Meet Gregg Brown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregg Brown.

Hi Gregg, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My wife was battling depression and found an equine therapy place where she could get some help overcoming this life obstacle. She fell in love with the horse and the depression seemed to just, go away. She began volunteering as a side walker working with other clients to keep them safe while mounted. She was really enjoying it and convinced me to begin volunteering as well. I was paired with two young clients, one who was non-verbal and one who was mildly autistic. After working with them for several months I began to see changes in them as we worked on their particular life obstacle.

As horses tend to reflect your emotions, they had formed a bond with the horse and that helped them to control their emotions and demeanor. It took several years however, I have seen clients take their first steps, try to say their first words and learn things that earlier had seemed out of reach. This convinced me that I needed to go all-in with this organization and help out in as many ways as possible. I joined the board of directors to help provide direction for the organization while continuing to volunteer and eventually was asked to head up the board of directors. The board, the instructors and the volunteers have so much passion for what this organization does, it is like a family!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been ups and downs while getting to where we are today. Our founder had to give up running the organization for health reasons and that was quite the blow. She was the inspiration for all of us and created this organization from the ground up. Thanks to several passionate volunteers, we picked up the slack and managed to get through and continue to run the organization. This whole Covid thing initially threw us for a loop as our program has volunteers in physical contact with many clients during lessons. How do we keep everyone safe? We were considering shutting down until this was over and did shut down for a brief period. Our instructors stepped up though and redesigned the lessons so that there were fewer clients in the arena at a time, parents waited in their car and volunteers were provided masks, gloves and cleaning products. We have not had one instance of Covid happen from our program.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
In my professional career I have gone from serving on a ballistic missile submarine in the Navy to teaching computer science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland as well as Montgomery County College in Maryland to being a programmer, to managing a Service Desk to building out data centers. I am currently employed by Choice Hotels International as a Senior Manager, Data Center Operations. I manage three teams 1) Service Desk, 2) Data Center Administration and 3) Enterprise Application Support. I am known there for my well rounded background, which covers many aspects of IT as well as my experience with Choice Hotels as I have been there for 26 years. Working at Silver Lining Riding is what I do for fun and what provides me with a sense of purpose in my life. I think what sets me apart from others is my passion to bring my varied experiences to the table in everything I do. While sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, seeing the smiles on our clients faces makes all of it worth it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I see my life as being a series of events that I had the good luck to encounter and me being ready to jump when they are presented. Even when encountering what was seemingly bad luck, like being downsized out of my job, those events eventually turned out to be good things as they led to even better outcomes. Don’t get me wrong. They were traumatic at the time and could be difficult to deal with however, looking back, I would not be where I am, able to help the organizations that I do without those events happening. Finding Silver Lining Riding was one of the best things that ever happened to me and it was just good luck.

Pricing:

• Group Lessons start @ $42.50 (6 week session – $255)
• Private lessons start @ 47.50 (6 week session = $285)

Contact Info:

• Email: info@silverliningriding.org
• Website: http://silverliningriding.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silverliningriding1/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverliningriding

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