Her Story

After the sudden passing of her father while in college, Emily sought healing in a multi-adventure Outward Bound course in Colorado. The two month exploration in the four corners region was first of many independent outdoor excursion for the classical performing musician. The course adventures exposed her to backcountry camping, orienteering, river rafting, mountain climbing, rappelling and rock climbing. It was the rock climbing that stimulated her in the ways music held, and before long she was on a healing path seeking the answers to this new mystery.

Engulfed, by first climbing experience, she returned to find the closest gym a state away and while finishing her undergraduate degree, commuted to learn her new passion. Charlotte Climbing Center owner, Eric Evans (1st Black gym owner), hired and shared all his knowledge. He saw her gift to connect with people and supported the budding interest to coach after school programs. It was here she discovered competitive sports climbing. When she travel to Pensacola, Fl to care for an ailing grandmother, she’d stop into Wheatherbys Outfitters for endless laps on the in-store built wall. Training tips from the owner, a paraplegic climber stimulated a concentrated interest of movement and efficiency.

Emily to moved Atlanta, Georgia after graduation. She enjoyed the first adulting years leading as an experiential facilitator at an experiential outdoor residential center for abused children and at a youth sexual offender hospital in rural Georgia. The centers provided a rich education in logistics, management, group facilitation, guiding, maintenance, child development, neurodiversity and disability services. With amazing mentors, crafting a leadership style in the field or on excursions was comfortably natural. She immersed into everything outdoors including weekend hiking segments of the Appalachian Tr., backpacking, camping excursions, and single kayaking the Nantahala or the Chattooga rivers any chance available. Quick trips to Foster Falls, NC developed a lust for long routes, so an annual southern climbing pilgrimage to the Red River Gorge, KY was the tick list. The passion for climbing was strong enough to penetrate the fears trauma of traveling Black in the deep south.

Between work or excursions, she continued to train climbing and privately coaching neurodiverse children. The worlds between affluent climbing community and children in turmoil weighed heavily on motivations to close gaps. Witnessing breaks in the systems impacting the most vulnerable, she transitioned out of working a residential center and confidently catapulted a movement creating program offerings for communities in need of experiential learning through rock climbing. Her work caught the attention of alternative schools, occupational and behavioral therapists in Atlanta, and she steadily built community programs and school modules in demand.

Climbing is a metaphor and a love for Emily. She entered into the adult competition arena at 22 years old, placing on the USA Climbing Team (adult) 1997-1999. The ability to read movement and sustain on long routes was astonishing. The thrill of competing, solving problems, and harnessing movement was an intoxicating study for her, but the competition circuit was a lonely place as the only Black and openly Queer person competing in the United States and abroad. In 2001 she accepted an offer to manage the Planet Rock Gym in Ann Arbor, Michigan which provided her the support to launch ability programs for people with disabilities focusing on gateways of inclusion for people with hearing and visual impairments, physical disabilities and cognitive challenges. Together they designed, Parafeet, the first adaptive climbing gear and shoes for paraplegics in the industry, made instructional belay videos for hearing impaired and an important PBS segment on inclusion in climbing.

August 2001 on a sponsored big wall climbing trip to the mecca Yosemite, the winds of the meadow carried an important message from ancestors guiding Emily towards El Captain. Maybe it was the memory of learning ranks from her military father, his whispers altogether, “If you’re going to do something, be the best at what you are doing,” or the invisibility of the company of climbers laughing at never knowing a Black climber, Emily proclaimed she was going to be the first Black Woman to climb The Nose. On October 2, 2003 she set out to send the most famous direct big wall route, El Capitan. After 6 days of ascent, she became the first black woman to do so, summiting The Nose as the full moon crested Half Dome October 8, 2003. It was before social media, GoPro, or unlimited wifi, but she knew representation was an important thread of the vision plan.

Emily returned from the El Captain summit determined to make changes for the next generation. This choice included a long journey to dismantle the systemic racial and homophobic gatekeeping practices. With resilient motivation she started an independent climbing program with four students. She volunteered for every position in USA Climbing organization to master competition coaching arena. As the only Black woman entering white spaces, she had to embody a strong presence to kept safe, children seen and self respected. In 2005, cultivating enough competitive and recreational climbers she initiated the independent Urban Core Climbing. Within two years, the team exploded to a multi-tier top 10 team with 70 local, and 12 out-of-state climbers, winning USA Team selections and IFSC World Cup Championships. Urban Core Climbing Team travelled all over the US, and climbed in the best outdoor crags from the southeast to the west coast.

In 2014, the time she decided to follow a call to transition Northern California, Emily suffered a life altering career and climbing set back as a result of a complicated hand surgery. Body riddled in pain from eight surgeries and infections, she decided to take healing on the road. It was a healing two month RV journey across America with daughter, in which answers for the next chapter revealed as her daughter stood on Joshua Tree boulders looking out at the world. Brown Girls Climbing was birthed through her wonder that day. During recovery, embracing mom life, homeschooling, she began belaying her daughter and attracting others to share an inviting space. Though the climbing gyms are not diverse in California, the performative community has an awareness of the lack thereof, with some willingness to advocate for inclusion and change. This refreshing acknowledgement was worth investing, and like Urban Core Climbing, Brown Girls Climbing exploded with recognition, attention and full participation.

TayloredFit Solutions, LLC is the evolution of the vision that came from a little Black girl raised by a single father. The roots of projects Brown Girls Climbing, Spectrum Adventures, Homeschool Rocks, services like 1:1 Experiential Therapies and Educational Enrichment Facilitation and new acquisition of Outdoor Educator Institute from Justice Outside are building blocks of the vision that started at seven in proclamation of making the world easier for the next kid. The umbrella covets all paths along her journey.

Living life boldly unapologetic, Emily shares her journey and knowledge with clients, students, with the next generation of leaders, in facilitation, workshops and lectures. Through labor and broad experience coaching across a spectrum of humans, she has culminated an applicable methodology into an organic pedagogy of the fundamentals of movement called Coach Approach Practice. The fluid process opens neuropathways of mindful connection to the body while examining relationships to interconnected dimension of human health.

She has an extraordinary coaching eye and full of holistic concepts for clients, athletes and coaches. Emily is one of the most sought technical coaches in the competitive sport climbing arena and ability community. She is a specialist at efficiency of movement, technical training, providing mental strategies for performance, with ability to infuse the same attention for spectrum clients on a therapeutic nature walk, or experientially facilitating. Her not so secret, is a welcoming, humbly acceptance approach to witness people while establishing genuine path of openness and learning during connection. She empowers people to be self-reliant, mindful and confident. Her coaching facilitator style is personal, compassionate, and expressive. Her clients appreciate a deeper purpose to breath, to connect to foundation, to move with autonomy, and celebrate joyfully.

Between projects, Emily is finishing writing CoachApproach Practice and feeding a wanderlust of nomadic travel, exploring the world with her 16 yr old daughter. She often travels to Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i to volunteer coach local keikis climbing and offer experiential enrichment learning in schools. The vision continues with an acquisition project to build a collaborative experiential learning institute for the next generation of guides, leaders, healers, target to open in 2028.