sparkWILD Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that develops WILD Intelligence - the human capacity to navigate uncertainty - in young people, families, and educational communities.
sparkWILD Institute grew from a simple observation: the same capacities Chris and Andrea Greene spent twenty-five years developing in themselves - through building businesses, leaving conventional paths, and designing a life in the mountains of Colorado - were exactly what their son Sawyer needed to navigate a world being reshaped by AI.
The WILD Intelligence framework was already built. The question was: how does it translate for young people, families, and educators? What does Wisdom look like in a thirteen-year-old? How does Intention develop when you're still figuring out who you are? What does Leadership mean when you've never had power?
Sawyer became the prototype learner. His homeschool program became the testing ground. What worked for him became the basis for what we're building for everyone.
Andrea leads the sparkWILD Institute. She evaluates, repairs, designs, and builds the human architecture underneath every system that actually works — the connection, trust, and motivation that become more important, not less, as AI handles more of the work.
Two decades of organizational leadership, including Fortune 50 HR experience at The Home Depot, where she led cultural integration across multiple states as the Builders Solutions Group acquired companies and brought them into a Fortune 50 culture. The work of taking organizations with different instincts, hierarchies, and unspoken rules, and making them function as one coherent body — done in high-stakes environments, often with male-dominated, change-resistant founder cultures.
President of Ruby Resorts and co-founder of The Ruby of Crested Butte, Colorado's highest-rated boutique inn across fifteen years of operation. The Ruby was sold not for what it owned but for how it worked: the hiring, the service standards, the invisible choreography Andrea designed underneath.
Andrea does not coach from a distance. She immerses — alongside leadership and the team at once — reading who is actually aligned, where the resistance lives, and which relationships are load-bearing. The same practice she now brings to educators, families, and young people learning to navigate.
Chris created the WILD Intelligence framework the Institute teaches. Tenured professor of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship with fifteen years of university teaching and curriculum design, still active in higher education today. JD, University of Colorado. Certified Financial Manager. Stanford Innovation Certificate. IBM Enterprise Design Thinking and AI Practitioner certifications. Author of Wild Intelligence.
His analytical foundation extended through teaching, hospitality operations, and now AI — each domain a new language, each language adding to the toolkit. He moves easily between Aristotle and agent architecture because the connections are real, not performed.
He contributes framework evolution, pedagogy consultation, and research direction to the Institute. His primary operational role is at The WILD Navigation Company, where he leads individual and organizational advisory work — including WILD×AI, his approach to the AI era grounded not in tool mastery but in sovereignty: developing what AI can't replace.
The sparkWILD Institute is governed by an independent board with expertise in education, nonprofit leadership, and youth development. Board composition and governance documents are available to partners and funders on request. Additional members are being confirmed through 2026.
The sparkWILD Institute and The WILD Navigation Company share founders and framework. The Institute serves young people, families, and educators. The Company serves individual and organizational advisory clients. Two organizations, two missions, one intellectual lineage.
We're building something new. We're looking for partners who see what we see.
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