Transform Your Programs Experiences and Your Team

Create engaging, welcoming, and impactful visitor experiences

Who is this for?

Parks, museums, heritage sites, and mission-based organizations whose work involves connecting people and places.

This training can be used for:

  • Onboarding seasonal staff

  • Revitalizing permanent or returning staff,

  • Training interns, volunteers, and staff from other divisions, such as resource management or visitor services

Right now, it’s more important than ever to skillfully craft experiences that deeply resonate with our visitors.

Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation is a timely, innovative, and transformative training designed to help you create relevant, engaging, and welcoming visitor experiences.

Honed over hundreds of hours of in-the-field experience, this transformative training has been proven to elevate skills, inspire creativity, and foster team cohesion for all levels of experience.

Training formats range from webinars to half-day segments and from multi-day comprehensive training to consulting packages.

Reach out to discuss your training needs!

Full-Day Training Options:

For sites seeking a comprehensive training framework
with proven tools, techniques, and confidence-building practices.

1-Day
Core Intensive
(7-hours)

Understand foundational concepts from a different perspective. Deepen your sense of place connections. Gain skills in storytelling, engagement techniques, and program design.

Participants leave with:
Enhanced content development and delivery skills. A personalized program concept they can apply right away.

2-Day Implementation
(14-hours)

Provides immersive opportunities to not only learn but experiment and implement ideas, tools and concepts. Includes collaborative program work, with peer and instructor feedback. Builds on skills gained during Day one.

Participants leave with:
A solid program concept, refined storytelling and sequencing skills, and an expanded toolkit of engagement techniques.

3-Day Comprehensive
(21-hours)

Provides an opportunity for participants to craft and deliver a well-balanced program using ideas, skills, and techniques gained. Allows time for additional feedback from peers and instructor, and time to refine, hone and craft their program.

Participants leave with:
A polished, ready-to-deliver interpretive program.

Half-Day Options:

For sites with limited time and funding for training,
who still want skill-boosting, team-nourishing experiences in smaller bites.

The Essential Foundations: Mastering the Art
(3-hour Format)

For new or returning interpreters seeking to build a strong foundation and gain core skills—to career staff seeking a fresh perspective, new ideas, and support for innovative program design and skill-building.

Choose from the following 3-hour trainings:

✔︎ Introduction to Sense of Place Interpretation and Storytelling: See the familiar through new eyes and use the power of place to share stories. Leave with a meaningful program outline.

✔︎ The Foundational Five and The Pocket Knife Program Arc: Gain foundations from a fresh perspective. Apply essential tools and sequence a program arc of any length.

✔︎ Engagement Techniques for Different Audiences: Explore techniques to appeal to different learning styles. Gain a toolkit of site-specific ideas that you can use right away.

✔︎Sense of Place Storytelling:
See your site through layers of time and perspective and tell fuller stories. Includes skill-building to share complex ideas concisely and with ease.

✔︎Craft and Deliver Well-Balanced Programs:
Create the perfect blend of information, experiences, and techniques. Hone your ideas into a ready-to-go outline.

Masterclasses:
Deep Dives on Craft
(4-hour Format)

For interpreters seeking to refine their skills in storytelling, program design, and innovation. For experienced interpreters or anyone ready to refine, innovate, and transform their craft.

Choose from the following 4-hour trainings:

✔︎ Master the Craft of Storytelling:
Rethink narratives and craft concise, inclusive stories. Get expert feedback to polish your work.

✔︎ Visitor Engagement Strategies:
Explore visitor motivations and craft programs to engage different learning styles.

✔︎ Content and Technique Innovation Lab:
Accelerate your skills, knowledge, and program design by working with peers in a collaborative learning environment.

✔︎ The Art of Well-Balanced Programs:
Develop program ideas to combine information, stories and experiences that follow a narrative flow and use a variety of engagement techniques.

✔︎ Resilience and Rooted Leadership:
Place-centered resilience training to create inner stability during times of change.

“I used to DREAD the outline process. I would be stuck in the muck for days. Erica has given me the boots I need for this terrain! I will definitely use the tools/techniques and am inspired to create great visitor experiences. Thank you for the gift of this outstanding training.”

Sitka NHP, AK

Prior Trainings
Include:

National Park Service Sites:

Acadia NP
Adams NHP
Assateague Island NS
Bandelier NM
Big Thicket NP
Cape Cod NP
Denali National Park and Preserve
Everglades NP
Fredrick Law Olmsted NHS
Ft. Stanwix NHS
Gateway NRA
Governors Island NM
Grant-Khors NHS
Great Sands NP
Great Smokies NP
Hawai’i Volcanoes NP
John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS
Hopewell Furnace NHS


Hot Springs NP
Independence NHP
Marsh Billings Rockefeller NH
Mesa Verde NP
National Mall and Memorial Parks
Niagara Falls National Heritage Area
Organ Pipe Cactus NM
Petrified Forest NP
Salem Maritime NHS
Saint Gaudens NHS
Sagamore Hill NHS
Saugus Iron Mill NHS
Springfield Armory NHS
White Sands NM
Women's Rights NHP
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
Yosemite NP

Details:

  • This training goes beyond standard interpretive techniques—it transforms how your team thinks about engaging visitors by using a sense of place-making perspective. Participants gain a new way of thinking about program design, meaningful narratives, and working as a cohesive team. Erica blends her in-the-field expertise from working with 45+ NPS sites, with her background in performing arts and creative process to provide a framework of proven tools and opportunities to rethink interpretation and storytelling.

    EACH TRAINING IS:

    • Customized for Your Site – Tailored to fit your unique needs, ensuring immediate, practical application. Erica’s fee includes site research to ensure training concepts link to site themes and stories.

    • Inclusive & Innovative – Helps to craft programs that engage visitors with different learning styles through a fresh, creative lens.

    • Skill-Based & Practical – Provides tangible tools and techniques for delivering compelling, balanced visitor experiences.

    • Grounded in the Power of Place— Each training emphasizes using stories and techniques to connect people with the unique power of your place.

    INTERPRETERS OF ALL LEVELS WILL EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS:

    • Skill-Building for All Levels – Developing authentic, well-crafted, inclusive programs requires practice. This training provides in-depth support for interpreters at all experience levels, ensuring they can confidently share complex stories in a concise, engaging way.

    • Adaptable for Different Learning Styles – A creative, supportive approach helps interpreters identify and refine their most effective techniques while developing new skills to meet performance standards.

    • Fosters a Cohesive Team – Through participatory learning, brainstorming, and collaboration, this training strengthens team dynamics and fosters long-term professional growth.

  • I’m an experienced interpretive trainer, keynote speaker and creative mentor. With a background in the performing arts, and conservation advocacy, I’ve worked directly for over a decade with parks, museums, historic sites, land trusts, community organizations, and more. I’m also an award-winning songwriter and a keynote speaker who has delivered keynotes at Governor’s Conferences on Tourism and many national events.

    My approach to interpretation bridges creative thinking with practical tools, and a sense of place lens to inspire fresh program ideas that elevate interpreters and interpretation, and resonate with visitors, fostering meaningful connections between people and place.

  • Onsite Multi-Day Comprehensive Training
    1-Day $3,500 + Travel | 2-Day $4,500 + Travel | 3-Day $5.500 + Travel
    Up to 25 participants. 2 and 3 Day Includes 1:1 Coaching.

    Mix and match modules based on your staff training and development needs.
    Choose from Half-Day Interpretive Essentials to Deep Dive Masterclasses.
    One Class (3 hours) Up to 10 participants $1,500
    One Class (4 hours) Up to 10 participants $2,000
    6-Week Training     (14 hours) Up to 12 participants $4,000

    1:1 Coaching and Feedback Package Available

    Set up a call with Erica to discuss your training needs.

    Training can be onsite or online. Train as a Team or Sign Up for a Cohort.

  • Payment:
    I’m a registered independent contractor with the Federal Government and in the SAM system. I accept checks, direct deposits, and credit cards (with a 3% processing fee.)

    Travel Expenses:
    The standard government rates apply for travel, meals and lodging, and can provide a detailed estimate upon request. I fly out of Hartford, CT. Rates can be reduced if I am already in your region.

    Formats:
    Training can be offered for consecutive days onsite. Formats can be adapted to meet your staff and training needs. A minimum of 6 participants is required. Some parks opt to hire me for multiple consecutive days, so everyone can attend. Parks with a large staff can do a presentation style training with more group work and limited 1:1 time with the instructor. Other sites might include all their interpreters, interns, volunteers, partners, and other divisions such as resources, curatorial, and fees.

    Sense of Place Consulting is a Woman Owned Small Business.
    I am committed to helping individuals show up fully as who they are, and meeting people wherever they are on their learning journey. I am known for my down-to-earth, welcoming and inclusive facilitation skills.

Let’s Work Together

We can schedule a call to learn more about each other, discuss your priorities, and explore what might be the best fit for your current staff and training needs. Reach out and we can find a good time to set up a call or Zoom.

Happy Clients

  • "We brought Erica in to help us master the art of storytelling and to learn how to share the meaning of these places even more effectively. When we worked with Erica before, it was one of the most meaningful experiences of my career. I was thrilled by seeing the growth in rangers and the inspiration they gleaned.”

    National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington, DC

  • "I observed my staff applying Erica's approach and feel that the level of programs this year was just outstanding. Even our more "science based" interpreters brought in more of the emotional, reflective techniques. I personally used her techniques in my programs and found they were incredibly powerful every time, with all ages."

    Cape Cod National Seashore, MA

  • "Erica provided our interpretive staff with a fresh angle on interpretation, new techniques, and the opportunity to stretch and experiment. This training served as a solid foundation for our seasonal training and complimented prior training around audience-centered engagement techniques, peer coaching, and resource content.”

    Marsh-Billings-Rockerfeller NHP & Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site

  • “With everyone, from our permanent to seasonal rangers, I noticed changes right away. After the training, they had adjusted the structure of their program and had a clearer theme. They seemed to have found their focus and grew from there. Additionally, rangers began using places at the site differently, highlighting different stories and asking deeper questions. Having had a facilitated dialog training and the Sense of Place training was for us, a powerful combination."

    Women's Rights National Historical Park, NY

  • “This training offers a holistic approach that fosters group cohesion and gives actionable tools for program structure. Erica’s ability to offer site-specific examples makes it even more impactful. Participants came away feeling confident they could develop and give a meaningful visitor experience. The group collaboration aspect of the training was personally so beneficial — it was helpful for learning from others, gaining new insights, and generating ideas that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own.”

    Sitka NHP, AK