Meet the Team

Deborah Kane, Founder (pictured above)

Deborah started boating in her 40s, and now, more than a decade later, whitewater kayaking is her number one favorite thing to do.

Along the way in her paddling journey, she spent three years as the president of the local paddling club. The experience with the club, plus her own adventures honing her roll, finding clinics, evaluating various tour operators, searching for information about races, and building a trusted crew got her thinking.

What if there was a way to aggregate information about whitewater boating so that you could browse instructor profiles, book a class, join a club, sign up for a guided trip, discover paddling events, or find people to go boating with all in one place? One that wasn’t called Facebook. And one with intuitive search features. Plus a comprehensive calendar of events so you never miss another cool boating event because you didn’t know it existed.

That’s RallyCrew.

Deborah likes to call it an online eddy big enough for the entire whitewater paddling community. We hope you’ll eddy out and join us.

Seth West, Content Director

Seth leads RallyCrew’s video, storytelling, and creative direction, bringing the paddling community to life through film, photography, and engaging content.

PR and Communications

Our PR team is making sure paddlers everywhere hear about RallyCrew. Want to feature RallyCrew in an article, podcast, or video? Request an interview.

Advisory Team

We’ve assembled an Advisory Team of top paddlesport educators who bring deep expertise in instruction, skill development, and paddling progression. We’re honored to have these outstanding paddlesport educators guiding the development of RallyCrew:

Agata Sobieraj-Jakubiec – European Whitewater School (Spain)
Anna Levesque – Mind Body Paddle (USA)
Casey Bryant Jones – Ottawa Kayak School (Canada)
Daan Jimmick – New Zealand Kayak School (New Zealand)
David Hughes - Pucon Kayak Retreat (Chile)
Franziska Biechler – Los Leones (Switzerland and Chile)
Jamie Greenhalgh – Paddle365 (UK)
Jess Matheson – New Zealand Kayak School (New Zealand)
Jule Harle - Alaska Packraft School (USA)
Quim Fontané – European Whitewater School (Spain)
Simon Coward – AQ Outdoors (Canada)
Yannik "El Leon" Zeller – Los Leones (Switzerland and Chile)

If you see any of these folks on your local river, be sure to give them a shoutout.

More Advisors to Come

To make RallyCrew truly global and inclusive, we’re still looking for voices from Africa and Asia. We’re also eager to connect with paddlesport schools specializing in whitewater packrafting, stand up paddleboarding, and canoeing.

In addition, we’ve got a team of advisors focused on paddlesport insurance, led by Ben Morton of Precision Paddlesports.

Know someone who would be a great fit? Please send us a note and let us know who you have in mind. And feel free to nominate yourself! 😉

In the Beginning

Before a single line of code was written, Deborah spent hours on the phone with paddlesport professionals, listening to their challenges. Every conversation helped inform the development of RallyCrew.

A huge thank you to: Andi Bruner, Andrea White, Anna Levesque, Ayla Wilk, Bartosz Czauderna, Ben Marr, Ben Morton, Casey Bryant Jones, Darcy Gaechter, David Zinn, Kurt Doettger, Lee Baker, Leigh Boike, Luke Spencer, Megan Kelly, Melissa DeMarie, Natalie Kramer Anderson, Nouria Newman, Ottilie Robinson-Shaw, Rush Sturges, Sage Donnelly, Seth Ezekiel West, Trey Moore, and Trey Rouss for sharing their insights.

Let’s Connect

We’re always happy to chat with professional athletes, independent instructors, paddling schools, tour operators, clubs, race organizers, and paddlesport businesses about RallyCrew.

Send us an email so we can schedule a time to connect and explore how RallyCrew can add value to what you’re doing.