We develop WILD Intelligence — the capacity to navigate uncertainty — in young people, families, and educational communities. In an era where AI changes everything, we invest in what makes humans irreplaceable.
The career paths that guided previous generations are dissolving. AI is reshaping every industry and every role — not once, but continuously. The institutions that were supposed to prepare the next generation are still teaching from yesterday's map.
The conventional response is to retool — teach coding, teach AI literacy, teach the skills of the moment. But the moment keeps changing. By the time the curriculum is written, the terrain has shifted again.
WILD Intelligence — Wisdom, Intention, Leadership, Discovery — is the set of human capacities that makes every other skill useful. It's what enables a young person to think clearly in confusion, hold direction when options are infinite, lead without a script, and learn faster than the ground shifts beneath them.
These capacities have always mattered. AI just made them essential.
We build programs that develop navigation intelligence at the age and stage where it matters most — informed by decades of research and two decades of practice developing these capacities in people of all ages.
Ages 13–18. Building the four core capacities through experiential learning. A four-level developmental progression from Encounter through Guide, designed around how navigation capacity actually develops in young people.
Pilot cohort · Fall 2026Workshops and training for K–12 and higher-ed faculty. Integrating uncertainty navigation into existing curricula — half-day workshops, semester PD series, and school-wide implementation partnerships.
Partner schools · 2026–2027For families navigating the high-school-to-college transition. Develops WILD capabilities in both teens (15–18) and their parents simultaneously — because successful navigation requires the whole system to evolve.
Virtual cohorts · Fall 2026All ages welcome. Workshop series, family navigation days, and intergenerational cohorts developing WILD Intelligence across generations — with younger children, multiple siblings, or through major family transitions.
Workshops launching 2026See what's true. Cut through noise and complexity to discern what actually matters.
Hold your direction. Maintain clarity when the options are infinite and the pressure is real.
Create movement. Build the conditions where people can navigate what's never been mapped.
Evolve in real time. Learn from every experiment. Adapt faster than the terrain shifts.
Andrea leads the sparkWILD Institute. She was on the fast track to HR leadership at The Home Depot before she was thirty — guiding cultural integration across multi-billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions, the work of taking two organizations with different instincts, different hierarchies, and different unspoken rules, and making them function as one coherent body.
She left corporate America not because she burned out, but because she saw the ceiling: the most important work — helping people navigate real transitions, not manage abstract ones — wasn't happening inside institutional walls. With Chris, she built and sold two businesses in Crested Butte, Colorado, including the state's highest-rated boutique inn. Now she brings that same practice of navigating uncertainty to families, educators, and young people.
Her work is grounded in a simple belief: culture is the real operating system, and you change it by changing relationships, not by announcing policies. That principle governs how sparkWILD designs its programs.
Creator of the WILD Intelligence framework and author of Wild Intelligence. Tenured professor of innovation and entrepreneurship with fifteen years of university curriculum design. JD, Stanford Innovation Certificate, IBM Enterprise Design Thinking & AI Practitioner. Chris contributes framework, pedagogy, and research direction to sparkWILD while leading the advisory practice at The WILD Navigation Company.
sparkWILD Institute is a Colorado nonprofit corporation, 501(c)(3) status pending. Our founding board is being seated through 2026 — educators, youth-development leaders, and practitioners of experiential learning whose perspectives shape our program design and governance. We'll introduce the board here as members are confirmed.
sparkWILD Institute is the educational mission of The WILD Navigation Company. The Institute focuses on youth, families, and educators. The Company focuses on individual and organizational advisory. They share a framework, a philosophy, and founders — but serve different audiences with different needs. The separation matters: institutional funding supports the Institute's mission; no revenue crosses from the nonprofit to the commercial entity.
sparkWILD Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your contribution supports youth programs, educator training, and research into how WILD Intelligence develops.
Schools, youth organizations, and foundations interested in integrating WILD Intelligence into their programs. We're actively seeking institutional partners for curriculum development and pilot programs.
For foundation program officers exploring funding opportunities in human development, AI literacy, and educational innovation. Contact us to discuss alignment with your giving priorities.
Whether you're an educator, a parent, a funder, or someone who sees what's needed — we'd like to hear from you.
Get in TouchOr email us directly: andrea@sparkwild.org