Outdoor educator looks back on wrangling tough kids, leveraging diversity

"Reno Taini has been many things: safari guide in east Africa, explorer-biologist in Mexico, rope-climbing instructor in countries as far-flung as Myanmar and northern Ireland. Closer to home, he's the teacher who, while looking down over a Peninsula graveyard from a school district office, coined the phrase, It's good to be alive in Colma, the town where the vast numbers of dead people in cemeteries greatly outnumber those still walking the earth."

"But what the pioneering educator remains most proud of are his nearly four decades taking troubled and at-risk Bay Area youngsters out into the world, mostly into nature for hiking, backpacking, trail-building, and rope-climbing, but also inside an infamous prison, and, carrying meals, into the homes of people dying from AIDS. Kids learned to surmount challenges, survive discomfort, collaborate and mitigate risk. Highest on Taini's goals list were instilling confidence and compassion as foundations for their futures."

"Taini, now 84, started a wilderness program for students in 1967 at Jefferson High School in Daly City, an initiative that continues to this day as the Wilderness School for students in the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City, Pacifica, Brisbane, and Colma. Also remaining are rope-climbing courses he created in a redwood forest in La Honda and in eucalyptus groves on San Bruno Mountain."

Reno Taini spent decades guiding troubled and at-risk Bay Area youth into nature for hiking, backpacking, trail-building, and rope-climbing, and also led service trips into prisons and homes of people dying from AIDS. He began a wilderness program in 1967 at Jefferson High School in Daly City that continues as the Wilderness School serving students across the Jefferson Union High School District. He created rope-climbing courses in a La Honda redwood forest and eucalyptus groves on San Bruno Mountain. He shepherded more than 2,000 students through the program, prioritizing confidence and compassion as foundations for their futures.

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