A Walk in the Woods

The Spark

During the 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires, two Walk in the Woods staff members were pregnant—and one lost her home in the fire. She went into early labor with no local family to lean on. Owner Vesna opened her own home to the displaced employee, and the team took turns caring for two newborns in the office. That crisis crystallized something both Vesna and office manager Patricia Kersey already knew from their own years as mothers: when child care falls apart, people don’t lose jobs because they can’t do the work. They lose jobs because no one will let them try.

The Solution

A Walk in the Woods runs guided hiking tours and multi-day backpacking trips in the Great Smoky Mountains. The team is small, the work is seasonal, and some trips require guides to be gone for days at a time. Losing even one person to a child care emergency can mean a canceled tour or a scramble to cover a shift.

The company’s approach is deliberately informal. Their office is child- and pet-friendly. When an employee’s regular child care falls through—a sick provider, a school closing, a grandparent who can’t cover a third day in a row—their child comes to work. Kids sit on laps during reservation calls, color at desks, and play while a parent finishes a shift. Guests sometimes hear a dog barking or a child in the background, and the team owns it openly.

For guides heading out on multi-day trips, the flexibility goes further. The company has watched employees’ children on the first or last day of a backpacking trip to give parents a buffer on either side. They build schedules around care realities—one employee in Knoxville with a toddler works around her husband’s remote schedule, and the company adjusts without complaint.

There is no policy manual, no budget line, and no partner organization. The “program” is a standing cultural commitment: if you need to bring your child, bring your child. If you need a different schedule, say so.

The Results

A Walk in the Woods has not lost an employee to a child care breakdown. In a Sevier County tourism market where small businesses compete fiercely for reliable staff, that stability is a meaningful competitive advantage—achieved at zero direct cost. Employees stayed through COVID and financial rough patches. Patricia attributes that loyalty directly to the family-first culture.

The payoff extends beyond retention into recruiting. Patricia herself almost never applied for a guide position years earlier because she assumed, as a single mom, the job wouldn’t accommodate her. She later joined as office manager—but the company learned from that near-miss. By making child-friendliness visible, they open a talent pool competitors overlook. As Patricia puts it: “We don’t want to miss that person.”