From Screen to Green: YJR Outdoors Founder on Bikes, Trails, and Stewardship

Hello, This interview gets at something central to my work: the bike is often the entry point, but it’s never the whole story. Through YJR Outdoors, Independence Youth Cycling, and Friends of Cresheim Trail, I’m interested in helping people build a stronger connection to the outdoors — not just as riders, but as stewards, advocates, and community members. If we want healthier trails, stronger parks, and more people who feel like they belong in these spaces, we have to invite them in, support them, and give them real ways to participate. That’s the thread that ties all of this together.

-John

This interview was conducted by Aidan Creitz, a senior marketing major at Kutztown University who is also minoring in communications and social media strategy. The interview was conducted as part of his Environmental Communications course, a project centered on speaking with someone who has witnessed environmental change over time in a place they know well. In choosing a subject, it was important to find someone who had not only lived long enough to see that change, but who had also been deeply engaged with the environment itself. After being connected to John through Luke Vanderpool, a SoMont Abington MTB team alumna, Aidan felt fortunate to find someone so passionate about the outdoors and so willing to share that passion.

Aidan:
To get started, could you briefly introduce yourself?

John:
My name is John Raisch. I live in Wyncote, in Cheltenham Township, just outside of Philadelphia in Montgomery County. I have two kids: Maris, who is a junior at Rochester Institute of Technology, and my son Johnny, who is a junior at Cheltenham High School. My wife’s name is Glynis.

Aidan:
As the founder of YJR Outdoors and Independence Youth Cycling, what inspired you to create these organizations?

John:
I’ve always lived in the Philadelphia area. Even though Philadelphia is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, we still have great parks, green space, and trails. My parents bought a cabin in the Poconos in 1980, so growing up, I spent a lot of time going back and forth between the city and the mountains. That combination was really formative for me.

As a kid, I was always on a bicycle. I did all the things kids did in the late ’70s and ’80s—BMX, tricks, riding in the street, parking lots, wherever I could. That passion eventually led me, as a father, to start a small youth cycling program in Montgomery County about 10 or 11 years ago. In that first season, we had eight student-athletes and around nine or ten coaches.

Fast forward to today, and that program has grown into Independence Youth Cycling, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with an all-volunteer staff. We’re trending toward about 200 total riders on our cycling teams for 2026.

Professionally, though, my background is in technology. I graduated from Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science—now Jefferson University—in 1995 with a degree in information systems. I’ve spent about 30 years working in tech, from CD-ROM technology in the ’90s to large e-commerce service providers and, more recently, a tech company I co-founded in 2011.

So professionally, I come from a very traditional tech and business background. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started applying my leadership and entrepreneurial skills in the outdoor space. Independence Youth Cycling has grown into a thriving nonprofit, and YJR Outdoors has become a mix of program provider and consulting business in the outdoor world.

I still have one foot in tech and one foot in the outdoors, but I’m hoping the trend continues more toward green than screen, if you know what I mean.

Aidan:
How would you describe your overall mission—not just the organizations’ mission, but your personal mission?

John:
That’s a good question. I think there are a couple parts to it.

First, on a personal level, I joke that this is my “screen-to-green” transformation. I just don’t want to be staring at a screen all day anymore. I don’t want to spend all my time moving pixels around, building software, and managing digital processes. I don’t say that with regret—I’m proud of my background—but I’m choosing very intentionally to move in a different direction.

At the same time, I simply want to be outdoors more. I want to spend my time outside.

Beyond that, I want to share the joy of biking and being outdoors with other people. I want to invite people into outdoor and adventure spaces, especially those who may not feel comfortable in them yet. I want to support them on that journey and help them grow and flourish.

A big part of that came from watching my own kids engage in those experiences with me. I want to keep creating that opportunity for others.

There are also some broader cultural reasons. People spend too much time looking at screens—not just adults, but kids too. Participation in youth sports has declined in many areas, although there are some bright spots in niche sports that are growing.

In cycling specifically, some of our teams are connected to the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, and over the last decade that organization has grown significantly. They’re helping build a real foundation for youth cycling in America—something that really hasn’t existed at this scale before. I think they are shaping what cycling in this country could look like for the next 25 to 50 years.

So there are a lot of reasons why I do this, but they all align in the same direction.

Aidan:
Since biking is such a big part of what you do, what different perspective does cycling offer compared with walking or other outdoor activities?

John:
On the Independence Youth Cycling side, the bicycle is really the vehicle—literally and figuratively—that introduces people to the outdoors.

Of course, you can take the bike out of the equation and still create meaningful outdoor experiences through hiking, walking, running, stewardship, or sustainability work. But for me, the bike has always been such an intrinsic part of my life, and it’s something I’ve deeply enjoyed. It’s the thing I know best, so it’s the thing I use to invite other people in.

Aidan:
Would you say that biking and cycling help people become more environmentally conscious?

John:
Yes, absolutely.

There’s been a shift in how people think about conservation and environmental use. Traditionally, conservation has often meant preserving nature by protecting habitat and minimizing human impact. Those ideas are still important, but especially in a place like the Philadelphia region, we don’t have vast untouched wilderness. We have second-, third-, and fourth-generation green spaces that need active care.

What I’ve seen work is this: instead of letting a park become a place people avoid—somewhere trash gets dumped or people assume unsafe things happen—you change the perception. You make it safe, welcoming, and active. You invite people in. You let them experience hiking, walking, green space, paved paths, and bicycling in places that are right next to millions of people in and around Philadelphia.

Then, once people feel welcomed and supported in those spaces, you can teach them about stewardship and advocacy. You can ask them to help care for the land. That’s a big part of the equation.

Aidan:
How do you teach youth about environmental stewardship through your programs?

John:
As users of public parks and trail systems, we have a responsibility to think about both stewardship and advocacy. Those two ideas go together, but they’re not exactly the same.

Advocacy means speaking up. It means telling friends, organizations, and local government what matters to you about parks and the outdoors. It can mean writing letters, attending meetings, forming relationships with landowners or agencies, making suggestions, or pushing for improvements. You don’t have to be out in the park with your sleeves rolled up to advocate.

Stewardship is more hands-on. It means showing up for cleanups, restoration days, and trail work days. It means working with tools, with guidance from landowners or experienced trail leaders, to maintain the land.

Trails in busy metropolitan parks need maintenance just like baseball fields or soccer fields do. People understand that a baseball field needs mowing, lining, new dirt, and upkeep. Trails are no different. Trail surfaces need to be assessed, repaired, and designed so they don’t trap water or wash out.

Those are the kinds of ideas we introduce to our communities through both Independence Youth Cycling and YJR Outdoors. We invite people into parks and trails, teach them to bike safely, and then teach them the importance of stewardship and advocacy. One day we might be riding trails; the next day we might be out with tools, cleaning, fixing, and maintaining them.

Aidan:
I want to broaden things a bit. Over the course of your life, have you noticed changes in local trails, parks, or ecosystems—positive or negative?

John:
Yes, definitely. I’ll broaden it from trails to parks and open space in general.

The biggest negative change I’ve seen is the explosion of invasive plant species. Invasive species are taking over park systems and green spaces everywhere—not just where I live, but all over the region. Things like Japanese knotweed, porcelain berry, English ivy, and other aggressive vines are overwhelming what’s left of our native green spaces.

At the same time, the understory in many wooded areas is disappearing. The younger native trees that should be growing beneath the mature canopy often aren’t there anymore. A lot of that has to do with overpopulation of deer, which eat native species before they can establish. That creates another complicated environmental issue.

So that’s the biggest challenge I see: invasive species and the loss of native understory.

On the positive side, I’ve seen many more “Friends of the Park” groups and grassroots community organizations forming to care for public land. These groups often grow into formal nonprofits, raise money, buy tools, train volunteers, and provide programming to support the land. That’s really encouraging.

For example, I’m involved in a citizens’ committee connected to a master planning process for Lorimer Park, a county park near me. The planning team made it very clear that unless we do something, many of these forests will be in serious trouble over the next 50 years. Mature trees will die, and there is very little native regeneration happening beneath them.

I already knew that from being in the field, but hearing it formally presented and documented really codified it for me. It reinforced that this work matters not just for us now, but for future generations.

Aidan:
How do you see the relationship between cycling and environmental stewardship evolving over time?

John:
If we’re talking about off-road cycling—what we generally call mountain biking—that sport is still relatively young. I was born in 1972, and mountain biking as we know it really didn’t start until the 1980s. It became more mainstream in the early 1990s.

As a kid, I was a BMX rider. We rode through the same park systems I ride in now, just on different bikes. I remember seeing my first mountain bike in 1991 when someone rode one to the pizza shop where I worked. We all thought it was incredible. I bought my first mountain bike around that same time and started riding the same trails I had already been exploring on my BMX bike.

As mountain biking grew in the 1990s, there was a real conflict between traditional conservationists and mountain bikers. Conservation-minded people often saw mountain bikers as a threat to the trails, and in some cases there were legitimate growing pains because the culture and protocols weren’t fully established yet.

But over time, the mountain biking community has become one of the most passionate communities when it comes to stewardship and advocacy. They show up. They do trail work. They care deeply about the land.

Of course, not every rider—or hiker or runner—cares about giving back. There will always be people who just use the space and move on. But I think there is now a built-in sense of responsibility within cycling culture, especially in trail riding. 

The guidance I give is that if you’re going to be a cyclist in a park system, it goes hand in hand with taking care of that land.

Aidan:
I also want to circle back to a broader issue. How do development and pollution impact the work you’re trying to do?

John:
Let’s start with pollution.

I’ll answer that in the context of parks, trails, and green spaces rather than industrial air pollution or large commercial facilities.

The most visible type of pollution in parks is trash and illegal dumping. That’s a big part of what Friends groups and volunteer groups address through cleanups. In fact, there’s a watershed-wide cleanup this weekend in the Pennypack watershed involving several organizations. A lot of that work will be focused on trash removal.

But another form of pollution that people don’t always think about is stormwater. Stormwater management is a major issue in developed metropolitan areas.

When rain falls on non-permeable surfaces like roads, sidewalks, parking lots, and rooftops, it doesn’t soak into the ground. It runs downhill, collects pollutants along the way, and enters storm drains, streams, and creeks. Because parks are often located along waterways, they end up receiving the brunt of that impact.

Stormwater carries all kinds of pollutants—oil, gasoline residue, trash, debris, and microplastics. That material gets funneled into creeks and streams and ultimately through park systems.

The watershed where I live is the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford watershed. Water from Montgomery County eventually flows into Tookany Creek, then Tacony Creek as it enters Philadelphia, and farther downstream into an underground channelized waterway called Frankford Creek.

The problem is that so much rainwater now runs off developed land instead of soaking into the ground. What used to infiltrate into soil now gets rushed into the creek system. By the time it reaches the lower parts of the watershed, especially in Philadelphia, the system becomes overwhelmed.

That underground creek channel was built many decades ago, likely for a much smaller stormwater load than what it handles today. Because of all the upstream development, it now carries far more water than it was ever designed for. That can lead to severe flooding, including water backing up into people’s basements.

So when we talk about pollution and development, we’re really also talking about land use, stormwater, infrastructure, and how all of that affects the health of parks and surrounding communities.

Aidan:
That was a perfect answer. It gave me a whole new perspective. I didn’t even know about the underground creek system in Philadelphia, so that’s really interesting.

For my final question—one that kind of puts a bow on everything—what advice would you give to young people who want to make a difference through outdoor involvement?

John:
There are a couple ways to answer that.

From a professional standpoint, there are many opportunities—even in major metropolitan areas—to build a career connected to environmental work. “Environmental” is a broad term. It can mean biology, ecology, stewardship, park management, environmental planning, engineering, trail development, stormwater systems, restoration, and much more.

You don’t have to move to Colorado or Utah to work in this field. Those places may be the cliché dream destinations, but there are plenty of meaningful ways to do this work right here in urban and suburban environments.

So my first piece of advice is: explore. Look into schools, programs, majors, internships, and career paths. Figure out what’s out there.

At the same time, involvement in the outdoors doesn’t have to look just one way. My daughter, for example, was heavily shaped by bicycles and outdoor experiences, but she is studying mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her connection to biking—riding, maintenance, fixing things, understanding how things work—helped lead her into engineering.

Right now, she’s interning at an architecture, engineering, and construction firm, learning about HVAC systems in specialized settings like labs and hospitals. That’s not traditional “environmental work” in the park sense, but there’s still an environmental component there in terms of air systems, efficiency, and the built environment.

On another front, I’m also president of the board of Friends of Cresheim Trail, a stewardship organization working to extend a trail system from Philadelphia into Montgomery County. In that role, we apply for grants and hire consultants who conduct environmental surveys, analyze topography, and help us understand utility systems, infrastructure, and land conditions so we can responsibly develop a trail.

That’s environmental work too. It may not be about plants and animals directly, but it’s about understanding land, infrastructure, and development in a responsible way.

So to summarize: there are many paths. If you care about the environment or the outdoors, there are lots of ways to bring that interest to life. I didn’t have that broad perspective when I was younger, but I do now. And I think sharing that perspective with young people is important, because there are more possibilities than they may realize.

Aidan:
I think that last line perfectly sums up the whole point of this interview, and why I wanted to reach out to someone like you. It’s valuable to hear this kind of perspective from someone who has lived a fuller life than I have or than many of my colleagues have. We’re all basically still kids.

So I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to talk so openly. You gave me a lot of information and a lot of new ways to think about the environment, trails, and biking. I’m really glad I got the chance to meet you, and I hope the interview went smoothly on your end.

John:
Yeah, man. It was fun.

Aidan:
How do I stop this recording?