Ruthie Rivers is an Adventure and Entertainment Risk Consultant on the Granite Insurance team.  She joined the team in early 2020 to head up the agency’s climbing gym and river operator nationwide niches, having a passion for the adventure-focused community.  She loves breaking complicated topics down into digestible language, and emphasizes education as a way to empower the adventure community to make better business decisions and to more thoroughly build out their risk management plan.  Rather than focusing on solely the insurance side of things, she is psyched about opportunities to dig in and get her hands dirty on all aspects of an operation’s risk management plan.  Her goal, along with the rest of Granite Insurance’s Adventure and Entertainment team, is to set up adventure businesses for success in a cohesive approach to risk.

Before her time working at Granite Insurance, Ruthie spent years managing an adventure tourism business as a client of the agency!  She has been in the operator shoes and it provides her with valuable perspective in bridging the gap between operators and insurance carriers.  She has work-at-height experience and also spent time representing one of the world’s leading auto belays.  She’s been in the guide seat, as well!  Besides her personal time on the river, she attended a commercial operator’s whitewater guide training course to further her knowledge of the industry and to provide first-hand perspective on industry practices.

Ruthie currently volunteers in various roles including with the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT), the North Carolina Aerial Adventure Association (NCAAA), America Outdoors Association (AO), and her local Chamber of Commerce (BACC).

Ruthie and her husband, Carson, enjoy an adventurous life in the mountains of North Carolina.  Ruthie doesn’t like to waste days off and will usually be found camping, paddling, backpacking, or climbing when she is outside of the office.  When vacationing, she adds sailing and spearfishing to that list.  Her and Carson’s current goal is to paddle the length of America’s oldest river – the New!  They’ve started by knocking out every paddle-able mile of the South Fork and the North Fork before the confluence, and are working their way across the VA line this summer.

Fun Facts about Ruthie:

• Ruthie’s favorite scar is a toss-up between a squirrel bite or a stingray bite
• Ruthie was born in Kodiak, AK (her dad was stationed there as a Navy SEAL)
• Ruthie can free dive to 50ft +