Robert Forto

robert forto

Week 1 of 130: The Start of my Doctoral Journey (BMAL 700)

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Doctorate of Strategic Leadership program Robert Forto

Hello and welcome!

If you are new here thank you for checking out my blog. A quick bio:

My name is Robert Forto and I live in the wilds of Alaska with a pack of 38 sled dogs. I own and operate a dog training company where we train dogs from all over the country for service and therapy work. I am also on adjunct faculty at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University where I teach outdoor leadership classes.

In May of 2020, I finished my Master of Sports Management here at Liberty University and for my internship, I planned and executed a 700-mile expedition across the state of Alaska with 13 people by dog team and snow machine that re-traced the 1925 Serum Run.

Mid-life in college and doctorate program journey! Click To Tweet

Each summer, my wife, Michele, who is also a master’s degree student at Liberty,  and I travel to the Lower 48 and do what we call the Rock n Roller Tour where we go to music festivals and ride roller coasters.

I am pursuing a doctorate of strategic leadership for the challenge more than anything. Being self-employed and at (currently) 50 years old, I do not need this degree for career advancement but I am always looking for ways to continue to learn. Who knows, as I progress through the program I may find a higher calling.

My expectations are to be challenged and to learn and hopefully teach an old dog a new trick or two. Having been self-employed my entire life I have always been my own boss, manager, and decision-maker. I need to challenge myself with new ideas and processes to take my business to the next level. I look forward to connecting with each of you and wish you well in your studies.

My research interests include: Using expedition leadership as a model in the corporate environment and hope to use this for my applied research project in this program. Other project ideas are strategic management of small family-run firms, and experiential learning for team building in a small firm. Also, I just recently partnered up with a SCUBA instructor to do a study on safety protocol for recreational diving. This project suits my interests in sports management as the recreational SCUBA diving industry has little to no safety protocols after a person is certified as a diver, which you only have to do once in your life. This is much needed in the industry.

The pic above is my team of sled dogs and me on a run around the block, as I call it. We have several hundred miles right outside our back door and it is my slice of utopia.

One important fact, before we go much further together. I am far from religious and my choice to attend Liberty was for the program, not necessarily a Christian worldview. While I am faithful I am not one that you will find in a church every Sunday. I grew up in a family where we attended church for weddings and funerals and that is about it.

The truth of the matter is, I struggle to find ways to incorporate scripture and biblical research in my academic work, and do you know what? That is okay. I am perfectly fine with it.

I bet you struggle at times too.

I am far from perfect and I have had my share of bumps along the way. I have learned from my mistakes and hope that I am a better man, father, community leader, and academic because of it.

All that being said, I am glad that you are here.

 

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UPDATE November 2022:

This is actually an updated post that I am writing at Week 78 of my doctorate program at Liberty University.

Over the last two years, I have taken eight classes: BMAL 700, 702, 703, 704, 710, 714, 716, 727 and wanted to do an update since a lot of people have been asking for a way to search my site for particular classes and/or topics. I am in the process of updating each post and eventually, this will be a great place to find and share resources for my peers in the Doctor of Strategic Leadership (DSL) program.

I want to give a huge shoutout to all of my peers that have been reading my posts as they navigate through this DSL journey.

You are right, there are not a lot of resources out there.

While this blog is by no means a complete source, my hope is that fellow scholars can see my papers and maybe get a takeaway or two.

My goal has always been to upload my research papers and projects from the program as PDFs so that other scholars in the program can see what is expected. I don’t always get full points, but at 50 years old, I learned long ago that there is no reason to strive for perfection in everything you do. Concentrate on what matters and everything will work out in the end.

If you like what you read, please comment and share with your friends. If you have advice or resources you would like to share, please do that as well.

Oh, if you are on Twitter, I highly encourage you to follow the hashtags, #AcademicChatter and #AcademicTwitter both are great threads with advice, motivation, and a very supportive community and if you wouldn’t mind, give me a follow at @robertforto and send me a tweet letting me know you found my blog helpful!

Also, my wife Michele is getting deep into her Master’s program as well and is almost halfway done! Please do me a favor and follow her over on LinkedIn.

One last thing… If you like what you are reading and want to show your support, please consider becoming a patron on Patreon or clicking on any of the ads that you see on the page. This goodwill gesture is not to become rich, I wish, but a show of encouragement.

Hope to connect with you along the way, and please reach out if you have any questions!

ACE Preservation Conference: Indiana Beach

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It has been quite the summer! The Rock n Roller Coaster Tour across America has taken me from Orlando to the Northeast to middle America and I find myself at my second American Coaster Enthusiasts Preservation Conference. This year we are at Indiana Beach in Monticello, Indiana and Michigan’s Adventure on the Great Lakes.

Michele and I parted ways in Boston. She had to fly home to attend our business and I flew to Chicago for this leg of the tour. It was a slow slog down I-65 to the middle of nowhere Indiana. I checked into my motel at the Pine View Resort that was in the middle of a corn field. I arrived a day and a half early and didn’t venture too far from the motel. I worked on my Master’s courses by the pool and enjoyed leisurely dinners at the local family restaurant. The first night I had a huge three course chicken dinner that only cost $8.95 and could have easily cost 40 bucks back home.

Friday morning was the first day of the conference at Indiana Beach. Who would have known that all of this fun was only 0.6 miles from my little motel! It changes your perspective a little bit when you don’t venture too far from where you are. Its like driving down the interstate and puling off and setting for a Big Mac when at the next exit is the most amazing burger shop in the world that you missed out on.

I checked in and grabbed my name tags and tickets and headed into the park. It is a cool little spot where a lot of it is built on piers that jut out into the lake. We had the day to ourselves with the first formal event being a walk through of one of the rides later in the day. I walked the boardwalk and grabbed a Pronto Pup. Its a corn dog for those of you who don’t know…

I jumped on a cool coaster called Steel hog first. It was fun! It sort of a mash up of a mouse and a corkscrew. It was the first time I have ever ridden one like that. The restraints were interesting. The sort of squish you in like a vise.

Next up was a couple woodies. The premier coaster in the park is the Hoosier Hurricane which is by far the longest and juts out over the lake in a few spots. It is fast but a bit rough. Next was the Cornball Express. It was a lot of fun too.

I didn’t know what to expect when I was in line for an older steel coaster called, Tiger. By the looks on the peoples faces that went ahead of me and the warning by the ride attendant to hold on and brace for the sharp right turns, I knew I was in for a treat. That first right turn caused a cracked rib on the same spot as always. It is never going to heal if I keep this crap up!

The rest of the afternoon I spent people watching along the boardwalk and riding things like the dark ride, the sky ride, the scrambler the little train, and more. I was surprised at how fun Frankenstein’s Castle was! I haven’t been in a walk through haunted house in a long time and this was a good one. It was huge!

The last coaster I rode before we met up for dinner as a group was the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain. It was a fun one! It has this little elevator that takes you up to the top and then is a mess of twists and turns through a “mountain”. The cars are a super tight fit for four people but it was a quick coaster and everyone was laughing in our car.

Dinner was late. They forgot to make the burgers and by the sounds of it from the grumblings of my fellow coaster geeks, we were hungry! We finished off the meal with a cake commemorating the 40th anniversary of ACE and we got ready for our night runs durning ERT.

It was a fun first day of the conference. I met up with several friends that I met last year at the conference in Alabama/Georgia. It was cool to see them again.

Tomorrow we finish up here and drive north to our next stop at Michigan’s Adventure!

Up Next: Michigan’s Adventure 

Coasters to date on the tour: 24

Do you like what you are reading? Want to see more? use the hashtag #rocknroller18 on social media and you can see pics on Instagram, tweets on Twitter and our daily trials and tribulations on Facebook.

My daughter is growing up too fast!

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It seemed just like yesterday my little girl Nicole would rock out to White Zombie with a sippy cup in one hand a cookie in the other in her car seat as we travelled down the mountain into Denver to run errands.

Now she is growing up to become a very smart, beautiful young lady. She is entering her senior year if high school, plays softball on the varsity team, enrolling into college classes and helps out with the family business like she owns it.

I know she will always be my little girl but why does she have to grown up so fast?

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Perfect Pan Steak

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• First, ask your butcher for a 3.3-pound well-marbled bone-in ribeye in vacuum packaging. The bone is important, because it helps to keeps the meat moist. The vacuum part is important too, because it will avoid oxidation.

• Put the meat out of the fridge at room temperature (not in a hot room, just normal temperature) for 24 hours inside the vacuum packaging. Don’t take it out! It’s important you do this step to have the perfect result.

• On a large, very hot non-stick pan, add a bit of olive oil and put the steak in 3 minutes on each side. Don’t move or lift the steak after you place it. Just let it be and flip it when it’s time.

• Take it out the pan and put it on a metal rack to rest for 10 minutes.

• Let the pan heat up again to the max and put the steak back in 2 minutes on one side.

• Flip the steak and add 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of butter. Continuously pour the resulting melted butter mixed with the meat juices over the top for another 2 minutes.

• Put it on a metal rack to rest for 5 minutes, covering it with some aluminum foil with three holes on it (so the vapor doesn’t condensate.)

• Cut in filets and sprinkle some good quality sea salt like fleur de sel or Maldon.

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