stay tuned. We have several of them. These are going to last for quite a while and I'm excited about it. You can follow us on any of the social media platforms as well LinkedIn, facebook, instagram and you can watch us on YouTube. But we're super excited about the program and everything that's here to offer, and I think that we're going to wrap it up here, phil. Anything else that you want to add?
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I do want to give a shout out.
Speaker 1:We do have three sponsors this year for our podcast, yep, and so those three sponsors are O'Neill Electric out of Stillwater. We're very thankful for their sponsorship. The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association is a sponsor, as well as Relentless Defender. Who wrong arm, where are we at here, does our shirts? So, yeah, we're very thankful for all three of those folks, those organizations, stepping up and helping us out this year with our podcast. Hho is an organization that operates on a pretty shoestring budget and their sponsorship helps us kind of pay for stuff like our hosting and some of those things that come along with the cost of having a podcast that you can listen to, and we're very thankful.
Speaker 2:And it's our first year doing sponsorship, so we are grateful. Thank you for reminding us about that, Phil. I'm usually used to you inserting your voiceovers for us and I don't end up bringing them up during the podcast because we have them embedded. So thanks for doing that. But is there any last other comments you want to bring up there, Phil?
Speaker 1:No, that's it. We're going to have a great season, looking forward to it and, like you mentioned, not only can you listen to our podcast, but there is also the recorded version, the video version that's on YouTube. They're always going to be released every other week the very first episode which you're watching right now, october 30th, and then the rest are going to be every two weeks after that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And just one last thing Thank you to all our volunteers in the organization. You know we don't operate without them. Nobody here makes a dime. All of us are engaged day to day in what we do for our operations. They take everyone to the outdoors and then they also attend events for the organization too and help spread our word. Everyone's got a big heart and they care. So I just got to say thank you to our volunteers and everyone that gives and donates to the organization too. But I want to say thank you very much and, uh, you know what we're excited for the season next week, or the kickoff of the first episode, was scott dieselheart. We brought him up about the firefighter earlier. He is, uh, started the program singing color again and I'm excited for you guys to listen to that and get to know scott, the program that he provides. So with that, thank you everyone and I hope you enjoy the season of the Hometown Hero Outdoors podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Hometown Hero Outdoors podcast. For more information, visit our website at hometownherooutdoorsorg. Thank you.
