Joe Pavelka is the coordinator of the Applied Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership bachelor’s degree program at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta. He also teaches in the Leisure Tourism and Society degree program at the University of Calgary. Joe has consider-able experience in children’s programming as well, having spent 11 years with Calgary Parks & Recreation, and before that, 12 seasons working summer camps throughout Canada.

Joe’s first book, It’s Not About Time: Rediscovering Leisure in a Changing World, was published by Creative Bound Inc. in 2000 and is in its second printing. He has also written numerous articles in his professional field of recreation, tourism and management. Joe holds a master’s in Recreation Administration from the University of Alberta and two undergraduate degrees, in Outdoor Recreation and Geography, from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He is currently a doctoral candidate studying the impacts of tourism on residents of the Bow Valley in the Alberta foothills of the Canadian Rockies.